Titel som lovar mer än den håller

Jesper Prytz: Working Class Power. The Decline and Reconfiguration of Trade Union Power Resources in the 21st Century, University of Gothenburg, 2024.

• This summary of four studies (on trade union membership, institutional changes, youth organization and wage formation) does not live up to the expectations of the title. Rather, the research confirms a downward trend in the numerical representation of workers due to institutional and structural changes, but it gives little indication of how the reconstruction should take place.

Decline in membership density has long been known as a fact, as has its causes. There has been a drift away from the large and homogenous work collectives around which much of union strength has been built. Organizing workers in more heterogenous, service oriented and distantly managed units remains a challenge. Increased white-collar organizing has diluted the traditional left-wing political identity of trade unions. The studies identify increased whitecollar and advanced professional employees’ organizing as an important feature of the Swedish labour market. However, changes in the institutional mechanisms that have promoted this trend would have merited a closer look. The studies refer to changes in attitudes towards trade unions without actually offering methods of assessing these changes.

That temporary workers, and not only students, do not attach themselves to unions is not surprising. The traditional institutional arrangements promoting organization – such as the link to unemployment insurance and tax deductibility of union dues –- offer more tangible benefits for those in longer-term unemployment. In addition, these incentives were constructed in order to promote union membership, which no longer is universally perceived to be an integral feature of a welfare society. Yet given the still significant role that both blue- and white-collar workers continue to play, some more reflection would be useful on whether the downward trend of union density can be equalled with that of union influence. After all, no other form of employee representation has emerged as a real alternative to trade unionism.

The book compiled by Jesper Prytz tells much more about the reasons for weakening the economic and social power of trade unions than about ways in which to counter them. It rightfully points out to the need to improve unionization of young people and to look for ways of organizing which is more compatible with economic and technological change. But it does not give answers. Notably, it does not venture to look at how the communications and management technologies could be used to recreate labour-management relations and a meaningful work collective in the new circumstances. In light of the on-going negotiations in the ILO for a labour standard on the platform economy, the measures which can promote organization in this sector would have merited more attention.

The section on wage formation is a very Swedish/Nordic reflection on the effect of statutory minimum wages versus collective bargaining outcomes. It concludes logically that better-paid categories of workers benefit more from bargaining than low-wage groups for which a minimum wage is an institutional support measure. It notes the concern that too high minimum wages can discourage collective bargaining, which is one of the reasons for union hesitation towards them. But it does not note that at a time when other institutional guarantees are dismantled, with the subsequent weakening of union power, a statutory minimum wage at least to an extent improves the welfare of workers. It seems improbable that statutory minimum wages would rise to a level where they could make collective bargaining obsolete. This would point out to a conclusion that the future should be constructed on promoting a combination of statutory minimum wages and collective bargaining.

Kari Tapiola

Former Deputy Director-General, ILO