Understanding union power: resources and capabilities for renewing union capacity

Christian Lévesque and Gregor Murray
Additional contact information
Christian Lévesque: Professor, HEC Montréal and Co-Director, Interuniversity Research Centre on Globalization and Work (CRIMT) Email: Christian.Levesque@hec.ca
Gregor Murray: Professor, École de relations industrielles, Université de Montréal, Canada Research Chair on Globalization and Work, Director, Interuniversity Research Centre on Globalization and Work (CRIMT) Email: Gregor.Murray@umontreal.ca

Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, 2010, vol. 16, issue 3, 333-350

Abstract: Power is at the core of current debates over the future of trade unionism. This article provides a framework to assess the power resources and strategic capabilities central to union capacity building. We identify four key power resources: internal solidarity; network embeddedness; narrative resources that frame understandings and union actions; and infrastructural resources (material, human, processes, policies and programmes). Resources alone are not enough; unions must also be capable of using them. We identify four strategic capabilities: intermediating between contending interests to foster collaborative action and to activate networks; framing; articulating actions over time and space; and learning. Much experimentation and research on the interactions between these resources and capabilities in particular contexts is required to advance our understanding of the renewal of union power.

Keywords: Union power; power resources; strategic capabilities; deliberative vitality; framing; learning; globalization; union renewal (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (31)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1024258910373867 (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:treure:v:16:y:2010:i:3:p:333-350

DOI: 10.1177/1024258910373867

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().