TRADE-UNION STRATEGY IN CONTEMPORARY CAPITALISM - THE MICROECONOMIC AND MACROECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS OF POLITICAL UNIONISM

Trade union movements in advanced capitalist economies pursue differen t strategies and draw on different organizational resources at both ma cropolitical and micropolitical levels. While the theoretical implicat ions of industrial and political strategies have been extensively deba ted, the actual outcomes of political unionism have rarely been subjec ted to rigorous empirical investigation. Utilizing data drawn from thr ee different surveys of union strategies and measures of industrial an d economic democracy in seven capitalist economies since the mid-1970s , this paper examines the microeconomic and macroeconomic implications of political unionism. The evidence suggests that while political uni onism results in both macroeconomic and microeconomic outcomes favoura ble to labour, at the level of the labour process these achievements a re registered in the empowerment of collective actors (unions and work s councils) rather than individual actors (workers).