Trade unions, immigration and immigrants in Europe 1960-1993

Book abstract:

This is a comparative study of trade unions in seven West European countries; Switzerland, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, France, Great Britain and Sweden. It was commissioned by the Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies of the University of Amsterdam (IMES).

Three dilemmas have been formulated with which trade unions are confronted regarding immigration and immigrant workers. The first relates to immigration itself: should trade unions co-operate with employers and authorities in the employment of foreign workers or should they resist? The second dilemma relates to whether trade unions should fully include foreign workers in their ranks or exclude them as a special category. If trade unions, in principle, follow a line of inclusion, they are confronted with a third dilemma: should they advocate and implement special measures for these immigrants or should they insist on general, equal treatment for all workers? These dilemmas are used as a basis for an analytical framework which enables the comparison of the country accounts in this volume.

In the main section of the book, chapters 2-8, country reports on the seven West European countries are presented. In the concluding chapter, chapter 9, the comparative analysis is presented, in the first instance by recording the variance in attitude and action on the part of trade unions in relation to the three dilemmas. Thereafter an attempt is made to account for the differences established. Finally, in the conclusion, the questions of parallelism and convergence are addressed and, looking to the future, some conclusions are drawn on the prospects of trade unions within the developing context of the European Union and on the lessons to be learned from the present analysis.

The chapters include: Trapped in the consociational cage: trade unions and immigration in Switzerland; The Federal Republic of Germany: ambivalent promotion of immigrants' interests; Austria: protecting indigenous workers from immigrants; Dutch trade unions, immigrants and immigration: myopic politics of equality; Trade unions and immigrants in France: from assimilation to antiracist networking; British unions and racism: organisational dilemmas in an unsympathetic climate; Sweden: insiders outside the trade union mainstream.