IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/wsidps/136.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Trade Union Organising in Private Sector Services : Findings from the British, Dutch and German retail industry

Author

Listed:
  • Dribbusch, Heiner

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to take a closer look behind the curtain of low aggregate trade union densities in retail and to outline the major obstacles and problems trade union organising faces in the retail trades. Trade union organising and recruitment is analysed against the background of a 'two hurdle model of organising' (cf. Haas 2000, Dribbusch 2003) derived from explanations on trade union membership put forward by Green (1990) and Disney (1990). Within this framework the first hurdle to be taken is the establishment of a workplace presence as a precondition for any sustainable membership development. The second hurdle is then to convince the potential members in the workplace to join i.e. the recruitment.

Suggested Citation

  • Dribbusch, Heiner, 2005. "Trade Union Organising in Private Sector Services : Findings from the British, Dutch and German retail industry," WSI Working Papers 136, The Institute of Economic and Social Research (WSI), Hans Böckler Foundation.
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:wsidps:136
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/21580/1/p_wsi_diskp_136.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kelly,John & Heery,Edmund, 1994. "Working for the Union," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521383202, January.
    2. Green, Francis, 1990. "Trade Union Availability and Trade Union Membership in Britain," The Manchester School of Economic & Social Studies, University of Manchester, vol. 58(4), pages 378-394, December.
    3. Bob Mason & Peter Bain, 1993. "The Determinants of Trade Union Membership in Britain: A Survey of the Literature," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 46(2), pages 332-351, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lowell Turner, 2009. "Institutions and Activism: Crisis and Opportunity for a German Labor Movement in Decline," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 62(3), pages 294-312, April.
    2. Arianna Marcolin & Stefano Gasparri, 2024. "Digitalization and employment relations in the retail sector. Examining the role of trade unions in Italy and Spain," European Journal of Industrial Relations, , vol. 30(2), pages 151-178, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Charlwood, Andy, 2001. "Influences on trade union organising effectiveness in Great Britain," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 20111, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Robin Naylor, 1995. "Unions in Decline?," Nordic Journal of Political Economy, Nordic Journal of Political Economy, vol. 22, pages 127-142.
    3. Magnani, Elisabetta & Prentice, David, 2003. "Did globalization reduce unionization? Evidence from US manufacturing," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(6), pages 705-726, December.
    4. Molefe Jonathan Maleka, 2018. "The Biographical and Human Resource Management Predictors of Union Membership Engagement of Low- and Middle-Income Workers," Journal of Economics and Behavioral Studies, AMH International, vol. 10(1), pages 207-216.
    5. Rupayan Pal, 2008. "Estimating the Probability of Trade Union Membership in India: Impact of Communist Parties, Personal Attributes and Industrial Characteristics," Working Papers id:1669, eSocialSciences.
    6. David Peetz & Barbara Pocock, 2009. "An Analysis of Workplace Representatives, Union Power and Democracy in Australia," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 47(4), pages 623-652, December.
    7. Jeremy Waddington & Allan Kerr, 2015. "Joining UNISON: does the reform of a union organising strategy change how members perceive their recruitment?," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(3), pages 187-207, May.
    8. Heather Connolly, 2020. "‘We just get a bit set in our ways’: renewing democracy and solidarity in UK trade unions," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 26(2), pages 207-222, May.
    9. Geraint Harvey & Andy Hodder & Stephen Brammer, 2017. "Trade union participation in CSR deliberation: an evaluation," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(1), pages 42-55, January.
    10. Duca, John V. & Van Hoose, David D., 2001. "The Rise of Goods-Market Competition and the Fall of Nominal Wage Contracting: Endogenous Wage Contracting in a Multisector Economy," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 1-29, January.
    11. Rupayan PAL, 2010. "Impact Of Communist Parties On The Individual Decision To Join A Trade Union: Evidence From India," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 48(4), pages 496-528, December.
    12. Christian Lévesque & Gregor Murray, 2010. "Understanding union power: resources and capabilities for renewing union capacity," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 16(3), pages 333-350, August.
    13. Moira Calveley & Geraldine Healy, 2003. "Political Activism and Workplace Industrial Relations in a UK ‘Failing’ School," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 41(1), pages 97-113, March.
    14. Charlwood, Andy, 2001. "Why do non-union employees want to unionise? Evidence from Britain," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 20116, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    15. Diane M. Sinclair, 1995. "The Importance of Sex for the Propensity to Unionize," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 33(2), pages 173-190, June.
    16. Melanie Simms, 2013. "Special Issue. Edited by: Gregor Murray, Christian Lévesque, Christian Dufour and Adelheid Hege," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(4), pages 373-388, July.
    17. Jo Blanden & Stephen Machin, 2003. "Cross‐Generation Correlations of Union Status for Young People in Britain," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 41(3), pages 391-415, September.
    18. Gerry Looker, 2019. "Union organising and Full‐time Officers: acquiescence and resistance," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(5-6), pages 517-531, November.
    19. Tim Morris, 1995. "Annual Review Article 1994," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 33(1), pages 117-135, March.
    20. Rosaria Burchielli & Timothy Bartram, 2007. "What makes organising work? A model of the stages and facilitators of organizing," Working Papers 2007.01, School of Economics, La Trobe University.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:zbw:wsidps:136. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wsihbde.html .

    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.