Labour movements and welfare states: a reconsideration of how trade unions influence social change

Abstract

While it is commonly accepted that the organisation and mobilisation of labour movements has been critical to the development and nature of welfare states across the OECD, considerable uncertainty remains as to the specific mechanisms and means by which labour movements secure social wage benefits. Emphasis in the evaluation of labour politics can be placed on the role of left and labour party control over government, on the effect of union movement strength as measured by union density rates or on the influence of union confederal involvement in policy-making. These party mobilisation, union density and political unionism theses are tested using pooled time-series crosssectional data drawn from 15 OECD countries. The results indicate that while union involvement in economic policy-making and union movement strength are conducive to higher levels of welfare expenditure, the presence of left parties per se has no apparent effect on welfare effort. Labour movements and welfare states: a -reconsideration of how trade unions influence social change' 1 Labour movements are often seen as key supporters of social wage benefits. The research reported in this paper attempts to illuminate the way in which labour movements influence welfare expenditure by examining the relative effects of different forms of union and left party organisation and mobilisation. We are, however, less concerned with developing a comprehensive explanation of welfare state development than with identifying the most effective labour movement strategies for the pursuit of social change. To achieve this, though, we use two different measures of social policy outcomes as dependent variables in two multivariate models. Our central hypothesis is drawn from recent theoretical accounts suggesting that a key at CARLETON UNIV on June 21, 2015 jos.sagepub.com Downloaded from

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