Swords of justice in an age of retrenchment? The role of trade unions in welfare provision¹

Abstract

The recent financial crisis has once again highlighted the precarious situation of trade unions: austerity measures have targeted unions' traditional institutional ally, the welfare state, as well as their last organizational stronghold, the public sector. The purpose of this article is to examine how trade unions have responded to reductions in welfare provision, due either to reform or to state inaction, and how state retrenchment can provide a silver lining for unions via the enhancement of unions' bargaining responsibilities. We argue that, apart from retrenchment and privatization, there is a third road to welfare reform which involves unions' 'collectivization' of social risks through the take-up of marginalized policies in bargaining agreements. Presenting evidence from a most-likely (the Netherlands) and least-likely (Greece) case, we identify instances where unions have acted as pivotal political substitutes to the state in the realm of welfare provision. Ré suméLa récente crise financière a une fois de plus mis en évidence la situation précaire des syndicats. Des mesures d'austérité ont visé d'une part l'allié institutionnel et traditionnel des syndicats, à 1 This paper is a spin-off from joint work that the authors conducted during their involvement in the Reconciling Work and Welfare (RECWOWE) network of excellence. We wish to thank Christa van Wijnbergen, Anke Hassel, Richard Hyman and, in particular, Waltraud Schelkle for comments on other manuscripts on the topic. savoir l'Etat-providence et, d'autre part, leur dernier bastion syndical: le secteur public. L'objectif de cet article est d'examiner comment les syndicats ont répondu aux réductions de prestations sociales, dues soit aux réformes, soit à l'inaction de l'État, et comment les réductions des dépenses de l'État peuvent avoir un cô té positif pour les syndicats via l'élargissement des responsabilités de négociation des syndicats. Nous soutenons qu'en dehors des coupes sombres et de la privatisation, il existe une troisième voie à la réforme sociale qui implique la «collectivisation» syndicale des risques sociaux grâce à l'adoption de politiques marginalisées dans les conventions collectives. En pré-sentant un cas de figure le plus probable (Pays-Bas) et le moins probable (Grèce), nous identifions les cas où les syndicats ont fonctionné comme substituts politiques décisifs de l'Etat dans le domaine de la protection sociale. Zusammenfassung Die jüngste Finanzkrise hat erneut gezeigt, in welch prekärer Lage sich die Gewerkschaften befinden. Die Sparmaßnahmen nahmen den Wohlfahrtsstaat -einen traditionellen institutionellen Verbündeten der Gewerkschaften -und den ö ffentlichen Dienst ins Visier, der ihre letzte Hochburg darstellt. In diesem Beitrag wird untersucht, wie die Gewerkschaften auf die Beschneidung der Sozialleistungen, sei es infolge von Reformen oder der Untätigkeit des Staates, reagiert haben. Der Rückzug des Staates könnte insofern eine positive Perspektive für die Gewerkschaften eröffnen, als er eine Stärkung ihrer Verhandlungsbefu...

Welfare reform, precarity and the re-commodification of labour

“…One model, 'flexicurity', was inspired by Danish and Dutch examples and promoted by the European Commission; it also attracted interest from industrial relations scholars (e.g. Gray, 2004;Heyes, 2011;Johnston et al, 2012). Flexicurity advocates argued that competitiveness in world markets required flexible labor markets, including weak statutory employment protection and requirements that welfare claimants look for work.…”

“…Punitive welfare reforms can also corrode the solidarity between job holders and the unemployed by reinforcing negative stereotypes about the latter (Soss and Schram, 2007). While the trade union interest in preventing re-commodifying reforms is evident, any defence of social protection takes place against a backdrop of union decline (Waddington, 2005) and unions sometimes view participation in ALMPs as an opportunity to influence policy or recruit members (Johnston et al, 2012). Consequently, few examples exist of claimants forcing governments to reinstate lost welfare entitlements.…”

Multipillarisation remodelled: the role of interest organizations in British and German pension reforms

“…If trade unions have enough bargaining power they may pursue occupational pensions as 'second best' strategy (Mares 2003), seeing it as an opportunity to provide services to their waning membership (Keune 2018). For such unions the 'collectivization of risks' (Johnston, Kornelakis, and Rodriguez d'Acri 2012) would counter the individualization risk typical of prefunded pensions, for instance, by pooling some risks within a collective scheme.…”

Opportunity or threat? How trade union power and preferences shape occupational pensions

“…In recent years, a number of authors have argued that, for trade unions, the introduction or expansion of occupational welfare constitutes a way to respond to gaps in the welfare state related to newly emerging social risks or, as is of particular interest here, insufficient or declining public welfare (Johnston, Kornelakis, & Rodriguez d'Acri, 2011;Yerkes & Tijdens, 2010). Especially during the crisis, when public welfare came under increasing budgetary pressure, several types of occupational welfare have helped to alleviate the deterioration of social protection (Glassner with Keune, 2012;Johnston, Kornelakis, & Rodriguez d'Acri, 2012). Occupational welfare, including most importantly occupational pensions, then acts as a collectively organized substitute for insufficient or declining public welfare, which prevents an increasing dependency of (certain groups of) individuals on the market.…”