ABSTRACT
Unions are not passive bystanders in the processes that determine their fates. Given the debate over union capacity to influence membership growth (see, for example, Bain and Price 1983), the following may be accepted as a truism: without remedial organizing action by unions, current union membership and recognition levels in Britain and Canada, Germany and
the US would be lower. But given falling unemployment in Britain and throughout many of these countries, it might have been expected that degrees of stabilization and growth in union membership and union recognition would have been higher. This expectation is further accentuated in Britain, with a relatively more favorable political environment as a result of a Labour government and the social dimension of the EU. The EU agenda and much of its transference into domestic law (e.g. rights for part-time and temporary workers) does not appear to have undermined unions by providing rights for workers regardless of union status. Indeed, unions have been central both to influencing the particular forms these rights have taken and to securing their effective implementation. Nevertheless, unions do not appear to be particularly benefiting from this role by virtue of positive demonstration effects on recruiting and retaining members. This brief discussion indicates the salience of recognizing the complex interaction between union action and external environment which determines movement in union membership and recognition, rather than analyses that counterpose the two in a mutually exclusive way. The following sections attempt to examine the processes underlying these issues.
