The Systems of Trade Union Representation in Sweden, Germany, France, Britain, and Hungary - Report Example

Compare and Contrast The Systems of Trade Union Representation in Sweden, Germany, France, Britain, and Hungary Date Germany In Germany, the trade unions, social partnership system and co-determina­tion systems undergo critical developments within their operations upshot. In 2010, only a small percentage of German employees engaged membership of the trade union. This is a representation of the decrease for close to 5 per cent in a decade. This practice influences the wage development with no compensation due to inflation from the year 2004. Over the years, real income encountered a steep decline. Among the lead EU countries, Germany scrutinized the real-wage development policies in the decade. On the other hand, the rise of economic and financial conflict contributed to collective agreements as well as company-level instruments to job security (Dieckhoff, 2008). This led to measures, which were specifically agreed at company-level to include flexible working times as well as various job security agreements and financial conces­sions for the employees. The largest trade union in Ger­many is known as the German Confederation of Trade Unions formed in 1949. The DGB’s affiliated trade unions came in representation of close to 6.2 million members by end of 2011. More than two-thirds of the German trade union members were incorporated. The DGB covers a national representation of the interests of the respective individual trade unions against the political associations and decision-makers at federal and local governing levels. This makes it formally responsible for the role of mediation within possible dis­putes across various trade unions. The union receives financing within its confederation from various individual trade unions. The workers within the respective firm are not DGB members. However, due to their affiliation trade unions, they pay membership fees and dues (Ackers & Wilkinson, 2003). Unlike in France, the Germany’s best-organized workers are workers within the electrical and metal industry, mostly from the automotive manufacturers. The organization forms are inclusive of the steel industry, which is relatively small mostly within civil service areas and various parts for the state-owned railways and post office. Unionization in Germany considerably differs within chemical firms as well as within construction and building. In new firms, trade union representa­tion for the solar and wind energy fronts is well below average. On the other hand, the recent years have come in handy in developing progress for establishing conclusive trade union structures. Across the public sector, transport, as well as waste dispo­sal industries, traditional trade union have been strongholds similar to the railways workers (Grimshaw, Ward, Rubery & Beynon, 2000). Due to aspects of public sector liberalization and privatization, however, the new individual providers emerge in across all these areas. This way, the trade unions struggle to develop themselves. For most private services, the members are notably numerous within the respective forms of retail trade. The fact that they have uneven distribution, the trade union members’ proportion in various industries is precisely its lower side. This also applies to various insurance companies and banks. On the other hand, hotels, se­curity firms, and restaurants have poorly organized unions. Craft trades develop below standard trade union organizations (Venkatraman, 2007). Membership recruitment in Germany is easier the major large enterprises. By contrast, the Swedish trade unions have a difficulty in establishing foothold for various small enterprises, as they are particularly hard to establish works councils there. it is notable that there lacks works councils which generally impact on diverse trade union members. For this reason, the increasing proliferation of employment in Germany also poses many issues for various trade unions. On the other hand, employees only go out as agency workers or for fixed periods. The organization of such workers needs special inputs (Blenk, 1990). Many companies, mostly the new ones, seek to deliberate on strategies of keeping trade unions away. This prohibits individual rights to striking. The German law only allows for walkouts popularized by respective trade unions. This means that, unlike the British establishments, works councils do not have a right of calling strikes. Strike actions encounter permission for the pursuit of closing collective agreements (Colling & Terry, 2010). For such disputes, the courts settle on the things to form basis for collective bargaining. Strike action can uphold while in pursuit of the collective agreement for purposes of regulating workplace clo­sures and collective redundancies consequences. This is open to how far the effects the measures can are objects of the strike. France In terms of membership, French trade union ranks as one of the poorest within Europe. It only has 8% of the national employee levels in its unions. Similar to those of other countries, it narrows into various rival confederations, which compete for the national membership (Blenk, 1990). On the other hand, irrespective of the low membership as well as apparent division among the French trade unions, there is a strong level of support at elections for various employee representative positions. This heightens their ability of mobilizing French workers increases by a great percentage. The official national household survey figures indicate that trade unionists range at 1.8 million under employment within France (Barbash, 1989). This illustrates that means that around 8.2% of the French employees for the unions while the figures stand at average in the period. Moreover, the unions engage various retired and unemployed members, which also add up to another 450,000 to the sum. The union membership database estimates French union density to be at 7.9% in 2012 (Grimshaw, Ward, Rubery & Beynon, 2000). In principle, the emerging representation rules continue encouraging union mergers while unions encounter the essence of having various levels of continued support in maintaining their respective statuses. Plenty of discussions within national level mergers fail to reach mutual agreements. For this reason, the major traditionally representative confederations clear the 8% hurdle through retaining a nationally representative sum from the removal of any form of pressure in merging as a way of protecting their status (Harcourt & Wood, 2009). There are various approaches to measuring the support within separate union confederations while the membership as well as the votes upholds various elections with respect to employee representatives taking place within France. The use of the organization’s membership figures, the structure is completely different from the one in Sweden. The main trade union confederations organize themselves on distinct lines where there are parallel industry structures for the federations as well as geographical groupings for the local union groupings. On the other hand, even though there are tensions across different elements, power concentrates within various confederation levels (Morley, Gunnigle & Collings, 2006). French trade unionism is stronger within public sectors with close to 15% employees in the unions. Irrespective of the weakness of membership, the many French trade unions are in a position of mobilizing their members towards mass action. They also occasionally change the various government policies. The government withdrew its plot for new employment contracts to young workers within 2006. In 2010, there were demonstrations from September to October to protest at the pension plans by the government. In August 2008, legislation introduced new approach in the determination of how unions’ representatives within company, national and industry levels in France could behave. From this point onwards, these included the requirement a set support level across different employees within their respective workplace elections. Similar to the situation in Hungary, this indication was through the members’ votes for the works council together with the smaller companies among the employee delegates on national representation (Blanpain & Ameglio, 2004). Additionally, companies with employees to a number of ten or fewer and the structures are not in existence, workers are in a position of voting for the respective unions in favor of regional elections in a four-year cycle. There are different elections across smaller numbers of workers under representation in agriculture. The central French lesson, both national and transnational, is the fact that public interlocutors’ interaction with political authority comes in handy in the regulation of the relevant labour markets. In France, this is one of the crucial construction prerequisites for the structures within trade unionism and industrial relations. The establishment of the counterparts across global levels hardly associates with corporate activism. It attempts to control the impacts of globalisation while crushing the impacts of WTO and returning to a state of protectionism. This calls for the generation of stronger and democratically accurate regional and global institutions equipped with supranational authority. Many trade unions in France consider this as a contested dilemma while most unions wed to the national political governance structures as well as the collective bargaining policies (Blanpain, Klebe, Schmidt & Waas, 2012). Their power are reliant on the overall capability of ensuring membership mobilisation and identification, political governance supra-nationalisation coupled with the labour market regulation commonly perceived as threats to democratic unionism for basic entities. The main challenge for union debates with respect to the manner in which the capital and markets globalisation influences labour markets builds on the various organisational structures as well as practices bridging the gap across the international union structures’ activities and the domestic membership. Sweden In Sweden in 2012, there were reports that the standing union density went higher across the public sector (by up to 83%) as compared to private sectors (at around 65%). On the other hand, regular survey on workers illustrates that the union density was highest across public administration (at 34%) and only 7% for workers from the hotels and catering industry. The Swedish Trade Union Confederation affiliates have coverage of both the public and private sectors. The unions in its membership are extensively independent where the Confederation’s role narrows within the wage bargaining co-ordination and international labor activities. For this reason, trade union in education was a conclusive element (Steele & Boom, 2011). The other significant task is that of promoting the views of the organization towards the respective decision-makers as well as the public. The organization also embraces representatives for the governing bodies across different government authorities. In focus, the Confederation has a responsibility of researching and signing into law new labor insurance schemes within the market. However, the member unions continue to carry out various administration responsibilities for the insurance funds of the unemployment. Close to 70 percent of various Swedish employees link to a union, which makes Sweden fundamentally unionized countries within the region (Colling & Terry, 2010). For such a wide number of members, the unions are in provision of special insurance policies and representation within contract negotiations as well as ideals of legal support. While considering contracts of losing certain jobs and turning unemployed, the Swedish unions strengthen the members’ bargaining positions throughout their careers especially using negotiation privileges and legal expertise. Up to a point that there is change of governance, the sharp decline relatively slows and is in part a reflection of the changes lab our market. However, in both 2006 and 2008, the membership situation for the unions sharply deteriorated as the core government shifted the laws regarding unemployment benefit insurances. This is a way of coupling union membership contributions (Fernie & Metcalf, 2005). For this reasons, in 2006 the ultimate consequence was well within the union density falling from 77% to an average of 73% within 2007 and later to 71% in the subsequent year. This decline of union density became greater across the private sector while falling from 71% to 65% in 2006 and 2008 respectively. Unions in the country help their workers in achieving both fair and reasonable salaries, ensuring equal treatment, as well as providing added unemployment insurance and pension they also promote related social issues. The official agreements in such areas are applicable to each of them even the non-members. Currently, the level of membership in trade unions in the country is at a high of 71% (Rubery, Gerhard & Lehndorff, 2008). However, this is a fall from the previous 86% high in 1995. Notably, the major union confederations include LO, Saco and TCO, which divide along educational and occupational lines. They are in line with traditional approaches in which the employees in Sweden group themselves. There is a high level of co-operation across each of them. In turn, there are close to 3.5 million trade unionists across Sweden. Even though a larger number of the non-employed members, mostly pensioners, and students, there is a high level of organization within the union organization (Connolly, 2010). The main union Swedish confederations each deal with different aspects of occupational structure. Notably, the LO is the largest and has 1,602,285 registered members while it organizes manual workers. The TCO follows closely in size, has up to 1,275,864 members both employed and seeking for work. Saco is the smallest grouping and organizes mostly the graduate employees. The membership balance across the three confederations keeps changing in light of recent development. The relations between national federations are good while are agreements are in place between various unions as a way of helping to address the potential conflicts for membership. However, there is a comprehensive scope for the levels of competition across the unions. Many employees face a position of either choosing any other of the two (Shelley & Calveley, 2007). In practice, the workers normally join unions that have collective agreements with respective employers. The centralized bargaining ending continues to reduce the authority and perception of the individual unions and confederations through ensuring that they have more room for greater influence. On the other hand, the confederations keep up a comprehensive role in the coordination of union claim. The union-LO concentrates a tradition of close relationship to Swedish social democratic party. All union branches affiliate to the immediate bodies for the union, which is its senior figure and party’s executive member (Rubery, Gerhard & Lehndorff, 2008). Hungary In Hungary, it is evident that the current union density is higher for the women (at 12.9%) as compared to the men (at 11.1%). On a similar note, this holds true for Sweden. Here, figures indicate that more women employees (75% union density) have a higher likelihood of being in the unions as compared to the men (63% union density). In the UK, there are 30% of female workers while 23% male workers stand at union members’ category. The consideration is that the transformations links to the EU enlargement as well as the ultimate global trade liberalisation and investment flows. Hungary receives much influence from international business strategies restructuring. This also includes the review of the doubt for national union strategies with insufficient elements of coping with the change pace (Sinha. 2004). Both globalisation and regional integration blur the difference between international and domestic trade union affairs in Hungary. This makes all national boundaries minimally relevant while the structuring of organisation and action for trade union takes shape. The proactive strategies of transnational union above hitherto therefore require organised labour in maintaining their main roles and gaining influence for emerging global and regional structures in terms of governance of the labour matters (Rubery, Gerhard & Lehndorff, 2008). If not, trade unions in Hungary end up in increasingly quarrels for jobs as well as investments for each other and are battles that amount to many losers and few winners. The trade unions in Hungary develop the transnational strategies through acknowledging the global capitalist restructuring dynamics and the implication of contradictory processes (Blenk, 1990). Hungary appreciates that globalisation does not result in a zero-sum game while it continues to entail diverse social and economic development potentials for the tough changes. It is worth noting that cleavages between losers and winners loom large. As a way of developing adequate union answers, they focus on redressing the asymmetry of economic and social labour integration dimension. The essence is to distinguish across problems of a global, regional as well as national nature for purposes of appropriating the necessary responses developed within suitable levels. Hungary data relates to the trade unionization of young people and women. The union share for the members is always higher for women above men (Colling & Terry, 2010). There is not survey resulting in the available for the elements of unionization across various precarious jobs. There is no trade union representation for the migrant workers in Hungary with contractual arrangements of atypical nature. Most of the migrants in Hungary work illegally. For this reason, the main aspects of the undeclared work include agriculture, the service economy, and the construction sector. Such sectors engage the unions in a difficult time in organizing persons while they are highly decentralized in nature in terms of the company structure. They also heavily rely on aspects of undocumented work. The migrant workers typically seek employment in the micro and small enterprises that are rather impossible to engage in organization. Furthermore, the informal arrangements on employment avail both employers and employees short-term advantages through tax avoidance. Temporary agency workers have utmost difficulty in organizing. The settings are also vulnerable due to their semi-skilled employees within the Hungary labor market. Most of them fear job as a paramount consideration. The company-based unions organize the employees within respective companies while seeing temporary agency employees as safety nets for job security among full-time employees (Blenk, 1990). Hungary’s trade union membership is on a consistent decline. This is because of both the collapse as well as the state-owned economy transformation. The constant estimate in which trade union membership previously was around 500,000 people without pensioners has the density rate consequently dropping to 15%. The fear of employment loss by the employees together with lesser extents of the employers’ union for breaking strategies does not encourage unionization. In addition, the trade unions’ fragmented nature across Hungary retaliates from facilitating the overall development for the sustained and concerted organizing campaigns. With this aspect, the unions lack both human and financial resources (Rubery, Gerhard & Lehndorff, 2008). No grassroots movement are in place to fully revitalize the unions while creating new unionism which is less likely to have such movement developing dismal state-socialist experience with complete discredit from the traditional activism. Britain The unions’ structure in Britain base their formation in the contract as well as rights of the members dependent on their ability to indicate various proprietary interests for the specific enforcement. Such an approach also means that there are express union rulebook terms for the various contracts through supplementing the implied terms for the courts. They are strictly important in reflecting on the reasonable expectations for the parties, for example, through the implication of Electoral Reform guidance to indicate the happenings of the break situations while elections in the union rules remain silent. In case, irregular occurrences are within the union affairs, for example in events of negligence and mismanagement as alleged within the extensive majority of voting on issues of forgiving each of them (Blanpain & Baker, 2010). This way, the members do not have express individual rights of contesting in executive decision-making. On the other hand, in case the unions leadership embraces ultra vires, past the set powers in respective union’s constitution or a personal right of a member is broken, members could bring derivative claims before the court suing or restraining the actions of the executive members. In Edwards v Halliwell case, the executive committee’s decision to increase membership fees as set out in their constitution requiring ⅔ majority vote, faced restraining through claim by the individual members as this stretched to personal rights within the constitution while flouting special procedures. However, irrespective of the prime drivers of the internal and external nature, there are minimal complications in which global change dynamics interact with while reinforcing the various domestic change impacts that face the unions’ across the diverse sets of challenges. From this dimension, the overall picture for which trade unions in Britain fare over the past decades is less gloomy as compared to the often-postulated status (Biagi, Blanpain & Weiss, 2003). The trade unions in Britain are on the defensive even though they show extensive resilience above the expected (they develop lost power for declined workers’ GDP share). In turn, most of the unions weaken through high unemployment, loss of members, and restructuring. In spite of extensive decentralisation, the collective bargaining at the national level takes form while the major ways of formulating wages as well as working conditions in Britain witness social pacts coupled with centralised concentration. This is a vivid reflection of the macro-economic capacity loss within the national levels while still flow from Europeanization and globalisation making national concentration more requested. While such unionism setbacks frequently relate to the irreversible cyclical developments and structural trends, they certainly form an important element of explaining (Weitbrecht & Jentsch, 2003). This implies that the capability for union recovery in case labour markets approach needs no overlooking. From the backdrop, there lacks surprise while the lead institutional diversity is more salient as compared to the unionism and industrial relations convergence for the previous decades. The level of variation for institutional capacity among the national unions to domestic change apparently becomes more decisive for diverse societal positions above differences for the degree of internationalisation in the national economy (Blenk, 1990). The main challenge facing the British unions is that of adapting to such changes while ensuring that they remain ultimately relevant for all the persons working. On the other hand, unions respond through the launch of critical recruitment drives as well as attracting new members towards jobs as well as industries without high union membership in the past (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. 2002). They also put both education and training up the bargaining agenda as a way of having the members develop relevant qualifications and skills for purposes of improving their respective employment prospects. The trade unions also forge new deals within workplaces through working with partnerships for employers to address common issues. There are mounting campaigns towards defending the working people’s rights. The trade unions in Britain appreciate that various organizations need to remain competitive across various global markets as they focus on attaining success. They also provide more secure employment terms for various employees. The trade unions agenda within the 1990s falls in the category of working partnerships with various employers for purposes of improving both businesses and services. Trade unions in Britain embrace important roles for the improvement of communication across managers and employees as a way of having the employees develop an understanding and commitment for the organization’s objectives (Roozendaal, 2002). They also seek to negotiate the improvements for wages and working conditions as way of making that employees feel satisfied within their work while staying longer within their respective workplaces. The British trade unions seek to encourage more companies to focus on investing in both training and development as a way of having the employees develop skills needed in improving the products and services. They also act as positive change forces through winning the support of employees into the various forms of introducing new technologies as well as work organization. Discussion The nature, role, and structure of unions across the Sweden, Britain, Hungary, France, and Germany are remarkably different. In Sweden, its liberal approach of the five nations has a conclusive focus towards industrial relations unions and economic management having little relevance to their impacts. The management is the integral employment relations agent with the British unions as well as the government that occupies the secondary positions (Dzimbiri, 2008). To the contrary, the trade unions in both Hungary and France are significant as they have popular support both within employment relations and in subsequent aspects of life. Sophisticated labor movements in the political arena are distinct features in Germany. Unions become rather influential in Hungary though not as the case in Sweden. In France, unions indulge in politics even though the entire process centers on objectives for the unions’ top officials using unions to be political party’s powerbase while in German unions are representative for the ordinary members (Council of Europe. 2001). In Germany, the unions relatively retain low socio-political significance that primarily focuses on the practical objectives at workplaces including wage determination and working hour’s amount. The domain for this is that of business unionism unlike the political unionism in Sweden. In France, there are various traits of political unionism where trade unions have their focus to general social and economic issues especially from influence for financial decisions while striving towards a stronger solidarity across the unions (Dieckhoff, 2008). The narrow traditional workplace organization questions include wages and hours. They seek to solve unemployment problems, ageing population issues as well as the overall economic stagnation. With reference to structure and origin, these countries’ unions do not have a resemblance. French employee organizations narrow down to enterprise-based focus. The Hungary unions represent distinct firms in their industries. In Sweden, company unions translate into industry federations that in turn couple with the political formations on a nation-wide scale (Howell, 2009). In Germany, unions are industry based. Most unions belong to the main coordinating associations taking part in the various collective bargaining relate to the workplace practices. In Britain, unions organize in federations according the union’s groupings of blue-collar, white-collar, and professional workers having academic education. The Swedish and British unionism has substantive centralization as compared to Germany. In France, bargaining happening through the industry-wide union federations while in Hungary, there are special designs for bargaining cartels. In all these countries, the national unions’ seat in the collective bargaining processes in determining the major issues that the day-to-day management engages through monitoring and signing of agreements with various employers as a local unions’ responsibility. For a range reasons, in France, and Germany the rates of approval for unions by employees continues to lower (albeit the uneven downward pace) (Towers, 1997). On the other hand, the Swedish unions remain in a more robust state while they entice essential stakeholders through employment relations. Irrespective of the dissimilarities, across all the presented nations in Hungary and France, there is a major drift towards bargaining activities’ decentralization. In the end, the overall membership and union density slide seeks to observe upward union membership inclination for the employees across the public sector. Part of the reasons to be public sector’s universal contraction for capitalist worlds is increasing job insecurity sense irrespective of their stands as an exception. Conclusion This paper discussed the aspects of unions’ position with respect to employment relations across Sweden, Britain, Hungary, France, and Germany. More emphasis focused on the activities, roles, and structures examination for the unions as well as their responsibilities in the collective bargaining process among the nations. This comparative analysis illustrates even though many similarities exist, the unions in the examined places remarkably differ just like their industrial relations trends (Alison, 1995). The particular dissimilarities within the unions’ nature in these countries trigger an aspect of their origin and structure through placing a reputable aspect in the national economy and society coupled with their work’s tasks and objectives. The union membership levels vary while the methodologies of techniques and organization of bargaining follow suit. In the globalization era, when the industrial relations together with labor and capital cross-national borders easily, the differences are not as put. The unions’ collation indicates that unions’ role of in employment relations are paramount. In all these countries, unions have a reasonably important role in labor relations and the secondary significance in the shaping of industrial relations. References Ackers, P & Wilkinson, A. 2003. Understanding Work and Employment: Industrial Relations in Transition. New York: Oxford University Press. Alison, B. L. 1995. The Economics of the Trade Union. New York: Cambridge University Press. Barbash, J. 1989. Theories and Concepts in Comparative Industrial Relations. New York: Univ of South Carolina Press. Biagi, M., Blanpain, R., Weiss, M., 2003. Changing Industrial Relations & Modernisation of Labour Law. New York: Kluwer Law International. Blanpain, R &Ameglio, E. J. 2004. The Actors of Collective Bargaining. New York: Kluwer Law International. Blanpain, R & Baker, J. 2010. Comparative Labour Law and Industrial Relations in Industrialized Market Economies. New York: Kluwer Law International. Blanpain, R., Klebe, T., Schmidt, M & Waas, B., 2012. Trade Union Rights at the Workplace. New York: Kluwer Law International. Blenk, W. 1990. Labour Relations in Caribbean Countries: Proceedings of a Tripartite Caribbean Seminar on Labour Relations. New York: International Labour Organization. Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. 2002. Industrial Relations. New York: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Colling, T & Terry, M. 2010.Industrial Relations: Theory and Practice. New York: John Wiley & Sons Connolly, H. 2010. Renewal in the French Trade Union Movement: A Grassroots Perspective. New York: Peter Lang Council of Europe. 2001. The Right to Organise and to Bargain Collectively. New York: Council of Europe, Dieckhoff, M. 2008. Skills and occupational attainment: a comparative study of Germany, Denmark and the UK: Work Employment Society. Volume 22(1): 89–108 Dzimbiri, L. B. 2008. Industrial Relations in a Developing Society. New York: Cuvillier Verlag, Fernie, S & Metcalf, D. 2005. Trade Unions: Resurgence Or Demise?. New York: Psychology Press Grimshaw, D., Ward, K. G., Rubery, J & Beynon, H. 2000. Organizations and the Transformation of the Internal Labour Market: Work, Employment & Society. Vol. 15,No. 1, pp. 25–54. Harcourt, M &Wood, G., 2009. Trade Unions And Democracy: Strategies And Perspectives. New York: Transaction Publishers. Howell, C. 2009. Trade Unions and the State: The Construction of Industrial Relations Institutions in Britain, 1890-2000. New York: Princeton University Press. Morley, M. J., Gunnigle, P & Collings, D. G., 2006. Global Industrial Relations. New York: Routledge. Roozendaal, G. 2002. Trade Unions and Global Governance: The Debate on a Social Clause. New York: Psychology Press. Rubery, J., Gerhard, B & Lehndorff, S. 2008. Surviving the EU? The future for national employment models in Europe: Industrial Relations Journal 39:6, 488–509. Shelley, S & Calveley, M., 2007. Learning with Trade Unions: A Contemporary Agenda in Employment Relations. New York: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. Sinha. 2004. Industrial Relations, Trade Unions, and Labour Legislation. New York: Pearson Education India. Steele, J & Boom, W., 2011. Mass Justice: Challenges of Representation and Distribution. New York: Edward Elgar Publishing. Towers, B. 1997. The Representation Gap: Change and Reform in the British and American Workplace. New York: Oxford University Press. Venkatraman, P. 2007. Industrial Relations. New York: APH Publishing. Weitbrecht, H & Jentsch, W. M. 2003. The Changing Contours of German Industrial Relations. New York: Rainer Hampp Verlag. Read More