1st Edition

Trade Unions in the Course of European Integration The Social Construction of Organized Interests

By Martin Seeliger Copyright 2019
288 Pages
by Routledge

288 Pages
by Routledge

288 Pages
by Routledge

From the perspective of trade unions, European integration makes it more necessary than ever before to establish common political positions. At the same time, increasing heterogeneity between the member states makes the crafting of such positions more and more difficult. Can, under these circumstances, a joint political line among European trade unions emerge? To answer this question, the book... Read more



Chapter 1



Introduction





Chapter 2



Introduction to the Topic and the State of Research



2.1 International trade-union cooperation



2.2 Trade unions and European integration



2.3 European collective bargaining as a challenge and indicator of trade-union position formation



2.4 "Social Europe" as a concept and project



2.5 Assessing the potential of European trade unions: Optimists and skeptics



2.5.1 On the state of optimistic trade-union research



2.5.2 The pessimistic position



2.6 Summary and question: How did the common positions come about?







Chapter 3



Political Fields and the Framework for Their Conceptual Study

3.1 The freedom to provide services and the posting of workers



3.2 European minimum wage



3.3 Wage coordination



3.4 Three fields, three puzzles



3.5 Methodological operationalization and data acquisition





Chapter 4



Theoretical Approach



4.1 Justification of the action theoretical approach



4.2 Trade-union policy in the multilevel system of the EU from a Pragmatist perspective



4.3 From rational systems to discrepancy between talk and action



in organizations



4.4 Socialization in the multilevel system of the EU



4.5 "Imagining Social Europe": shared visions for the future as political frames of reference



4.6 International position formation among European trade unions: a synthetic approach





Chapter 5



European Collective Bargaining: Empirical Findings from the Core Areas



5.1 Profiles of the countries and trade-union organizations studied



5.2 The freedom to provide services and worker posting



5.2.1 The discussion surrounding the freedom to provide services



5.2.2 The discussion surrounding the Enforcement Directive



5.3 The discussion surrounding the European minimum wage



5.4 Wage coordination



5.5 Comparative summary of the findings





Chapter 6



Summary: The Social Construction of Organized Interests in the EU





Appendix:



A Interview partners



B Nominal unit labor-cost devdevelopment in the Eurozone





Biography

Martin Seeliger is an Assistant Professor at the European University of Flensburg, Germany.