ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the role of labour unions in the context of the insecurity hypothesis. It describes the association between trade unions and insecurity in the context of restructuring in the developed countries. With the restructuring of economies across the integrating globe have come major changes in labour organization in the industrial countries. The chapter focuses on falling trade union density in the OECD countries; and evaluates the theories that explain the role, relevance and the reinvention of trade unions respectively. It focuses on the trade union movement in India in the post-liberalization period and reviews the official thinking on the issue as evident in the report of the Second National Commission on Labour. The chapter provides examples of how trade unions have been incorporated in social dialogues in Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia, Korea, and Thailand as a part of the strategy to recover from macro-economic crisis of 1997.
