Editorial: Trade union rights in the US and Europe

Editorial In this edition of IUR, we take a look at the condition of trade union rights in the US and Europe. In both, significant deteriorations are in evidence. We begin with the situation in the US, which no readers of IUR can have failed to notice has been the site of dramatic developments over recent months. Sanders opens this edition to report that “Since the first day of his second term, Donald Trump and his administration have acted to reduce workers’ wages, tilt bargaining power away from workers and back toward employers, and deteriorate labour conditions”. The Administration, Sanders tells us, initially targeted the “strong union rights of federal employees” and then “fired thousands of probationary employees, and politicised senior career civil servants”, before embarking on its most recent “forceful and expansive” anti-immigrant agenda. Logan largely endorses Sanders’ view about Trump’s attacks on American unions, and writes of what he calls the “Unravelling of American Labour Optimism”. But he forces us to question the role that labour has played in all this, and to think about traditions of radicalism and conservatism in American labour. According to Logan, a recent wave of organising optimism happened “despite the labour establishment, not because of it”, while “unions such as the Teamsters, UAW, ILA, building trades and several other national unions have welcomed some parts of Trump’s economic nationalism”.

In Europe, there is a similar sense that socially progressive trends may be teetering on the brink, and of the roll-back of union rights and collectivism. Countouris writes how “a Damocles sword” is “hanging over the future” of the transformative potential of the Adequate Minimum Wages Directive due, somewhat ironically, to concerns emanating from two “high wage, high union density, and high coverage countries, with finely tuned and well-functioning systems of industrial relations and universalistic welfare state regimes”. Lord Hendy KC tells us of a series of cases at the European level that have rolled back rights, particularly around the ECrtHR’s once very significant and progressive recognition of the right to strike. Bailey, meanwhile, writes about a strike in Finland which has “not escaped … trends within global capitalism”, leading to “growing polarisation between workers and capitalists amidst the cumulative effects of decades of neoliberal restructuring”. Ewing explains how the ICESCR’s seventh periodic review of the UK concluded with a fairly damning set of “over ninety recommendations on the protection of economic, social and cultural rights for people in the UK”, and she looks at the potential for trade unions to get more involved with the ICESCR and its monitoring systems. A sense of progressive transformative potential, therefore, is needed, and that is how we close this edition, with Owens’ contribution from Ireland. Owens calls for a societal re-imagining that seeks change “in ways that exceed a productivist economy overly reliant on US tech companies, agribusiness and fossil fuel extraction”

Daniel Blackburn, Editor

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IUR journal brings together the latest news, views and information on trade union rights worldwide, covering key issues from varied perspectives. IUR has an accessible format that is appreciated around the world by an audience of trade unionists, legal practitioners and academics. The journal is available in print and digital formats, with an online archive dating back to 1993.

Previous editions:

The Trump administration’s approach to labour and employment law
Samantha Sanders

The Unravelling of American Labour Optimism (and how to get it back): Has Trump killed the union “moment” of the past few years?
John Logan

The Adequate Minimum Wage Directive 2022/2041 before the Court of Justice
Nicola Countouris

The right to strike in the ECtHR
Lord John Hendy KC

ICTUR in Action: Interventions
Algeria, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Panama, Ukraine

Finland’s commerce sector strikes: challenging the entrenched power of retail capital
Kyle Bailey

ICESCR and trade unions: defending and strengthening rights
Kate Ewing

The radical potential of an Irish Just Transition
Declan Owens

Worldwide news reports

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