European labour movements in crisis

Download or read book European labour movements in crisis written by Thomas Prosser and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2018-12-07 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Prosser argues that labour movements respond to European integration in a manner which instigates competition between national labour markets. It bases its hypothesis on analysis of four countries – Germany, Spain, France and Poland – and two processes: the collective bargaining practices of trade unions in the first decade of the Eurozone and the response of trade unions and social-democratic parties to austerity in Southern Europe. In the first process, although unions did not intentionally compete, there was a drift towards zero-sum outcomes which benefited national workforces in stronger structural positions. In the second process, during which a crisis resulting from the earlier actions of labour occurred, lack of solidarity reinforced effects of competition.