IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v33y2019i4p682-699.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Active Enactment and Virtuous Circles of Employment Relations: How Danish Unions Organised the Transnationalised Copenhagen Metro Construction Project

Author

Listed:
  • Jens Arnholtz

    (University of Copenhagen, Denmark)

  • Bjarke Refslund

    (Aalborg University, Denmark)

Abstract

Transnational workers on large-scale construction projects are often poorly included in national industrial relations systems, which results in employment relations becoming trapped in vicious circles of weak enforcement and precarious work. This article shows how Danish unions have, nonetheless, been successful in enacting existing institutions and organising the construction of the Copenhagen Metro City Ring, despite initially encountering a highly fragmented, transnational workforce and several subcontracting firms that actively sought to circumvent Danish labour-market regulation. This is explained by the union changing their organising and enforcement strategies, thereby utilising various power resources to create inclusive strategies towards transnational workers. This includes efforts to create shared objectives and identity across divergent groups of workers and actively seeking changes in the public owners’ attitude towards employment relations.

Suggested Citation

  • Jens Arnholtz & Bjarke Refslund, 2019. "Active Enactment and Virtuous Circles of Employment Relations: How Danish Unions Organised the Transnationalised Copenhagen Metro Construction Project," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 33(4), pages 682-699, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:33:y:2019:i:4:p:682-699
    DOI: 10.1177/0950017019832514
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0950017019832514
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0950017019832514?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:33:y:2019:i:4:p:682-699. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.