Föhrer, Erne and Finlay (2019) transnational competence

Föhrer, Bianca, Roland Erne and Graham Finlay. 2019. “Transnational Competence: A Transformative Tool? A Comparison of German and Irish Political Trade Union Education Programs.” Labor Studies Journal. First published: 30 December.

Abstract

In the literature on cross-border labor action, labor education is seen as an important factor to improving it. This article therefore first reconstructs an innovative pedagogic concept, transformative Transnational Competence, to advance transnational labor education and action. Although initially developed for multinational firms and international organizations, this pedagogical concept is promising for labor, as it also focuses on emotional issues that are central to collective action. Subsequently, we use our reconstructed concept as a yardstick to assess labor education programs of public and private sector unions in Ireland and Germany. Our study shows that all unions face similar difficulties leading to rather little attention to transnational labor education, regardless of the very different labor relations landscapes in which they are operating. Hence, unions’ difficulties in relation to transnational labor education and action cannot be due to distinct national or sectorial factors, such as labor relations systems and different amounts of resources allocated to labor education. Instead, transnational labor education is facing challenges that are common in all cases, notably the tension between utilitarian and emancipatory orientations of union leaders, educators, and members involved in labor education programs.

Keywords labor education, trade unions: union revitalization, transnational competence, transnational solidarity, collective action

Erne (2019) analyse a suprenational regime that nationalises social conflict

Erne, Roland. 2019. “How to Analyse a Supranational Regime That Nationalises Social Conflict? The European Crisis, Labour Politics and Methodological Nationalism.” Pp. 346-68 in Nanopoulos, E. and Vergis, F. (eds.), The Crisis Behind the Eurocrisis: The Eurocrisis as a Multidimensional Systemic Crisis of the EU. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

Jordan, Maccarrone and Erne (2020) socialisation of the EU's new economic governance regime

Jordan, Jamie, Vincenzo Maccarrone and Roland Erne. 2020. “Towards a Socialisation of the EU’s New Economic Governance Regime? EU Labour Policy Interventions in Germany, Ireland, Italy and Romania (2009-2019).” British Journal of Industrial Relations. First published: 18 February.

Abstract

In response to the last recession, the European Union (EU) adopted a new economic governance (NEG) regime. An influential stream of EU social policy literature argues that there has been more emphasis on social objectives in the NEG regime in more recent years. This article shows that this is not the case. It does so through an in‐depth analysis of NEG prescriptions on wage, employment protection and collective bargaining policy in Germany, Italy, Ireland and Romania between 2009 and 2019. Our main conclusion is that the EU's interventions in these three industrial relations policy areas continue to be dominated by a liberalization agenda that is commodifying labour, albeit to a different degree across the uneven but nonetheless integrated European political economy. This finding is important, as countervailing transnational trade union action is the more likely, the more there is a common threat. Even so, our contextualized analysis also enables us to detect contradictions that could provide European labour movements opportunities to pursue countervailing action.

Kim Scipes (2020) a new labor center in the US

Scipes, Kim. 2020. “Is it Time for a New Labor Center in the United States?” New Thinking on the Crisis of Labor. Z Net. February 19.