Power resources and the battle against precarious employment: Trade union activities within a tripartite initiative tackling undeclared work in Sweden

Carin Håkansta, Maria Albin, Bertina Kreshpaj, Virginia Gunn, Christer Hogstedt, Nuria Matilla-Santander, Patricia O’Campo, Cecilia Orellana Pozo, David H Wegman and Theo Bodin
Additional contact information
Carin HÃ¥kansta: Unit of Occupational Medicine, Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden; Department of Working Life Science, Karlstad Business School, Karlstad University, Sweden
Maria Albin: Unit of Occupational Medicine, Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden; Centre for Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Stockholm Region, Sweden
Bertina Kreshpaj: Unit of Occupational Medicine, Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden; Section of Epidemiology, Department of Public Health, Copenhagen University, Denmark
Virginia Gunn: Unit of Occupational Medicine, Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden; Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, Unity Health Toronto, Canada; Cape Breton University, Sydney, Canada
Christer Hogstedt: Unit of Occupational Medicine, Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden
Nuria Matilla-Santander: Unit of Occupational Medicine, Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden
Patricia O’Campo: Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, Unity Health Toronto, Canada
Cecilia Orellana Pozo: Unit of Occupational Medicine, Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden
David H Wegman: University of Massachusetts, Lowell, USA; La Isla Foundation, Washington DC, USA
Theo Bodin: Unit of Occupational Medicine, Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden; Centre for Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Stockholm Region, Sweden

Economic and Industrial Democracy, 2024, vol. 45, issue 1, 29-56

Abstract: The aim of this case study was to explore the abilities and limitations of trade unions in their response to undeclared work, which has received scant attention in research on working conditions and industrial relations. The authors use power resource theory to examine the outcome of a Swedish government initiative aimed to boost the ability of the social partners to tackle undeclared work. The findings confirm previous literature suggesting cross-sectoral differences in the extent and nature of undeclared work and an association between low levels of power resources and high risk of undeclared work. The authors recommend that future initiatives take account of cross-sectoral differences in the nature and extent of undeclared work and available power resources. Future research should consider how different actors can contribute to the ability of the social partners in different sectors to engage in the battle against undeclared work.

Keywords: Non-standard employment; power resource theory; precarious employment; undeclared work; workplace exclusion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0143831X221131835 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:ecoind:v:45:y:2024:i:1:p:29-56

DOI: 10.1177/0143831X221131835

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Economic and Industrial Democracy from Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().