and Greece that were marked by dictatorship – considered to be promoting and stabilising elements of the post-war welfare state regimes. These were their roles until the
late 1970s. At the same time membership numbers reached their peak. In Eastern Europe, however, trade unions were an integral part of the socialist regimes. When
they did not play a crucial role in the political turnaround like the Solidarno in Poland in the 1980s, their hour first came with the political transformation process. Since
then the trade unions have undergone a loss of significance, which – with varying momentum – becomes apparent in all European countries particularly in regard to
membership numbers, where the loss has only recently come to a halt.
Reasons for this loss of members are manifold. The value shift in societies towards “new” values
emphasising individuality, personal responsibility and self-realisation and the lack of interest in the membership in “old” large organisations associated with it, is certainly
one aspect. In addition, processes of global and regional integration have altered the basic principles for trade unions’ actions. Under the guise of ‘competitiveness’, European
governments have cut back on social benefits and questioned major accomplishments of labour organisations. As long as neoliberal thinking was mainstream,
trade unions were considered at least to be slowing down progress, if not entirely obsolete. This way of thinking has changed rapidly since the start of the financial crisis in
2008ff. Trust in the invisible hand of the free markets is sinking, and at the same time, public acceptance of unions is rising again/on the rise and membership numbers are
stabilising.
Against this backdrop we asked colleagues in many different countries to discuss “The Future of Trade Unions in Europe“ in two voulmes of the journal "management revue" (one published, one in preparation). Important questions in this context were among others the reasons for the prolonged loss of significance of trade unions in Europe, new forms of collective action in the era of globalised markets and multi-national corporations, innovative forms of membership recruitment and last but not least alliances of trade unions to meet the European crisis. In addition to that we wanted to illustrate the different developments in the member states of the European Union.
The paper will give an overview of the different contributions and tries to show possible ways out of the dimishing significance of trade unions.
