Trade union

EU Economic Governance and Transnational Trade Union Action | Dr Roland Erne (2015)

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• published: 09 Nov 2015
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Until very recently, European employers and political leaders denied the need for any coordination in industrial relations at EU level. In 2011, however, the European Parliament and the Council adopted a new European economic governance regime that makes EU member states’ labour market policies subject to multilateral surveillance procedures. This paper analyses this ‘silent revolution’ from above and assesses trade unions’ responses to this challenge. It shows that the EU’s new governance regime does not follow the classical model of a federal state, but rather the governance structures of multinational corporations that control their local subsidiaries through the use of whipsawing tactics and coercive comparisons. European unions and social movements’ difficulties in politicizing European economic governance are thus best explained by the ability of the new supranational EU regime to nationalize social conflicts. Erne’s talk is based on the following article: R. Erne (2015) “A supranational regime that nationalizes social conflict”, in: Labor History, 56:3, 345-368, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0023656X.2015.1042777 Roland Erne has been teaching international and comparative employment relations at UCD since 2003. He is also an adjunct professor at the ILR School, Cornell University and has been a fellow at the Centre for Advanced Study in Oslo as member of its research group Globalization and the possibility of transnational actors - The case of trade unions as well as a Marie Curie Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Social Justice, University of Oxford. His work centers on European governance and the social and political implications of transnational movements of goods, capital, services, and people. He is interested in how interest associations and social movements - particularly unions - respond to processes of regional integration and globalization. In European unions. Labor's Quest for a Transnational Democracy (Cornell University Press, 2010) Erne describes the emergence of a European trade union movement that crosses national boundaries and challenges the assertion that no realistic prospect exists for remedying the EU's democratic deficit. Understanding the Eurozone Crisis Seminar Series (Autumn 2015) was co-hosted by UCD Dublin European Institute, UCD College of Social Sciences and Law, UCD College of Business and UCD Industrial Relations and Human Resources Group. UCD Twitter: http://twitter.com/ucddublin UCD Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/universitycollegedublin UCD Instagram: http://instagram.com/ucddublin UCD Homepage: http://www.ucd.ie