The Progressive Policy Institute's column this week talks about what might account for differences in unionization rates between countries (World's Most Unionized Countries: Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Belgium, Jan 31).
Unionization rates are high in the Scandinavian countries. In Sweden, 78% of the workforce (or maybe more) is unionized, in France, just 8%. Why are Scandinavian (and Belgian unions) so successful? There could be several explanations. One possibility:
...Visser suggests the most powerful reason for their success is that Scandinavian and Belgian unions offer different services. They function more as "career protectors" than as "job protectors" -- while they do negotiate with businesses, their primary missions are to manage extensive unemployment benefit funds, and provide their members with training and placement services. Eric Sundstrom, a recent PPI associate now with Sweden's Social Democratic Party, concurs and notes that Swedish union membership is now above Visser's estimate:
"The union participation rate in Sweden and most of Scandinavia is well over 80 percent (even higher in blue collar industries)... Swedish trade unions always have accepted that inefficient factories must go; they focus on the protection of their members (retrain them for new jobs when the factory has to close, instead of defending jobs that will have to go sooner or later anyway). On the other hand, unions with smaller participation rates tend to defend the specific job (and not the worker and what is best for him or her in the long run)."
These sorts of services would reduce the vulnerability of union members to adverse sectoral impacts from foreign competition.
Hi,
It takes a lot of courage for workers to organize a union. The employer uses all kinds of tactics and strategies to try and persuade their workers not to join. The employer usually resorts to fear and intimidation tactics to keep the union out and in many instances workers get fired
Posted by: m3 real karte | February 19, 2010 at 03:49 AM