The unions in advanced, industrialized societies are likely to face conditions in the coming decade that will be far less favorable than those in the decades immediately following World War II. Growing economic competition from newly industrializing nations, the onset of major structural reform and shrinking employment in a number of older industries, the shift to services, and some unfavorable demographic trends—all of these forces are likely to be operating in most of the advanced, democratic countries. While the responses of West European unions may tend to be similar to those in the United States, in some respects, important differences can also be anticipated. Differences in union institutions and tradition, as well as in bargaining systems and relationships with employers, help explain these likely divergences in development.
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References
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1. The comparision in this article is limited to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's highly industrialized member countries, which include the United States; the countries of Western Europe; Japan; Australia; New Zealand; and Canada. Within this group our concentration is primarily upon Western Europe. The close relationships between many of the union movements and socialist—or social-democratic—parties should be kept in mind, when weighing the future of West European labor, though our treatment focuses upon the unions.
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2. This judgment is based upon recent correspondence with over a dozen academicians and practitioners in industrial relations in the United States and Western Europe, as well as my own study of unions abroad. Lack of space precludes my listing all those who made helpful comments. A useful survey of the current difficulties confronting a number of European union movements can be found in Le Monde, 9 Aug. 1983.
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on French unionism and the dangers of corporatism. An analysis of systems of corporate interest representation, including union interest representation, for several West European countries can be found in the contributed chapters to Suzanne Berger, ed., Organizing Interests in Western Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981).
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Feldstein's 6 percent compares with the widely accepted 4 percent full-employment target of the 1960s and early seventies. Some economists in the United States and the OECD believe employment recovery in Europe will be slower than in the United States. See Janet Norwood, “Labor Market Contrasts: United States and Europe,”Monthly Labor Review (Aug. 1983).
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A brief treatment of the Japanese problem is “The Aging of Japanese Social Security,”Economist (14 May 1983).
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Reviewing the problems of adopting an unemployment insurance system like that in Britain and Germany, the American Federation of Labor commented, in 1931, that in those two countries, unlike the United States, there was “no aggressive organization of employers seeking to destroy or nullify union organization.” See Everett M. Kassalow, “The Great Depression and the Transformation of the American Union Movement,” in The Business Cycle and Public Policy, 1929-1980, U.S., Congress, Joint Economic Committee (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1980), p. 328.
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7. By 1983, services accounted for a little more than half of all employment in European Economic Community countries and two-thirds in the U.S. case.
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8. A leading industry spokesman has claimed that between 1950 and 1982, “as a result of a series of rich contracts,” the unionized steel worker “had advanced to 95 percent above the average of other manufacturing workers, compared to only 15% above that average in 1950.”Daily Labor Report (Washington, DC: Bureau of National Affairs, 28 Sept. 1982).
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9. In Sweden, employers forced a move away from interindustry nationwide wage bargaining in 1983, but it is not yet clear whether this shift to industry bargaining will persist in the future, or whether there will be a return to an interindustry basis.
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10. The leading U.S. experts on the subject foresee the likelihood that incomes policy will be an important tool in the struggle against unemployment in Western Europe in the years ahead. See Robert J. Flannagan, David Soskice, and Lloyd Ulman, Unionism, Economic Stabilization, and Incomes Policies: European Experience (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1983), pp. 688-694.
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For the United States, see the special report on “Rebuilding America: A National Industrial Policy” and the resolution on “Rebuilding American Industry,” both adopted by the 1983 AFL-CIO convention, AFL-CIO News (22 Oct. 1983).
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12. I have dealt with the problems of adopting any form of codetermination by U.S. unions at greater length in “Industrial Democracy and Collective Bargaining: A Comparative View,”Labour and Society, 7(3): esp. 214-215, 219-220 (July-Sept. 1982).
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13. For a summary of the present work time situation in Western Europe and of recent union movements for change in work hours, see Working Time in Western Europe in 1982 (Brussels: ETUI, 1983).
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14. Strong opposition to work sharing was expressed by John Zalusky, an AFL-CIO national staff official, in testimony in 1978. See U.S., Congress, Joint Economic Committee, Special Study on Economic Change, Part 2, Hearings, 95th Cong., 2d sess., 14 June 1978, pp. 695-696, 755-757. In the same hearings, a United Automobile Workers official also seemed cool to the idea. A few individual unions have recently indicated some modest interest in work sharing.
