ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how construction unions have experimented with new strategies for representing posted workers in Finland, the Netherlands, Germany, and the UK. Posted work poses a challenge to union labour market regulation. Posted employment complicates union relations with workers, while legal barriers and employer evasiveness encouraged by the European Union framework further inhibit unions from adequately enforcing workers’ rights at the workplace level. Compliance by posted worker employers is rarely voluntary: It is either pro-active, anticipating enforcement, or reactive, reflecting enforcement that is occurring. A highly regulated labour market and strong national-level extended collective bargaining agreements enforced through monitoring by trade union officials and shop stewards supplemented by government labour inspectors characterise Finland’s posted work context. In all our country cases, unions have committed significant resources to re-enact national labour market institutions to combat construction labour market dualisation and rule evasion by posting firms but with only limited success.
