Stefan Rüb
Die Transnationalisierung der Gewerkschaften
Eine empirische Untersuchung am Beispiel der IG Metall (Transnationalisation of the trade unions. An empirical investigation based on the case of IG Metall)
Berlin: edition sigma, Forschung aus der Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, 336 pages. ISBN 978-38360-8703-2, €21.90
IG Metall, Germany’s most powerful trade union and pioneer of social progress, has numerous historic feats to its credit. But how will it fare in the future in a world of social inequality and mutual dependence? Can the trade union succeed in breaking out of its national confines and launching itself into the politics of open transnational interest representation?
In the book presented here, the researcher and social scientist Stefan Rub, an expert in trade union international relations and activities, sets out to answer these questions. IG Metall is, he claims, moving along a learning curve and, slowly but surely, stepping up its international activities. This assessment may be regarded as both sound and reliable, for our author is no loud-mouthed hawker of ephemeral novelties on the market of scientific vanities but an experienced, solid, and utterly sober observer of the ways in which trade unions go about their business.
Rüb does not go as far as the proponents of a strict thesis of globalisation who speak of the need for a ‘transnational reinvention of the trade unions’ (Ulrich Beck). His scientific acumen grounded in long experience shields him from any such alarmist insistence on a ‘reinvention imperative’. He has, instead, devoted long and patient efforts to the observation of IG Metall’s conduct within the new framework for action that has emerged as a result of the widespread europeanisation and globalisation stemming from the world-wide operations of multinationals. By ‘transnationalisation’ he understands the steadily advancing development of policy fields and organisational structures that enable IG Metall to use its interest representation policy to come to grips with the intensification of cross-border industrial relations.
In the theoretical part of his book Rüb presents a wide-ranging set of scholarly hypotheses concerning types of trade union and forms of trade union change. He thus distinguishes between the ‘business unionism’ of the classic American trade unions, the ‘social movement trade unionism’ of certain revamped American trade unions, and the ‘integrative unionism’ in relation to which IG Metall must be seen as a typical representative of an interest-mediation organisation. In relation to the measurement of organisational inertia and/or dynamism, the theoretical positions on trade unions’ approach to dealing with change are of particular interest. These approaches range from ‘decline through failure to adjust to new circumstances and conditions’ to ‘independently generated revitalisation as a result of conversion and transnationalisation’. Inter-trade union relations too are embedded in a development model and, in a transnational economic area like the EU, their actions and movements can be located on a sliding scale between the poles of competition, cooperation and integration. Such then are the learning curves on which IG Metal may be seen to be achieving marked progress in the direction of transnationalisation and integration. Of particular value for grasping the particular nature of IG Metall’s policies is Rüb’s elaboration of two characteristic features:
· In terms of its formal political options IG Metall is committed to social reform. Its actual policy, by constrast, is pragmatically geared to ensuring the high levels of industrial performance and international competitiveness required to serve the wage and employment policy interests of its membership.
· Over and above the traditional national bargaining framework, IG Metall is currently focusing on, in particular, the European economic area but also the global economy. Its involvement in the supranational trade union network displays a development from participation towards responsibility.
Rüb’s most important empirical findings may be summarised as follows:
· In the international sphere it is to be noted that IG Metall has for many years provided the presidents of the International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF). Even more important, however, is the fact that it has, as pioneer of International Framework Agreements, secured the acceptance of social minimum standards by multinational companies.
· In an even more highly activist vein, IG Metall is currently acting as organiser, coordinator and moderator in the process of establishing the process of ongoing europeanisation within the European Metalworkers’ Federation (EMF).
· In the ‘European works councils’ policy field IG Metall has become a central actor bent on making industrial democracy ‘Europe-proof’.
· In the ‘collective bargaining coordination’ policy field IG Metall has been drawn into an acceleration of europeanisation, given that, since the German metalworking industry represents 35% of total production in the EU, IG Metall’s national wage policy invariably entails simultaneous repercussions in the European dimension.
· In terms of its internal organisation, it is interesting to note that IG Metall is seeking, by the creation of numerous groups of experts, to equip its working groups and networks for cross-border action.
Rüb’s principal overall finding is that IG Metall is conducting a “pragmatic strategy of gradual europeanisation” (p. 283) and succeeding in the achievement of a “bottom-up transnationalisation”. While this may come as a disappointment to proponents of trade unions as social movements, it accords with IG Metall’s own history and organisational self-perception. The picture drawn by Rüb is a highly accurate and realistic one.
He may be reproached – from a stance of critical objection to an excessively pragmatic conception of research – for dispensing with conjectures about future scenarios concerning the relation between rank and file and leadership or with statements about megatrends of trade union development in cross-border economic areas. Risky and reckless speculation is not this particular author’s brand of scholarship, but that does not alter the fact that Rüb provides a sound and detailed description of a trade union that is daring to make the leap from national organisation to transnational multi-level organisation. To capture the dialectic of continuity and dynamism characteristic of an organisation as deeply rooted in its own history as IG Metall is no simple undertaking.
Of benefit to the reader and a major virtue of Rüb’s work is his delivery of a theoretically grounded practical tool for assessment of the trade unions’ progress on the road from anchorage within their national confines to involvement in transnational activity. Every reader can use this equipment to test how far his or her own trade union has moved forward. As such, this piece of scholarship will be of considerable practical use to its readers. What can be better praise of a book than this?
Otto Jacobi
2 October 2009
Translation from the German by Kathleen Llanwarne