Getting together or breaking apart? Trade union strategies, restructuring and contingent workers in Southern Europe

2016/02/29 by Andreas Kornelakis, Horen Voskeritsian · 1 voice · 24 citations
Health Professions · Social Sciences · #Call centre #Economics #Employment and Welfare Studies #Industrial relations #Labor Movements and Unions #Labour economics #Management #Negotiation #Political economy #Political science #Politics #Power (physics) #Representation (politics) #Restructuring #Social Policy and Reform Studies #Trade union

paper · open access · doi:10.1177/0143831x15627500

published in Economic and Industrial Democracy 39(2), 357-375 (SAGE Publishing)

openalex publication_date 2016/02/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30

Abstract

The article considers the strategies of trade unions towards the representation of call centre workers. Using a comparative case study, it examines the divergent union responses to the growth of contingent labour by looking at the telecommunications industries in Italy and Greece. Although the trade unions in Italy pursued inclusive strategies embracing the call centre workers and negotiating the restructuring of the whole sector, the unions in Greece followed a policy of exclusion leaving call centre workers outside representation and negotiating their internal restructuring. The article argues that the different union identities, and the diverse power resources and internal organizational politics help explain the variation in the trade unions’ strategic responses.

Citations

• Comparative-Historical Methodology
• Liberalization, flexibility and industrial relations institutions: evidence from Italian and Greek banking

Discussions

• Getting together or breaking apart? Trade union strategies, restructuring and contingent workers in Southern Europe doi.org/10.1177/0143... [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]

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