Trade union organising and white-collar workers in the manufacturing sector: A comparative analysis of three European countries

This article analyses working conditions and attitudes of white-collar workers in the manufacturing sector as well as the efforts of trade unions to organise this group of employees in three European countries – Finland, France and Germany. Organising white-collar workers has become a major issue for manufacturing trade unions because of their growing proportion in the sector’s workforce. The study is based on an analysis of European secondary data sets, a survey on white-collar attitudes and, finally, on workshops with trade unionists in the countries investigated. Although white-collar workers traditionally are said to be reluctant to join trade unions, ambivalence towards their working conditions and rather positive assessments of trade unions offer some starting points for organising. Trade unions have developed different activities to organise white-collar workers, which are closely related to the different institutional and organisational conditions in which they operate. These activities still lack strategic decisions to prioritise white-collar organising.