(How) can international trade union organisations be democratic?

Richard Hyman and Rebecca Gumbrell-McCormick

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: International trade union organisations, like unions at national level, commonly affirm their commitment to internal democracy. But what does this mean? There exists a vast literature on union democracy, addressing the questions whether democracy in trade unions is desirable; whether it is possible; and if so, how it can be achieved. However, the focus of analysis is almost exclusively at the national (or sub-national) level, with the premise that union members are individual workers. But international unions (like many national confederations indeed) do not have individual workers as members: they are organisations of organisations. What does this imply for our understanding of union democracy? We begin our article by summarising the broader literature on union democracy, then develop an interpretation of international unions as ‘meta-organisations’. We next explore some of the implications for debates on democracy at international level, and end by asking whether theories of deliberative democracy can help in understanding the options for international union democracy.

Keywords: Global unions; ETUC; ITUC; union democracy; meta-organisations; deliberative democracy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J01 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20 pages
Date: 2020-08-06
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published in Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, 6, August, 2020, 26(3), pp. 253 - 272. ISSN: 1024-2589

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