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Chapter 1
Introduction
Trade unions under the pressure of European integration. A question of optimism and pessimism?
Martin Seeliger and Johannes Kiess
What role do trade unions play in the European integration process? Ten years after the European Court of Justice called into question basic tenets of the European âsocial modelâ (Höpner 2013) with its decisions on the free movement of services and the institutionalised right to strike, and with the crisis of globalised financial capitalism forcing the so-called âdebt countriesâ into austerity by political mandate, putting Southern Europeâs working class under distress, this issue â the âtrade unions under the great transformationâ, as Deppe (2012) put it â is more pressing than ever (Seeliger 2019).
The integration of ever more European countries into an ever-institutionally deepening common market has always been the cornerstone of European integration, famously coined by the heads of states and government in 19811 as a âcommitment to progress towards an ever closer unionâ. However, contrary to the neo-functionalist hope for spillover effects and as the deepening inequalities within the common currency area have shown, strengthening economic interdependencies has by no means led to the kind of social cohesion that social scientists often think is a necessity for a somewhat fair and just coexistence (Polanyi 1957). While from a neo-classical point of view, the integration of a common labour market allows for a more efficient division of labour and thus more effective means of production (Smith 1904), capitalist means of organisation2 also require some collective form of organisation of labour interests. Under current conditions, we would still think of trade unions first to offer this kind of collective mobilisation.
The deepening of European integration has institutionalised several mechanisms within the Eurozone, most importantly through the abolition of tariff and trade barriers as well as the linking of labour market and social policy to the macroeconomic benchmark management of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). These mechanisms implicate regime competition regarding national-level labour and employment regulations. Therefore, the coincidental and systematic deficit of European integration is that this ânegative integrationâ (Scharpf 1999) has â up until now â not been sufficiently accompanied by measures of âpositive integrationâ, i.e., the establishment of meaningful institutionalised social policy at the European level. Precisely because of the ever-advancing integration of the European Single Market, any European trade union strategy would have to focus on the stabilisation or expansion of national-level labour markets and social policies, and/or their supplementation at the European level.
Thus, for national-level trade unions and labour organisations, the biggest challenge lies in the necessity to formulate a concerted political strategy to influence the process of integration. However, specifically against the backdrop of the European Unionâs (EUâs) Eastern enlargement in 2004 and 2007, we can identify a threefold problem of heterogeneity in the field of trade union politics: first, European Member States differ widely regarding institutional settings like labour law or national modes of wage bargaining. Second, on the organisational level, we can also find national evolutionary paths that shaped the structure, scope, and ideological orientation of the respective trade union movements. Third, especially between Eastern and Northern European trade unions, the gap in terms of power resources continues to be challenging, resulting in asymmetric coordination between them (see Seeliger 2017 and this volume). Developing common political positions thus happens under conditions of inequality within these (at least) three dimensions. We can therefore assume that the establishment of common positions is becoming not only more important but also more difficult.
Most recently, the difficulties have increased in the wake of the cascade of crises that have shaken up the EU. If we indeed see ourselves in the middle of an open-ended process of politicisation of the EU (ZĂŒrn 2013: 413), then, we would argue, this diagnosis is most important for trade unions as organisations representing European wage earners. âHard times may result in strategic paralysis, but can also stimulate the framing of new objectives, new levels of intervention, and new forms of actionâ (Gumbrell-McCormick/ Hyman 2013: 192) â it is probably hard to find a more precise assessment of the state of European trade union politics and its perspectives.
As the contemporary debate shows, assessments of what role European trade unions are able to fulfil within this constellation vary a great deal, even among the most prominent representatives of political sociology of industrial relations. While Jelle Visser (2012: 130) thinks it is more likely that â21st century capitalism will be shaken up by banks rather than by trade unionsâ, others, like Klaus Dörre, read the wage conflicts of the âstrike yearâ 2015 as new tailwind for the renewal of trade union power resources in the structural conflict between capital and labour, with hope for European mobilisation in particular (Dörre et al. 2016).
Against this backdrop, two questions arise: do trade unions (because of their resources and, in connection with these, their positions within the political system) have the ability to emerge as agents of a new form of social integration in the EU? And, second, would such strategic orientation even be in accordance with the often quite specific interests of diverse organisations, which vary not only because of national settings or in terms of sectoral affinity and industry interests but also because of ideological orientation? This volume addresses this constellation, for which the academic literature on the EU offers so many differing assessments (for a general overview see RĂŒb/MĂŒller 2013; Streeck 2013; Seeliger 2017).3 In this introductory chapter, we will first discuss the possibilities and limits of trade union politics under the pressure of European integration more generally before we go on to distinguish between four perspectives discussed in the literature. Our aim is to introduce the different sub-disciplines and literatures to each other and facilitate discussion between opposing âcampsâ; between theoretical and empirical perspectives; and between more optimistic, pro-integrationist and more pessimistic, integration-sceptical assessments.
Possibilities and limits of trade union policy in the process of European integration
Summarising the classic literature on industrial relations in the European context, Marginson and Sisson (2004: XVI) criticise a strong focus on structural issues. While the work on European trade unions since the turn of the century also included some attention to trade unionsâ potential for action, most studies interested in the political importance of national trade union organisations at the European level can still today be seen as mostly comparative work in a traditional sense. These static perspectives on national circumstances, however, neglect initiatives that provoke conflicts, have a clear potential for politicisation, and imply the potential for institutional change (Kowalsky 2010: 139).
After a first phase of classic studies, a second phase of trade union politics and trade union research started with the founding of the European Trade Union Congress (ETUC) in 1973. On the occasion of the enlargement of the European Economic Community of Great Britain, Denmark, and Ireland, 167 trade unions from 15 Western European countries joined the new European-level umbrella organisation. In addition to descriptive (Niethammer 1977) and field-specific contributions (Köpper 1982), the number of ideological publications in this phase rose as well. To give just one example, Gorz (1974: 224) refers in his work to the âproblem of the international strategy of the workersâ movement in the face of European integrationâ. The need for transnational organisation and compromise on political strategies had become an important normative question.
At the beginning of the 1990s, the institutionalisation of the common market again marked the entry into a new phase â one that was once more characterised by an even stronger European orientation, also with regard to trade unions themselves. This came with new political salience, which, among other things, was evident in higher membership fees as well as in the transfer of qualified secretaries to Brussels (Schmitter/Streeck 1991: 136f). For example, Dolvik (1999: 16) observed that âEuropean unions wanted to develop a coherent response and to change the rules of the gameâ. At this point, the contours of a powerful concept, which since then has served as a vehicle of political mobilisation, became apparent within the discourse on European integration: the concept of a âSocial Europeâ. Formed and publicised by the then-President of the European Commission Jacques Delors, the idea of a âEuropean Social Modelâ is based on the assumption that market integration can only develop the desired economic impulses if it is flanked by the establishment of social policy hedges.4 As the most prominent achievement of this phase, experts particularly emphasise the establishment of the âsocial dialogueâ between European social partners (Weinert 2009). The spirit of optimism that the corresponding establishment of labour market policy institutions at the European level produced at this time â also amongst academic observers â is not least reflected in the hopeful diagnosis of an emerging âEuro-corporatismâ (Falkner 1998).
Given the deepening of European competencies in the context of the monetary union and market integration as well as in the context of the various enlargements since 2004, the last 20 years can again be considered a qualitatively new phase of European integration (Mittag 2009). However, while the economic policy measures for the integration of the common market are reflected in a general trend of liberalisation in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries (Höpner et al. 2011), the establishment of EU-wide standards for the preservation of national minimum standards in social and labour market policy legislation has for the most part remained meaningless (Scharpf 2012). Moreover, a sequence of market-constituting jurisprudence by the European Court of Justice has further encouraged the trend towards the abolition of national labour market institutions with an additional âtrend towards successive acceptance of national legislationâ (Höpner/SchĂ€fer 2010: 9; Höpner 2011). In light of the most recent economic and social developments in Europe, a growing number of scholars are voicing critical opinions. For example, representatives of the research group âState Project Europeâ (2011: 7) recognise a dominance of neo-liberalism in the EU institutions, which Streeck (2013) labels a âliberalization machineâ and Deppe (2013) calls out as âauthoritarian capitalismâ.
As Haas (1958: 215) already described in the 1950s, the attitudes of national trade union organisations towards the implications and consequences of European integration emerge from the political heterogeneity of the Union and thus before country-specific backgrounds: âThe attitude of labour towards integration depends on the economic and political conditions under which the unions of the ECSC countries live and operateâ. This assessment has become much more important following the Eastern enlargement of the EU in 2004 (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Cyprus) and 2007 (Bulgaria and Romania). Inequalities within European countries â but also between them â have since gained interest within the field of European sociology (e.g., Heidenreich 2003; Delhey/Kohler 2006; Heidenreich/Wunder 2008), as have comparative assessments of life satisfaction (Delhey/Kohler 2006; Lahusen/Kiess 2018), transnational solidarity (e.g., Lahusen/Grasso 2018), and identity or EU support (e.g., Mau 2005; Gerhards/Lengfeld 2015). The pace and already achieved depth of integration, we may conclude from this wide field of research, has effects on the people in Europe, and this again affects the process of European integration.
In one way or another, as shown in this brief historical reconstruction, the negotiation of cross-border cooperation between trade unions in the EU takes place under the umbrella of a âEuropean Social Modelâ or âSocial Europeâ. However, due to the widely differing meanings of the concept, there is no agreement whatsoever about exactly what is meant by the term. According to Hyman (2006: 121), âSocial Europeâ is an analytical category, an ideological construct, as well as a controversy. The multiple uses of the term follow from its conceptual history. The original introduction can be traced back to the political discussion of the early 1970s (Pierson/Leibfried 1998; Streeck 1998a). With the first âSocial Action Planâ of the European Community in 1974 and the European Regional Development Fund established one year later, the Member States presented a supranational initiative to extend the activities of the community into the area of social policy for the first time (Rhodes 1998: 330). In the course of the 1980s and 1990s, the term became increasingly important in the context of the discussion about â(neo-)corporatismâ, and it gains importance today against the background of recent liberalisation developments (not least because of the low practical importance of any form of âEuro-corporatismâ).
Even considering the fuzziness of this âEuropean Social Modelâ, it appears to be a significant trait of this debate that the content of any existing or desired âEuropean Social Modelâ follows the Western (!) European concept of welfare capitalism, i.e., a specific ââhistorical compromiseâ between capital and labourâ (Streeck 2003: 93). Thus, the European trade unions and the parliamentary left in Europe link to this concept the hope of âpreserving that âEuropean Social Modelâ; which is characterised by a socially regulated variant of capitalism, that aims at a combination of economic efficiency and (relative) social equalityâ (Schulten 2005: 15; our translation).
As a point of reference for concrete political positions, demands, and measures, the application of the concept in political practice is subject to constant and fundamental negotiation within the left as well as within and among trade unions. As a âsocio-political formula of the futureâ, the concept of a âEuropean Social Modelâ âis a political-ideological construct [âŠ] which defines and propagates European similarities which should be realisedâ (Aust et al. 2002: 273; our translation). The discussion about the meaning of the symbolic framework âSocial Europeâ is thus not least a framing process: the aim of establishing a...
