Unions matter : the new politics of welfare and social concertation

Abstract

Since the 1980s, trade unions have increasingly adopted conservative stances, defending traditional workers and their entitlements. The literature on dualisation shows how unions have contributed to creating a divide between entrenched ‘insiders’ in core industries and an expanding periphery of ‘outsiders’, concerning both employment and welfare protections. In this thesis, I challenge the notion of dualisation as a stable institutional equilibrium and reject the characterization of unions as rent-seekers or defenders of the status quo. I show that there is significant variation in how labour markets and welfare states have been regulated over the past two decades, partly due to the evolving preferences and roles of unions in the politics of socio-economic reform. The central point of the thesis is that, although unions consented to dualisation in the 1990s, they soon became disillusioned with it. Various factors, including pressures from the labour market periphery and dwindling organisational resources, have prompted these actors to move away from narrow strategies and work towards bridging divides in the workforce. At the same time, strategies to reverse dualisation differ considerably across contexts. Some unions focus on filling gaps in previously segmented welfare systems (thus attempting to reverse welfare dualisation), while others prioritise re-regulating labour markets at the periphery (aiming to reverse labour market dualisation). By combining a time-series cross-sectional analysis of 20 OECD countries with in-depth case studies of Italy and the Netherlands, the thesis shows that trade unions are now turning (back) to solidarity, but their strategies vary according to the institutional contexts in which they operate.