The Decline of Union Power-Structural Inevitability or Policy Choice?

In progressive legal discourse, the idea of labour solidarity has lost a good deal of critical purchase, as the contemporary focus on group identity and cultural differences have replaced an earlier preoccupation with class conflict. This chapter concentrates on the extent to which the decline in trade union power can be considered a 'natural' consequence of current economic developments. It concludes that the political and legal policies of individual nation-states have had a considerably greater impact on union power than is generally recognized, thus suggesting that collective labour strategies can be significantly enhanced or inhibited by particular legal regimes.