Understanding Union Power: Resources and Capabilities for Renewing Union Capacity

Power is at the core of current debates over the future of trade unionism. This article provides a framework to assess the power resources and strategic capabilities central to union capacity building. We identify four key power resources: internal solidarity; network embeddedness; narrative resources that frame understandings and union actions; and infrastructural resources (material, human, processes, policies and programmes). Resources alone are not enough; unions must also be capable of using them. We identify four strategic capabilities: intermediating between contending interests to foster collaborative action and to activate networks; framing; articulating actions over time and space; and learning. Much experimentation and research on the interactions between these resources and capabilities in particular contexts is required to advance our understanding of the renewal of union power

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The consequences of trade union power erosion

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The micro- and macroeconomic effects of the declining power of trade unions have been hotly debated by economists and policymakers. Nevertheless, the empirical evidence shows that the impact of the decline on economic aggregates and firm performance is not an overwhelming cause for concern. However, the association of declining union power with rising earnings inequality and a loss of direct communication between workers and firms is potentially more worrisome. This in turn raises the questions of how supportive contemporary unionism is of wage solidarity, and whether the depiction of the nonunion workplace as an authoritarian “bleak house” is more caricature than reality

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As can be seen from the table, the proportions differ across countries. For instance, in Belgium, Denmark, Italy and Sweden, unions lost most members because of disappearing jobs in industry. The opposite is true for most other countries. In Australia and Canada, unions declined in industry despite job growth. In the United States, union decline is hardly the result of fewer jobs in industry, but rather the result of the de-unionization of industry. Restructuring within manufacturing (from heavy to light industry, for instance) and the relocation of factories to Southern states with ‘right-to-work’ legislation, which prohibits employers from collecting union dues for workers under collective agreements, appear to have played a bigger role than the decline of manufacturing jobs.

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