Gumbrell-McGormick and Hyman's "Trade Unions in Western Europe" is not a textbook about national industrial relations systems, but a research monograph about the ‘hard choices' European unions face. The authors identify the challenges that unions face in these times of crisis and then review...

This article uses case study data from a major Irish city council to investigate and explain public sector worker attitudes towards social partnership at local and national level. It is argued that the more sceptical attitudes to workplace partnership reflect structural differences between local...

In April 2000, a statutory National Minimum Wage was introduced in Ireland, at around 55% of the average industrial wage. This development is notable for a number of reasons: first, the statutory minimum wage seems to contradict the voluntarist tradition of Irish industrial relations where the...

This introductory article to the special issue proposes a more encompassing view of transnational collective action in Europe, which goes beyond the classical, country by-country oriented, comparative industrial relations approach. Instead, we propose an extension of focus to capture also other...

Until very recently, European employers and political leaders denied the need for any coordination in industrial relations at EU level. In 2011 however, the European Parliament and the Council adopted a new European economic governance regime that makes EU member states' labor policies subject...

The Republic of Ireland belongs – together with the UK and Sweden – to the group of initially only three EU member states that did not impose any restrictions on the free movement of workers from the eight new central and east European EU member states in 2004. Following this, a number of...

Industrial relations scholars have argued that east-west labour migration may benefit trade unions in Central and Eastern Europe. By focusing on the distributional aspect of wage policies adopted by two competing Romanian trade unions in the health care sector, this article challenges the...

The economic and financial crisis has discredited the idea of a self-regulating market. Yet, it remains to be seen what measures society will be taking to protect itself against future fall outs of global markets. There is a growing consensus that the economy needs to be governed by tighter...

Since the revitalisation of the European integration process by the Delors Commission, European institutions have been encouraging social dialogue and the emergence of a European system of industrial relations. The Barroso Commission's response to the Eurozone crisis is a source of concern for...

European labour movements are under severe pressure as a result of the global financial and Eurozone crises but to what extent have relations of transnational solidarity been established in this process? This essay will assess the response of European labour movements to the Eurozone crises and...