Power is at the core of current debates over the future of trade unionism. This article provides a framework to assess the power resources and strategic capabilities central to union capacity building. We identify four key power resources: internal solidarity; network embeddedness; narrative resources that frame understandings and union actions; and infrastructural resources (material, human, processes, policies and programmes). Resources alone are not enough; unions must also be capable of using them. We identify four strategic capabilities: intermediating between contending interests to foster collaborative action and to activate networks; framing; articulating actions over time and space; and learning. Much experimentation and research on the interactions between these resources and capabilities in particular contexts is required to advance our understanding of the renewal of union power. Ré suméLe pouvoir est au coeur des débats actuels sur l'avenir du syndicalisme. Le présent article fournit un cadre d'évaluation des ressources de pouvoir et des aptitudes stratégiques pour le renforcement des capacités d'action syndicales. Les auteurs identifient quatre ressources fondamentales de pouvoir: la solidarité interne, l'ancrage dans des réseaux, les ressources discursives qui encadrent les approches et les actions des syndicats et les ressources d'infrastructure (matériel, ressources humaines, processus, politiques et programmes). Les ressources seules ne suffisent pas. Les syndicats doivent également être capables de les utiliser. Les auteurs identifient quatre aptitudes stratégiques: la médiation entre des intérêts en jeu afin de favoriser une action commune et d'activer les réseaux, l'encadrement, l'articulation d'actions dans le temps et dans l'espace, et Downloaded from l'apprentissage. Une expérimentation et une recherche accrues sur les interactions entre ces ressources et ces capacités dans des contextes particuliers sont nécessaires pour approfondir notre compréhension du renouveau du pouvoir syndical. ZusammenfassungBei den derzeitigen Debatten über die Zukunft der Gewerkschaftsbewegung spielt die Frage der Macht eine zentrale Rolle. Dieser Beitrag liefert einen Rahmen, um die Machtressourcen und strategischen Einsatzmöglichkeiten zu bewerten, die für den Kapazitätsaufbau der Gewerkschaften von entscheidender Bedeutung sind. Wir zeigen vier wichtige Machtressourcen auf: interne Solidarität; Vernetztheit; narrative Ressourcen, die Begriffen und gewerkschaftlichem Handeln einen Rahmen verleihen; und Infrastrukturressourcen (materielle und Humanressourcen, Prozesse, Strategien und Programme). Aber Ressourcen allein reichen nicht aus. Die Gewerkschaften müssen auch in der Lage sein, sie zu nutzen. Wir zeigen vier strategische Einsatzmöglichkeiten auf: Vermittlung zwischen entgegengesetzten Interessen, um gemeinsames Handeln zu stärken und Netzwerke zu aktivieren; Framing; zeitliche und räumliche Verknüpfung von Handlungen; und Lernen. Um besser zu verstehen, wie sich eine Erneuerung der gewerkschaftlichen Ma...

No abstract

This article explores the role of framing in mobilizing and transforming narrative resources. It draws on in-depth studies of two different workplace unions within the same multinational company in Canada. We conducted interviews with managers and trade unionists at different levels over a number of years of observation. Each of these workplace unions mobilizes new repertoires of action to enhance its capacity to act. Yet they differ considerably in their capacity to renew their narrative resources. Whereas one of the workplace unions still relies on an exclusive and restrictive narrative, the other union has evolved towards a more encompassing and inclusive narrative. This article argues that strategic capabilities are a key variable in understanding the processes through which narrative resources change and are mobilized.

Drawing on three decades of research on union renewal, this article asks what we can learn from these studies. It covers successively the modernisation of union strategy, the re-engineering of union structures and organising techniques, the renewal of collective action repertoires, and the search to bridge the gap between labour market insiders and outsiders. While the research on these four themes yields few easy answers, it does highlight a continuing search for trade union renewal from which real understanding emerges. The overarching argument is that this long process of democratic experimentalism in union purpose and practice needs to be understood in exactly those terms. It also highlights the critical role of strategic capabilities and the need to develop these capabilities in order to experiment with innovations likely to reveal new sources of vigour for worker organisations.

This article proposes experimentation as a framework for understanding actor agency in the changing regulation of work and employment. This involves contrasting institutional change with organisational and institutional experimentation approaches in order to understand how, in the context of uncertainty, actors in the world of work experiment with new ways of organising and seek to institutionalise them into new understandings, norms and rules. The article describes the fault lines of disruption that are generating a vast range of experiments in the world of work. These fault lines invite resilient responses and the development of collective capabilities at two levels: first, organisational experimentation, where social actors seek to modify or renew their organisations, networks and alliances and reflect on, assess and learn from their experiments; second, institutional experimentation, where these responses are scaled up and institutionalised over time through more general understandings, norms and rules. A key challenge for comparative research and strategising is to find the appropriate institutional conditions that will facilitate and enable organisational experiments, whilst overcoming constraining institutional conditions. This challenge is illustrated through the examples of co-working and the development of new forms of collective representation.