The Brave New World of European Labor - European Trade Unions at the Millennium (Paperback)

European union movements played a central role in promoting a "European model of society" -- a humane industrial relations system, high labor standards, generous welfare states, and collective political representation -- which reached its pinnacle in the post-World Was II era. The recent shift to lower growth, rising unemployment, renewed European integration, neo-liberalism, and globalization has challenged this "European Model" and the unions' place in it. These essays, written by some of the leading scholars in the field, examine responses of six major European union movements to the dramatic changes in economic and political conditions in the last two decades. They are the result of a group research effort and are based on a common framework which lends it quite an exceptional coherence. Its value is enhanced by the editors' conclusion that reflects upon new union positions and their implications, in particular the most important question of what will happen to the 'European model of society' in consequence.