IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ecoind/v45y2024i2p530-555.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Conditions for cross-professional union coalition-building: When enough is enough, but solidarity also has its limits!

Author

Listed:
  • Nana Wesley Hansen

    (FAOS Employment Relations Research Centre, Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark)

  • Nick Krachler

    (King’s Business School, King’s College London, UK)

Abstract

Competition between unions whose membership has different skills and professionalization levels is a long-standing issue in the labour movement. This article investigates the conditions for why and how a unique cross-professional coalition of all Danish public-sector unions developed between 2017 and 2018. Operating in a favourable context, unions overcame professionalization differences when skilled brokers primed a common instrumental base as other unionists used a public interest frame to legitimate the coalition and its demands ideologically. However, once the common instrumental concern was met, the coalition collapsed. The article argues that union coalition-building depends on multiple factors comprising both contextual, and identity and relational conditions. The article further argues that adopting a framing that focuses on the public interest over professional self-interest helps to successfully overcome professional cleavages.

Suggested Citation

  • Nana Wesley Hansen & Nick Krachler, 2024. "Conditions for cross-professional union coalition-building: When enough is enough, but solidarity also has its limits!," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 45(2), pages 530-555, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ecoind:v:45:y:2024:i:2:p:530-555
    DOI: 10.1177/0143831X231173462
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0143831X231173462
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0143831X231173462?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:ecoind:v:45:y:2024:i:2:p:530-555. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ekhist.uu.se/english.htm .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.