The Shifting Boundaries of Labor Politics: New Directions for Comparative Research & Theory (WPS 44,...

8/4/2019 The Shifting Boundaries of Labor Politics: New Directions for Comparative Research & Theory (WPS 44, 1994) Richard Locke & Kathleen Thelen.

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The Shifting Boundaries of Labor Politics: New Directions for Comparative Research and Theory by Richard Locke Massachusetts Institute of Technology

andKathleen Thelen Princeton University Worldng Paper Series #44

Paper prepared for the 98th Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C.September 2-5, 1993. Draft: August 25, 1993. Please do not cite or circulate without permission from the authors.

AbstractThis paper begins with a discussion of two major, alternative approaches to the study of labor inthe advanced capitalist countries: the institutionalist perspective (which builds on the work ofSuzanne Berger, Peter Hall, Peter Katzenstein, and Wolfgang Streeck, among others), and the"political constructionist perspective (associated with Michael Piore, Charles Sabel, RobertoUnger, and Jonathan Zeitlin, among others). Although these are typically characterized ascompeting approaches in the literature, this paper explores the complementary contributions thetwo perspectives might make to a more synthetic and comprehensive understanding ofcontemporary labor politics. By combining insights derived from both approaches, we arrive ata rather unconventional approach to contemporary labor research. Rather than comparingstructurally analogous or functionally equivalent cases, as in traditional labor scholarship, welayout a research strategy based on what we call "contextualized comparisons" anddemonstrate the unique contribution it can make to comparative labor research.


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The Shifting Boundaries of Labor .Politics: . New Directions for Comparative Researcb and Theoryl

IntroductionDramatic losses in membership and faltering political power indicate that labor unions

in just about every advanced industrial nation need to change i f they are to remain viableinstitutions. Everywhere unions are wrestling with strained internal relations and an apparentinability to organize workers in the new sectors of the economy; increased isolation andineffective strategies in the political arena; and confused or contradictory behavior (futileintransigence alternating with passive resignation) in the face of radical changes in theeconomy.

Changing conditions of world competition and t e c h n o l o g i ~ innovation have spurredincreasing numbers of individual firms as well as entire industries to restructure. Those thatfail to adjust often c 1 o s e ~ These developments, in tBrn. have put pressure on firms toredesign work practices and hence redefine their relationship to the unions. In someindustries and firms. ~ o r k reorganization and new forms of labor-management interactionhave emerged while in some other cases change has been opposed and innovation stalled.Everywhere unions are debating alternative strategic responses to industrial adjustment. Thisdebate has not only pit "intransigent" worker groups against more "cooperative" ones but alsothreatens to undermine all attempts at sectoral. let alone national union strategy and collectivebargaining. In addition, behind all these various voices lies much uncertainty as to what will

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happen to workers expelled from restructurecJ firms and what role (if any) unions will playboth at the micro-level, within these reorganized firms and industries, and at the macro-Ievel,in an economy characterized by growing unemployment and stagnant real wages.

Unked to labor's need to redefine its role in the economy is a second major challengeconcerning its strategies in the political arena. The collapse of the "postwar consensus" thatexisted between organized labor and busiD.ess in much of Western Europe is no longer news.Over the last decade, parties closely allied with the labor movement have either disintegratedor suffered repeated electoral setbacks. As a result, organized labor has found itselfincreasingly isolated (i.e., treated as a "special interest") in the political sphere. After yearsof d e b a t e ~ which alternated between intraorganizational power struggles/purges and desperateattempts to repackage labor parties so that they might appear more "centrist f or"mainstream," it has become increasingly clear that the labor movement must reformulate itspolitical project. This, in turn, will require the development of alternative political a l l i a n c ~ , .a rehauling of party structures and p e r s o n n e l ~ and a redefinition of the political division oflabor between unions and political parties.

These political and economic shifts leave unions facing an array of new strategicissues but without the support or guidance provided previously by. traditionalpolitica1Jideological categories and alliances. As a result, unions have engaged in a series ofdebates and experiments over how best to organize themselves in the new political economy.At fIrSt glance, it might appear as i f these internal det>ates center around straightforward (butby no means simple) organi7.ational questions: How to organize new workers withnon-traditional demands and identities? How to reallocate rights and responsibilities between

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'. Iunion leaders and rank-and-file workers or between national unions and their locals? How toadjudicate between different national industry unions with increasingly overlappingjurisdictional boundaries? But closer examination reveals that what is really up for discussionis the basic identity of the unions themselves. At a time when unions are often called upon toaid firms in their competitive struggles, when functional distinctions between "blue" and"white" collar workers or manual and supervisory jobs are blmring, and when rank-and-fileworkers worry as much about extra-firm issues (e.g., health care costs, day carearrangements) as traditional workplace claims, it is easy to see bow the basic functions andbence identity of unions are being rapidly redefined.

These three developments form the empirical backdrop for unions as they struggle toremain viable institutions, but also for students of labor as they attempt to comprehend thestrategic dilemmas and opportunities labor now faces. We will revisit the question of unionstrategies briefly in the conclusion, but om main concern in this paper is the theoreticalproblems these recent trends create for om traditional understanding of labor politics. Inparticular, we focus on two alternative approaches to the study of labor that we believecontain key insights into the contemporary period. The first, an institutional approacb, viewslabor's current problems as emanating from recent efforts by employers to enhance theircompetitiveness by renegotiating previously stable institutional arrangements. The secondapproach, what we call "political constructionism, . views labor's difficulties in terms ofbroader changes in the socioeconomic context in which unions are embedded: These shiftshave rekindled questions about the organizational boundaries and identities of the unionsthemselves.

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The two approaches around which we have organized this essay certainly do notexhaust the full range of alternative perspectives available in the literature today. Moreoverboth the institutionalist and the political constructionist approaches themselves oweconsiderable intellectual debts to a number of other t h e o r i e s ~ past and present.2 Our purposein singling out these two approaches for closer examination is not to belittle the conbibutionof the a l t e m a t i v e s ~ nor to minimize the debts these two approaches owe to others. Ouragenda, rather, is to explore the complementary conbibutions these two perspectives, whichare seen in much of the literature as competing, might make to a more synthetic andcomprehensive understanding of contemporary labor politics.

By combining insights derived from both perspectives, we arrive at a rathet:unconventional approach to contemporary labor research. Rather than comparing structurallyanalagous or functionally equivalent c a s e s ~ as in ttaditionallabor scholarship, we Jay out aresearch strategy based on what we can "contextua)jzed comparisons" ~ demonstrate theunique contribution it can make to comparative Jabor research. By pushing the core categories

. .of institutional analysis, contextuaJized comparisons show how common internationalpressures are refracted into divergent struggles over particular national practices. Yet by alsodrawing on the insights of the political constructionist approach, we show how despiteobvious differences in the "fault lines", or the particular national locus of conflict, there arenonetheless substantive similarities across these diverse cases that neither approach alonecould have captured.

The remainder of this paper is divided into three sections. The first section comparesthe theoretical assumptions underlying both approaches and assesses their relative strengths

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and weaknesses. The following section lays out the logic of "contextualized comparisons,"and shows how this approach builds on the insights of the other two schools. The finalsection of the essay applies this alternative research strategy, comparing key developments inSweden, Italy, and the United States. Struggles over solidaristic wage policies, themobile (a cost of living adjustment escalator), and work reorganization are analyzedr e s p ~ v e l y in the three countries in order to show bow these otherwise different strugglesnonetheless express substantially similar dilemmas fOJ' the labor movements in the threecountries considered. The paper concludes by pondering the significance of this alternativeapproach for future comparative labor research and union strategy.

Two Alternative Approaches to the Study of LaborInstitutionalism and political constructionism represent two prominent approaches to

the study of labor in advanced capitalism. The institutional approach to the study of labor .fits into a b.roader literature in political science that emphasizes the role of historicallyevolved institutional arrangements in shaping political outcomes.:3 Institutions are importantto labor outcomes because they shape the goals that labor and capital pursue, and structuretheir strategic interactions. Thus, labor scholars ~ o r k i n g in this traditio!) emphasize theinstitutional context of labor politics, including the organizational characteristics of unionsand business, the leg3:1 framework of industrial relations, and links to the state."Institutionalists most often focus on persistent differences in labor outcomes across countries,showing how nationally distinctive institutional configurations mediate the effects of common

. international pressures very differently.

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Within the labor scholarship, as in the institutionalist literature m ( j r ~ generally, thereare important variations on the institutionalist argument. For some authors institutions simplydefine the strategic context by establishing particular opportunities and constraints, bestowiDgorganizational resources, and structuring sttategic interactionss. Others are more explicit inproblematizing the question of preference formation, illusttating how institutions affect theway in which actors understand their interests, shape how problems are conceived (and evenwhat is conceived as a problem), and define the range of solutions consideret1. An exampleof the former is Ellen Immergut's work on health policy. In her model, political actors"fonnulate their goals, ideas, and desires independently from the institutions. The institutionsbecome relevant only in strategic calculations about the best way to advance a given interestwithin a particular system" .7 An illusttation of the alternative, more expansive, view of theimpact of institutions can be found in Peter Hall's work: on policy paradigms. For Hall,institutions "contribute to the very terms in which the interests of critical political actors areconstructed" 1

An alternative perspective is represented in the work of a number of scholars whosework emphasizes the political construction of the identities and sttategies of economic actorsand the "embeddedness" of institutional arrangements. Within this second approach, there isalso considerable variety, and here too, the labor literature draws on a broader intellectualtradition, represented in the work, among others, of Roberto Unger, Joan Scott, WilliamSewell, Horst Kern, and Jonathan Zeitlin'. In contemporary U.S. labor scholarship, thisperspective owes a particular intellectual debt to Michael Piore and Charles Sabel but is

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Irepresented as well in the work of Gary Herrigel, Victoria Hattam, Gerald Berk, and RichardLocke. o

In contrast to the institutionalists, scholars working out of this alternative paradigmtend to emphasize political processes and the discursive nature of social relations rather thanformal structures. Accounts emanating from this second school focus on the identities,"worldviews", and "cognitiVf, maps" of the actors rather than simply their "interests." Sinceidentities are forged out of social experience and political c o n f l i ~ these analyses emphasizehistorical contingency, strategic choice, culture, and the plasticity of institutionalarrangements in explaining labor outcomes. Political constructionists draw attention to theway that the social, political, and cultural context affects the way that the formal institutionsoperate. Victoria Hattam's work on the role of the courts in regulating American unions, forexample, illustrates how the capacities of the very same institutions can vary considerablydepending upon the social and cultural context within which they are embedded. I This isone reason why political constructionists, in contrast to institutionalists, concentrate less oncross-national differences and more on persistent regional and local variation in laboroutcomes within the same national settings.

At one level, differences between these two perspectives might be seen asprimarily a matter of emphasis, with institutionalists focussing more on cross-nationalcomparisons and the institutional context of politics, and political constructionists emphasizingregional differences and the political context of institutions. On closer inspection, however,it is clear that the differences in emphasis are systematic and are driven by alternative views

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about the role and stability of institutions, the coherence of national systems, and the natureof political-economic development.Institutional Fixity ys. Malleability

Institutionalism in all its guises emphasizes theways in which institutional arrangementsshape political behavior. The institutions are of course themselves political creations:constructed, renegotiated, and transformee. through political conflict. However, onceestablished, institutions affect political outcomes by defining the strategic options available topolitical actors and by mediating political conflict among them. A good example of thisapproach is Lowell Turner 's Democracy at Work, which uncovers substantial differences inthe ability of American and


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, ,In this view outcomes are inherently open-ended, especially during '"critical junctures"or moments of transition. A good example of this kind of argument is Charles Sabel's lYQrkand Politicsu , which traces how workplace conflicts in Europe in, the late 19608 and early1970s facilitated the formation of unlikely coalitions of workers which succeeded intransforming the institutional context of labor relations in several national contexts.According to Sabel, these workplace struggles were motivated as much ( if not more) byconsiderations of group dignity and justice than calculations of economic self-interest orrational responses to institutional incentives.

The De&ree of Coherence of National Systemslnstitutionalist often situate their accounts of labor politics within broader analyses of

the key institutional arrangements of different national systems. Moving beyond meredescriptions of the organizational attributes of labor and capital, these accounts seek toillustrate how the institutional landscape as a whole - including the legal framework,financial system, and methods of training of different countries - contribute to the observedpatterns of labor politics. This approach t;hus often depicts the different' pieces of a politicaleconomy as fitting together as a more or less coherent national systeml3 This explains whythis literature tends to focus heavily on cross-national comparisons that highlight the effects ofdifferent national institutional arrangements on labor outcomes. Such comparisons, in turn,have become the basis for midrange theorizing and more general propositions about theinstitutional foundations of relative labor success and failure in the face of particularinternational pressures. 14

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. ,In contrast, political constructionists view national models as "complex and contingent

historical constructions whose unity and coherence ..vary across time and space" IS In otherwords, national political economies are not coherent systems but rather incoherent compositesof diverse sub-national patterns which co-exist (often uneasily) within the same nationalterritory.16Because they view national institutions as functioning quite differently in differentsocial and political contexts, political constructionists have difficulty discerning distinctnational models or even modal patterns of labor politics across countries. This explains whymany of these analyses emphasize the wide array of different political and economic patternsobserved either over time or across space (at the local or regional level) within the samenational borders.Alternative Views of Political Deve1Qpment

Finally, and in line with the premises sketched out above, historical institutionaliststend to view political development as a "path dependent" process. At CJjtical junctures in acountry's political-economic development, a wide range of options may be possible but , as

. .Krasner puts it, once a path is taken this "canalizes future developments. "17 Institutions arethe organizational legacy of past struggles between labor and management that constrainfuture strategies. The idea is that historical divergences.inthe political-institutionaldevelopment of different nations will produce systematic differences in political outcomes,and that "critical junctures" are important in sending countries down different institutionaltrajectories that have enduring consequences for labor outcomes.

The model of political development implicit in the work of political constructionists isquite different in that it emphasizes instead "suppressed historical alternatives. "18 Like

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Ihistorical institutionalists, political constructionists pay special attention to critical "turningpoints" in a country's history, but they do so for very different r e a s o n s ~ The historicalinstitutionalist is interested primarily in explaining the winning coalition and the politics thatproduced the dominant institutional patterns in different countries. In contrast, politicalconstructionists pay far greater attention to the "failed alternatives. I These are importantprecisely because the triumph of the dominant model is only ever partial. The "aefeated"alternatives in fact live on, and they continue to be relevant not just as anachronisticcuriosities, but because they constitute real alternatives that have the capacity to influencecontemporary outcomes. l'

. Both of these approaches dispute teleological arguments which posit universalconvergence on "most efficient" organizational forms.lO In fact both do so by invoking thefamiliar "branching tree" metaphor. But the similarity is partly superficial, because scholarsfrom the two schools tend to use the same metaphor in the service of quite differentarguments.. For institutionalists, the different branches result from the "canalization" processmentioned above. That is, the point of the metaphor is to emphasize how cross-nationaldifferences in institutional arrangements reflect but also reinforce divergent political-economictrajectories. For political constructionists, by contrast, the branches represent the variety ofpolitical forms that persist within countries (despite common institutional arrangements).Some branches may be more dominant than others at certain times, but a shift in environmentmay alter established growth patterns. Changes in the availability of light could lead stropgerbranches to wither, weaker ones to thrive, and even entirely new branches to sprout. The

. point of the metaphor from this perspective is not to show how difficult it is to move from

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one brancb to another. On the contrary: the brancbes represent the possibility for temporarily"suppressed alternative" social and political arrangements to live on.

In the end, then, both institutionalists and political constructionists have offered strongrefutation of convergence theories, though based on somewhat different premises.Institutionalists have emphasized the stickiness of national institutions, and showed how theycontinue to mediate the effects of common international pressures in ways that sustainnationally distinctive patterns. Political constructionists subscribe to an even more radicalanti-convergence theory, for they focus on differences in longstanding historical traditions notjust across but also within countries, and they also posit that these traditions would continueto mediate political outcomes even i f the institutions themselves were to converge.Toward a More Synthetic AJIproacb

Both these persepctives have yielded insightful analyses of the historical developmentof labor movements and of contemporary trends and outcomes. In particular, historicalinstitutional analyses have given us persuasive accounts of policy continuities within countriesover time and persistent cross-national differences. Political constructionists, for their part,have directly confronted regional and historical variations and discontinuities, tracing these tosignificant differences in the underlying political and social dynamics that affect bow formalinstitutions operate.

At the same time, eacb approach bas. its own characteristic weaknesses. First, theinstitutional approach bas been criticized for tendencies toward a kind of structuraldeterminism, creating the impression that political outcomes can simply be "read off' thenational institutional arrangements.11 The focus on dominant national institutional

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arrangements obscures regional and sectoral variation, and .blends out phenomena that do notappear to fit conventional characterizations of dominant national pattenis. Such phenomenaare coded as "local variation" or sometimes simply as deviations from the dominant nationaltheme. Second, focusing as it does on the effects of "sticky" institutional arrangements,historical institutionalism often produces rather static accounts of political phenomena thatobscure change within countries over time. Both of these criticisms are in fact related to thepractice in much of the historical-institutional literature of abstracting crucial elements ofspecific cases or clusters of cases and using ideal-typical constructions derived in this way as

the basis for cross-national comparisons (e.g., Zysman's "market led" versus "state led"systems; Soskice's "coordinated" versus "non-coordinated" market systems; but also - morenarrowly - the "Swedish model"). While such abstractions facilitate midrange cross-nationalresearch and theorizing, they often impose an artificial coberence on individual countriesacross time and space.

The characteristic weaknesses of political constructionist accounts are the mirror i ~ a g e of those of the institutionalist approach. If the latter overemphasizes structural constraints,the former exaggerates contingency. Historical studies that resuscitate lost "alternativepathways" have been ~ t i c i z e d as unconvincing in establishing that these "suppressed"alternatives were truly viable in the first place and, especially, in demonstrating that theycontinue to be relevant to contemporary political outcome? Wbere institutionalists tend toobscure regional and local variation, political constructionists sometimes overemphasize localdifferences and draw broad conclusions from peripheral or isolated cases. Finally, and mostgenerally, the work of political constructionists is sometimes perceived as atheoretical or even

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Idismissed as storytelling. The emphasis on the inherent open-endedness of political outcomeshas produced extremely interesting accounts of the interaction of political and institutionalforces in particular cases. However ,. attempts at broader cross-national theorizing frequently.slip back into the stylized accounts set forth by the institutionalists.

In our view, the best work in labor scholarship has always drawn insights, if onlyimplicitly, from both schools. Although our own work, individually, flows from the twodifferent traditions, we are convinced that labor scholarship can be enriched by a moresystematic attempt to understand the connections between the two. A more syntheticperspective is desirable for theoretical reasons, especially to forge a midd1e ground betweenthe determinism of the more structural approach (which often implies that outcomes can bededuced from the institutions) and the excessive fluidity of political constructionism (whichoften implies that virtually everything is possible at any given moment).

A more synthetic view is also cal1ed for on empirical grounds. Tbe institutionalapproach as a whole was constructed around artifacts abstracted from various cases (e.g,"corporatism" or even the "Swedish model"). These were brilliant artifacts, but the empiricalreality, as pointed out above, is that previously stable systems of labor relations are currentlyundergoing tremendous strain and change.24 Under these circumst;ances, the problem ofstatic analytic categories becomes quite severe, as the real existing systems from which wewere abstracting undergo transformation. Related to this, the emphasis in historicalinstitutionalism on cross-national variation often obSCl,U'es the considerable subnational varietyand experimentation currently under way within all national industrial relations systems. Asthe present appears to be a moment of rather significant institutional innovation and change,

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the possibility for cross-fertilization between the two approaches seems"great, with 'elementsof a political constructionist approach constimting a necessary complement to the instimtionalperspective.

It is beyond the scope of this essay to propose a full synthesis. Instead, we will layout a framework to facilitate a more fruitful conversation between the two perspectives. Theframework we propose builds on common ground between the two approaches, in particulartheir mutual skepticism regarding cross-national convergence, but it also draws selectively onthe particular insights each has to offer. The approach we layout below revolves around"contexmalized comparisons" which can provide a basis for understanding both cross-nationaland subnational variation in industrial adjustment and labor politics. From the instimtionalistswe take the idea that differences in national instimtional arrangements will refract commoninternational forces very differently, and show how conflicts between labor and capital overdecentralization and flexibility have come to focus on different substantive issues in differentnational contexts. However, drawing on the insights of political constructionism, we thenpoint out unexpected parallels across a ~ g of apparently very dissimilar cases by showinghow these different struggles all touch on core questions regarding the future shape and roleof unions within their r ~ " t i v e political economies.

Contextualized Comparisons as an Altemative FrameworkCommon challenges (e.g., changing conditions of international competition, massive

industrial change, pressures for a decentralization of bargaining and increased wflexibility")confront labor movements in all advanced industrial states. But these common pressures

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manifest themselves very differently across nations due to differences in institutional "startingpoints" (e.g., the degree to which bargaining arrangements were centralized or decentralizedto begin with or to what extent existing work practices were already "flexible") and to theway different institutional arrangements refract common pressures into divergent strugglesover specific practices.

For example, although countries as diverse as Sweden, the United States, andGermany have all experienced pressures to decentralize bargaining arrangements,decentralization means very different things in these three national contexts. In Sweden,decentralization refers to the breakdown of national (solidaristic) wage deals; in Germany, tothe revision 'of multi-industry bargaining arrangements; and in the United States to. abreakdown of industry-wide contracts. Even after the recent wave of decentralization,bargaining arrangements in Sweden and Germany are still more coordinated than they everwere in the United States. Our point here is that while it is in some accurate to speakof a widespread trend toward decentralization, it is not particularly useful to leave the

. .analysis at that. If we want to understand the significance particular changes have for labor,we must attend to the very different "starting points" in different countries.

We must also pay attention to the way different institutional arrangements filtercommon pressures and translate them into specific domestic struggles. The "search forflexibility"lS in fact refers to a bundle of alternative arrangements involving workorganization, working hours, compensation schemes, and overall employment levels. Whilethese changes are more or less the same cross-nationally, their valence is quite varied in thedifferent national contexts. That is, because employers encounter different rigidities in

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different countries some challenges will be more problematic than others in terms of laborpolitics. For example, employer efforts to reorganize work on the shop floor are stronglyresisted by unions in the United States since they undermine narrow job definitions with theirrelated wage, seniority, and security provisions - practices tbat represent the institutionalanchors for labor's rights within the firm. In Germany, however, where employmentsecurity and union strength are not dependent upon shop floor practices like job control,workers and their unions welcome changes to upgrade their skills and enhance theirautonomy. Conversely, American employers have traditionally enjoyed substantial flexibilty

in wages and employment compared to many European countries, but the drive foremployment flexibility -in Germany and for wage flexibility in Sweden have produced majornew conflicts between labor and capital since the late 19708.

In this way, an institutional perspective can help us identify differences in theparticular "fault lines" that open up in different countries exposed to common internationalforces. These different fault lines point out what the relevant institutional "sticking point" orlocus of conflict between labor and capital will be in a particular country. Applying aninstitutional analysis in this way pushes beyond the conventional practice of comparingapparently similar changes (e.g., the reorganization of work on the shop.floor) acrosscountries and attributing varying degrees of labor success primarily to different nationalinstitutional a r r a n g ~ ~ . Such studies g i v ~ the impression that they are comparing

"apples with apples". However, given the different starting points and varying degrees ofvalence different issues possess in different national" industrial relations systems, they are in

. fact comparing substantially different phenomena. While illuminating certain features of

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Inational institutions and their impact on political outcomes, these studies at the same timesystematically obscure how these institutions actually translate common' pressures into verydifferent issues and struggles.

Putting the differences rather than the similarities at the center of the analysis not onlybrings into relief the substantive nature of specific labor conflicts; it also highlights the verydifferent meaninl or of different struggles in various contexts, and this is where apolitical constructionist perspective comes in. To return to the previous examples, for apolitical constructionist the significance of the restructuring of work rules and jobclassifications in the United States goes beyond the renegotiation of labor's institutional rightswithin the firm. These arrangements codified a set of customs and informal practices thatdefined the moral order of shopfloor relations in American companies and the unions' role inthat order. As a result, their renegotiation opens up much larger issues concerning unionidentity and the place Qf organized labor in the American political economr. Workreorganization in Germany, by contrast, has no such significant Symbolic value or "ethicalaura" for the unions. Similarly, wage flexibility does not possess the same meaning inGermany or the United States that it does in Sweden, where unions have investedconsiderable ideological and material resources into a policy of egalitarian wages, and wheresuch policies sustained a particular role for unions by legitimating a high degree oforganizational centralization within the union movement.

Beyond showing how the same issue can have very different meanings in differentcontexts, a political constructionist perspective also helps us identify unexpected parallelsacross'apparently dissimilar cases. As pointed out above, political constructionists view the

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Ipolitical economy of labor as more than just a collection of institutional arrangements, andsee unions as more than just administrators of the material interests of the working class.While focussing on specific, concrete battles, a political constructionist sees these struggles asa window on broader issues of union identities and the role of organized labor in the politicaleconomy. Adopting this theoretical lens reveals unexpected parallels between, say, the crisisof job control unionism in th ! United States and the breakdown of solidaristic wagebargaining in Sweden. Despite the obvious differences, both conflicts open up broader issuesand have set in motion a redefinition of the role of these two union movements in their

respective political economies.In sum, we too recognize the common forces at work across various countries (e.g.,

the crisis of Keynesianism, more volatile international markets, the drive for "flexibility") butwe argue that in order to understand cross-national differences in outcomes, we need to focuson the different ways these common forces present themselves in ~ f f e r e n t national, industrialand regional contexts. Putting the differences rather than the similarities at the center of theanalysis brings into relief the substantive nature of specific labor conflicts and allows us tosee how unions in various countries are engaged in struggles that while different in .appearence, are nonetheless similar in substance.

"Contextualizing" comparative analysis thus means more than being careful about ourchoice of categories or phenomena to compare; it pushes us to make radically different kinds

of comparisons. Because differences in institutional configurations refract common pressuresinto distinct domestic struggles with varying degrees of significance, perhaps it would bemore fruitful to analyze the key domestic conflicts manifest across different national contexts.

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Once we have identified the key conflicts and their significance within different nationalcontexts, the next step would be to compare these experiences across countries. At first, itmight appear as if we are comparing. "apples with oranges" since the specific struggles weanalyze are manifestly quite distinct. However, closer examination reveals how theseapparently different struggles express parallel dilemmas for the labor movements in thevarious national settings. Because. such "cootextuaJized comparisons" tap into very differentprocesses, they can add an important new dimension that more conventional "structured" or"matched" comparisons across institutionally or functionally equivalent issues cannot detect.

The following section illustrates the contribution this alternative framework can maketo the comparative study of l a ~ . In it , we examine union responses to contemporary trendsin three countries - Sweden, Italy, and the United States - but in each case attending to theway that common international pressures are mediated in distinctive ways depending on theinstitutional and political points of departure.

Industrial Restructuring and Industrial Relations: A Tale of Three CountriesIn recent years, the new terms of international competition and technological

innovation have radically altered markets and the organization of production. Thesimultaneous globalization and segmentation of national markets has rendered traditionalbusiness practices in all advanced industrial nations less effective.. Technological innovationshave not oruy shortened product life cycles but also created opportunities for firms tocompete along a variety of hew dimensions.2J

The 'break-up of national markets has spurred individual firms and even entireindustries to experiment with a variety of alternative business strategies that test and/or

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transcend traditional industrial relations. Everywhere, employers are searching for ways toenhance their "flexibility" and ability to adjust to ever more turbulent markets. But"flexibility" can be achieved in a variety of ways and along several different frontsinc1uding29:

1. Changes in the organization of work due to new technologies and moredecentralized forms of production. Linked to this are shifts in work rules,working hours and changing patterns of employee participation within the firm.

2. New compensation schemes affecting the level, structure, and forms of

compensation of both blue and white collar workers.3: Shifting patterns of skill formation, training, and career trajectories which

match the new needs of firms.4. Issues of job mobility and employment security which shape the way individual

firms and industries adjust their workforces both to more flexible productionschedules and to cyclical and structural declines in product demand.

Unpacking the concept of "flexibiUty" reveals that national industrial relations systemsdiffer along several of these dimensions as a result of different starting points and institutionallegacies. This means that common international pressures for decentralization and flexibilityset in motion fundamentally different struggles in different countries, depending on theparticular rigidities characteristic of different systems. But it also means that different

struggles across countries may in fact touch on cOmmon problems and processes.The following section sketches out the key conflicts of the 19808 and 1990s in

Sweden, Italy, and the United States. An institutional perspective can lead us to the particular

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"fault line" that has opened up in each country and show why divergent struggles overparticular practices emerged notwithstanding the common pressures facing all three countries.Then, applying the insights of the political constructionist approacb, we illustrate how theseapparently divergent events express substantially similar dilemmas for the three respectivelabor movements considered. The three key events we will consider are: the end ofcentralized solidaristic wage bargaining in Sweden, the renegotiation of the scala mobile inlta1y, and work reorganization in the United States.

The Breakdown of Centralized B;u:pinine in SwedenIn the literature on labor in advanced capitalism, Sweden bas long served 3$ a model

of labor strength. A central feature of what has been referred to as "the Swedish model" wasthe high1y centralized system of bargaining and the labor movement's policy of solidaristicwages which resulted in a substantial narrowing of wage differentials across. the nationalworkforce over the last several decades. Centralized solidaristic wage bargaining wasoriginally institutionalized in the 1950s, based on a cross-class coalition between employers inindustries exposed to international competition (interested in overall wage restraint) andunions in low pay sectors (interested in pay levelling)30. . In its original conception,solidaristic wage policy was meant to level wages within occupations across sectors. Foremployers this held out the promise not only of overall wage restraint, but also of eliminating

competition among themselves for particular categories of (skilled) workers. Unions, fortheir part, embraced the idea of equal.pay for equal work, regardless of a firm's profitabilityor position in the market.

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In the 1980s, the system of centralized solidaristic bargaining came under extremestrain, as employers withdrew support for the institutions of peak-level ' b a r g ~ g theythemselves had originally helped to construcf1 The revolt began in 1983 in the engineeringindustry, when the employers organization (at that time VF, now renamed VI) withdrew fromcentral negotiations and succeeded in striking a separate deal at the industry level with theMetalworkers' union, Metall. Since that time, the locus of bargaining has shifted severaltimes but employers are clearly intent on d.ecentralization.32 In 1990 the peak employersassociation (SAF) dismantled its own bargaining unit, making a return to traditional peaklevel bargaining impossible. Recent bargaining rounds have been conducted at the industrylevel; but leading export firms such as ABB and Volvo and key employer associations favorfurther decentralization of wage negotiations to the firm level".

Jonas Pontusson and Peter Swenson document the reasons why employers eventuallycame to reject centralized solidaristic wage bargaining.'" A key part of the story lies indevelopmeQts in bargaining in the late 19608 and early 1970s which institutionalizedinflationary pressures and thus contributed decisively to the system's breakdown. First, wageleveling within the private sector came to be extended to the lower productivity public. sector,fuelling rather than dampening inflation. Second, as mentioned above, early solidaristic wagepolicy focused only on intersectoral wage disparities and did not touch differentials betweenskilled and unskilled workers. However, new clauses in central contracts in the late 19608introduced interoccupational leveling. Employers had traditionally been able to use plantlevel wage drift to compete for scarce skilled workers, but new wage leveling clauses began

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to compensate less skilled workers for skilled workers' preyious year's wage drift. A g thenet effect was an overall, institutionalized, ratcheting up of wages.

By withdrawing from centralized bargaining, the engineering employers helped severthe link between private and public sector bargaining. In 1983, they also eliminatedcontractual provisions for interoccupational wage leveling and revamped plant wage structuresto accommodate greater differentials among blue-collar workers". Engineering employerstook the lead in 1983, but by the late 19808 the decentralizers had taken control of the peakemployers association itself. The SAF's withdrawal from key corporatist boards and,especially, the dismantling of its own bargaining unit, deprived the peak union confederation(LO) of a national-level partner. All of this signalled the end of the traditional Swedishmodel. "

From an institutional perspective, it is easy to see why the "drive for flexibility" tookthe form that it did in Sweden. I f we think through the four dimensions of flexibilitysketched out above, we can see that the Swedish system posed no major obstacles to (andmay have facilitated) work reorganintion along more flexible lines (point 1 above).36 Skills(point 3) and employment stability (point 4) were mainly a problem to the extent thatemployers found it difficult to hold onto their skilled workers in the context of both tightlabor markets and constraints on wages imposed through centralized bargaining.

Rigidities in the structure of wages, however, JM)sed significant problems for bothlabor and employers and ultimately set the stage for a cross-class re-alignment to. underminecentralized bargaining'7. As mentioned above, solidaristic wage bargaining came to fuelrather than dampen inflation. Wage rigidities posed a particular problem for export-oriented

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firms in engineering both because these firms could not pass the costs on to consumers andbecause of the problems created by competition for skilled workers amOng companies. Wagerigidities also came to be a problem for unions trying to maintain solidarity despite significantand growing differences in market conditions. Workers in engineering resisted the publicsector "pay parasites" who lived off the metalworkers' wage dri ft '. Meanwhile, at the plantlevel, skilled blue-collar workers whose wages were held back by solidaristic wage bargainingsaw their position erode compared to white-collar workers in their own plants who performedjobs very similar to their own but who were covered by separate contracts".

An institutional perspective can thus tell us why the "drive for flexibility" in Swedencame to focus on centralized l;Jargaining and solidaristic wage policy. What the politicalconstructionist perspective can add to his, however, is to illuminate how this process ofinstitutional reconfiguration also involved a redefinition of the ideational premises of unionorganiz3tion and strategies, by providing insights into the meaning of the breakdown ofcentralized bargaining for the ideology and identity of the labor movement itself.

Peter Swenson has emphasized that the political economy of markets, states, andemployers within which labor movements maneuver is connected in important ways to whathe calls a moral economy". Against rational choice approaches, he contends that workers aremotivated not just by narrow material self-interest, but also by strong norms of fairness, theviolation of which inspires protest and collective resistance. Although union leaders areconstrained in some ways by workers' ideas of fairness, unions are not passive actors butrather active agents in the moral economy. By harnessing and shaping workers' egalitariannorms, unions can also shape and direct the collective power of wage earners. In Swenson's

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words, "Unions are built in a world or morals as well as one of markets and politics, andthey help shape that w o r l d " ~ .

Viewed from this perspective; the "Swedish model" was defmed by more than just aparticular organizational configuration. What set the country apart from most other capitalistsocieties is the unusually encompassing base of solidarity that unions were able toinstitutionalize and maintain. Solidaristic wages played a key role in this process, for throughits wage policy the LO was able not only to secure centralized control over its constitUentsbut also to harness and stretch the limits of workers' norms of fairness"l. In doing so, theunion "(set) the ideological terms of debate at an unusually egalitarian level"42.

But if the concept of solidarity helPed to anchor the social and political power ofSweden's unions, its evolution a1so contributed to the strains that ultimately brought thesystem down. As originally conceived, solidaristic wage bargaining was intended to equalizewages across firms within the private sector only, on the principle of "equal pay for equalwork" regardless of a company's performance in the market. However, the aVailability of"solidarity" and "egalitarianism" as legitimating principles opened the dOOr for other groups,excluded from the original solidarity policy, to press new ~ l a i m s on the u n i o ~ . Unionleaders found it difficult to resist the claims of these groups (who yielded considerable powerwithin the organization) by imposing limits on solidarity. Thus, solidarity wages came to bee to a widening circle of groups in the 19608 and 19708, including public sectorworkers and less skilled workers in both the public and private sectors.

The inclusion of these groups generated new tensions within the labor movement. Asmentioned above, private sector workers resented the ability of public sector workers to

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"piggy back" on the wage drift that workers in manufacturing were able to win throughproductivity increases. In addition, solidaristic wage policy increased teDsions between whiteand blue collar workers, who in Sweden are organized into different confederations. The LOwas able to reduce the differentials among manual workers, but it could not directly regulatedifferences between its own members and those in the white-collar confederation, TCQ44.Tensions rose as technological changes and work reorganization in the 19808 blurred thedistinction between white and blue collar work, so that highly skilled blue collar workerswere sometimes performing tasks quite similar to that done by members of the white collarunion, but at a much lower rate of paYS.

Recent debates within the LO can be read as attempts to recast the concept pfsolidarity to deal with these tensions. The LO's new policy of solidaristic:wm:k forsolidaristic wages, for example, represents a clear retreat from general wage leveling and areturn to the emphasis on what they call "equal pay for equivalent w o r k ~ w ~ c h explicitlyaccepts and even emphasizes the idea of bigher remuneration for jobs involving higher skillsand experience.46 Clearly, one of the goals is to reduce the wage gap between white and bluecollar workers by allowing for greater differentiation between skilled and less skilled blue

. collar jobs:"The LO insists that the new policy does not represent a retreat from the principle of

solidarity, only its adaptation to changed circumstances and new problems: "The two mainprinciples of the wage policy of solidarity - equal pay for equivalent work and reduced wagedifferentials -- are [ ..) as pertitent today as ever before ... However, the shift in theemphasis and the meaning of solidarity is unmistakable.

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The scala mobile in ItalyOver the last two decades, the single most important and contentious ~ in Italian

industrial relations has been the scala mobile. Introduced initially in the national contracts of1945 and 1946, the scala mobile is a ~ s t of living adustment escalator aimed at safeguardingworkers' real wages against inflation. Price increases are periodically calcuJated in relation toan "average" working-class family's "shopping basket" of goods. An increase in the cost ofthe basket translates automatically into a proportional rise in workers' wages.

In 1975, in an attempt to moderate labor conflict, control inflation, and recast Italianindustrial relations along more stable lines, Italy's leading business association, Coofindustria,and the major union confederations (CGIL, ClSL, UIL) negotiated an accord which enhancedthe scala mobile's benefits, especially for lower-paid, semi-skilled workers. The main aspects.of this accord were a 100% indexation49 of the scala mobile and a secondary agreementguaranteeing 80% of workers' wages in the event of lay-offs. Together, these ~ v i $ i o n s would p r o ~ d e industrial workers in Italy with significant wage guarantees against both highinflation and radical restructuring. Confindustria hoped this accord would also shift the centerof gravity in bargaining to the national level, and in doing so also shift union power awayfrom the militant industrial unions to the more moderate peak-level confederations.

Initially, it appeared as if the accord would provide benefits for both sides. For theunions, it not only pI"9teCted workers in their already established bastions (primarily large,well-organized plants in the North) but also extended this bargain to workers in smaller, lessorganized plants. Together with the inquadramentO uoico (unification of blue and white

. collar job classifications), the scala mobile agreement defined Italian union strategy for over a

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decade. Major Italian firms gained as well. Compensation for price increases would be paidby large firms in any event (because of strong union presence within their plants), and theagreement imposed the same terms on smaller, potential competitors. Moreover, by removingdisputes over price increases, this accord would eliminate a primary source of conflict withinlarge plants, therefore reducing the power of the factory councils as well!O.

But thert: was also an ideological component to the 1975 accord. For the unions, theegalitarianism of the scala mobile accord, like the inqpadramento unico, resonated with thegoals and achievements of the "hot autumn" that had brought skilled and unskilled workerstogether to seek radical change in labor politics'l. For Confindustria, the aim was to create aprivileged sector of industrial workers with job and wage security who would see the longtenn benefits of moderation in terms of increased real wages and better working conditionsand who could also be enlisted in the private sector's fight against the inefficient and bloatedpubic secto..,2.

In short, Confindustria hoped to accomplish several things with this one sweepingagreement. First, like its Swedish counterpart in the 19308, it hoped that ibis agreementwould simultaneously bring about the centralization and domestication of the Italian unionmovement. By shifting the center of gravity of bargaining to the more moderateconfederations, and by taking price increases and job security out of the bargaining arena, it

hoped to restructure Italian industrial relations along more predictable and quiescent lines.Second, this centralization of wages would also, in the long-run, enhance the competitivenessof Italian exports by tying wages in the export-oriented industrial sector to moderate priceincreases in the Italian economy as a whole". Finally, by enlisting the industrial working

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class into a "producerS alliance" against the public sector, ConfindiSUja was sending a clearsignal to the Italian state that it was prepared to do battle i f the government continued toencroach on its terrain.

Yet this effort at controlling price increases and moderating labor relations throughindexation backfired in several ways. First, due to Italy's high inflation rates, the 1975agreement over wage indexation gained massive weight in the determination of wages. By theearly 19808, it was estimated that the scala mobile accounted for over 60 percent of annualwage increases. This oot only caused problems for management, which had to pay for theseincreases, but also for the unions whose control over wage determination through collectivebargaining had been severely reduced by indexation. The government too wanted a reform ofthis system since it confounded all policies aimed at reducing inflation.

Second, public sector workers immediately mobilized to protect their wages. Whereestablished unions failed to articulate these demands, new, c o m ~ g organizations (SindacatiAutonomi. COBAS) emerged to fill this representational void. As a result, not only wasindexation spread to all sectors of the economy, thus undermining the economic logic of theaccord, but also industrial conflict increased dramaticaUy, but this time in the public ands e r v i c e ~ .

Finally, because of the particular formula used in calculating wage increases, andgiven that indexation during the high inflation years of the 1970s accounted for over half ofall wage gains, wage differentials based on different skill levels were significantly reduced.As a result, the unions founds themselves criticized and in some cases simply abandoned, by

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"

and their unions operated. According to Piore : Customs tend to grow up around existing practice. The practice

.may initially be dictated by economic considerations; or it may be imported into the work place from the larger community from which the labor force is drawn. But once it has been regularly repeated in a stable employment situation, people develop an independent attachment to it. In the eyes of the work groups it aquires an ethical aura. Adherence to it tends to be viewed as a matter .Of right and wrong and violations are seen as unfair and immoral71.

Thus, for example, seniority rights within American firms are important not just as theinstitutionalized rules for American unions in their dealings with management. They are alsoimportant because, over time, seniority has acquired a legitimacy - i.e., it has come to beseen as a fai!: way of dividing up jobs and deciding the order of layoffs. In this sense, uniondefense of seniority principles is tied up in the defense of the particular "moral order" thatdeveloped within the American context, a moral order from which the unions themselvesderived their own authority and legitimacy.

Thus American unionists struggle against work reorganization not simply because itsweeps away traditional shop floor p r a c t i c ~ bot also because it challenges their long-standingtraditions and customs. Work reorganization violates workers' sense of justice and at thesame time re-opens older questions concerning industrial democracy and the narrow placeAmerican unions occupy in the broader political economy. I f justice is no longer governedthrough narrow grievance procedures and seniority rights, then perhaps American unions, liketheir European counterparts, must look outside the workplace to redress these issues. And ifAmerican unions begin to ponder this,,- shift in strategy, then their basic identity as "business"unions will necessarily be called into question.

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movement. Returning again to the four dimensions of flexibility outlined above, we can seethat the American system always' allowed for considerable flexibility in' wages, especiallycompared with most European countries, since it allowed for local concessions (or in thegood old days, wage drift), and even permitted employers to opt out of the unionized sectoraltogether. Seen in comparative perspective, the breakdown of patterned bargaining onlyextended the already high degree .of wage flexibility that American employers alwaysenjoyed. In terms of employment practices, the flexibility of the U.S. system also stands outin comparison with Europe, imposing very few constraints on frequent lay-offs and/oraggressive hiring and firing practices to deal with fluctuations in demand.

However, work reorganization was boundto become a key point of contention in theUnited States because the traditional rights and roles of unions are inextricably linked to thetraditional organization of production. American unions' defense of certain "rigid" shop floorpractices - incomprehensible to observers and even unions in other countries - stems from .this linkage71 Thus, changes that Swedish or German unions embrace in the interests ofenriching jobs, upgrading skills,and humanizing work are more controversial in Americanunion circles because they involve a renegotiation of the traditional rights and roles of USunions and threaten to Undermine their institutional sources of power. Relinquishing orrelaxing traditional job controls 'could open the door to managerial caprice and favoratism,perhaps even to the circumvention of the union all toge.ther.

But the struggle against work reorganization by American unions is more than simplyan effort to protect their material interests. It also Stems from a concerted effort to defend aset of informal "customs" and norms which governed the moral economy in which workers

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with tremendous discretion in defining jobs, organizing work and laying-off workers dwingdown-turns of the business cycle. The narrow definition of jobs inherent to the system alsomeshed well with management's adherence to the principles of Taylorismll6 and their desireto insulate a whole set of larger issues (referred to as "managerial prerogatives") concerningcompany production and investment decisions67 For the unions, this system producedsatisfactory results in that it helped sustain a production system that for much of the postwarperiod generated steady employment and rising wages. Job control practices gave unions a

central role within the company, permitting them to "service" their membership and monitorlabor relations in an otherwise "low trust" shop floor environment. It was also congruent withother key features of the American industrial relations system (detailed wage rules, connectivebargaining, and the"supremacy of national unionst' .

Since the 1970s, however, under growing pressure from international competitors,American managers have increasingly sought to renegotiate t r a d i t i o ~ work rules andseniority provisions while reorganizing production along more "flexible" lines. In manycases, this process has entailed plant-level concessions, where union locals have agreed torelax traditional shop floor controls in exchange for job guarantees and/or new forms ofemployee p a r t i c i p a t i o n ~ . In other cases, however, this renegotiation of work rules hasprovoked major industrial strife, internal union conflict', and encouraged employers to

pursue elaborate union-avoidance strategies.Once again, an institutional perspective provides insights into both the question of why

the "search for flexibility" has focused on this particular issue in the United States, and alsowhy this particular struggle has been associated With a more general attack on the union

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Work Reorganization in the United StatesThe U.S. labor movement is neither as strong nor as political as its counterparts in

Sweden and Italy. Nonetheless, a kind of postwar consensus prevailed within the UnitedStates that accorded organized labor a recognized role in the political economy. This role wasquite limited : American "business unions" for the most part eschewed partisan politics andembraced market capitalism in return for a role in governing shop floor relations through jobr.ontrol practices. In other words, unlike Swedish and Italian unions which sought to altersocietal relations through their political and industrial policies, American unions' vision ofindustrial democracy translated into a rather restricted system of "customary law" that couldbe administered through job rules, grievance procedures and seniority bumping rights'2. As aresult, when American firms in the 1970s and 1980s sought increased "flexibility" throughchanges in work practices and job classification systems, they sometimes appeared to beleading a more general.assault on unions ~ . @

. American industrial unions have traditionally sought to cOntrol shop floor relationsthrough a system of job control.64 Jobs are narrowly defined and linked to a set of detailedrules specifying "how much the employer must pay for each job or work task; a set of "jobsecurity" provisions which determine how these jobs (and hence the wages attached to them)are to be distributed among the workers; and a set of disciplinary standards which limit, inthe light of each workers' own particular work requirements, what obligations he or she bas

eto the employer and how a failure to meet those obligations will be sanctioned.. .During the hey-day of mass production, the job control focus of American unions

functioned well for both management and labor. For American managers, it provided them

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--, ...

. ..

began to struggle for a change in union policy. When this policy shift was not forthcoming,many of these workers defected to rival organizations like the Sindacati A.tJtopomi andCOBAS whicb emphasized workers' differences in both their organizational rhetoric and theirbargaining platforms. Management as well attacked the centrality of the sgla mobile not onlybecause of its inflationary consequences but also because the highly centralized structure ofwage bargaining prevented them from developing individual and group pay ince-..ltives,bonuses, and differentials to motivate and/or reward .their more valued employees.

But given the material and symbolic functions egalitarianism continued to play forlarge groups of workers within the Italian union movement, the unions' leadership was caughtin a strategic dilemma. Sacrificing this policy orientation would not only anger many unionmembers, especially in the powerful indus1rial federations, but also eljminate perhaps the coremission of the union movement itself. If Italian unions were no longer struggling for socialrevolution, for egalitarian economic and social relations, then what was their purpose?However, refusing to address the economic consequences of the p ia mobile, the unionwas casting itself in the role of "wi'ecker" of the Italian economy. After a decade of trying topreserve the system by limiting the degree of indexation or freezing benefits for certaincategories of workers (retirees), the unions finally agreed to abandon the. system in 1992. Notsurpisingly, various groups within the unions, the so-called autOCQnyocati, emerged to contest

this shift in union p o ~ c y . Now these groups claim the language of egalitarianism as theirown, and use it to oppose the union leadership.

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movement. This help us understand why the union movement so eagerly embraced the initialaccord, why it encouraged its diffusion to other sectors, and finally, why it refused for solong to renegotiate the accord, notwithstanding its clearJy negative economic andorganizational consequences. In his recent book La Parobola Del Sindacato, Aris Accomerodescribes the critical role ideas of egalitarianism have played within Italian union politics.Stemming from the "hot autumn" struggles of the 1960s, ega.1itarian1sm became theideological glue of the union movement, bringing together skilled and unskilled workers, aswell as cementing an alliance among the three competing confederations (COIL, CISL, UIL).For these reasons, egalitarianism was a key characteristic of most union policies throughoutthis period : unification of blue and white collar job classification systems, the end.ofterritorial wage differentials, massive promotions of entire categories of workers, and theprecise mechanism in which wage indexation was calculated. The leaders who emerged fromthe hot autumn struggles hoped these policies would eliminate internal diyisions within thelabor movement and promote a "social revolution" in Italy"'. Almost all union documents. .and certainly the major speeches by labor leaders throughout the 19708 are filled with"egalitarian" discourse.

Yet as both Accomero and Baldissera documentl, the centrality of egalitarianism,both in union policies and internal organizational discourse, began to be challenged in theearly 1980s by groups both within and outside of the labor movement. In part, because theirreal wages were eroded during these years, in part, because they felt increasinglymarginalized in a union movement which exalted the "QPelllio massa" (unskilledJine worker),technical, professional, and even skilled workers who had once supported egalitarian policies

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their more skilled members who felt under-protected and insufficiently appreciated by theu n i o n s ~ leadership.

Far from providing mutual benefits for both organi7ed labor and big b u s i n e s s ~ thescala mobile accord instead generated a series of organizational and economic disasters forboth parties. It fueled rather than contained inflation and it further weakened the unions byprovoking dissent within their and 6efections to rival organizations, conflict withpreviously friendly political parties, and renewed antagonism with big business. Perpetualstruggles over this accord characterized Italian industrial relations well into the 19908.Moreover, disagreements over government-sponsored modifications of the scala mobileprecipitated the break-up of Federazione CGIL-CISL-UIL in 1984". Finally, in July,1992, in the'face of growing economic difficulties, the scala mobile was abolished.

Again, an institutional perspective helps us understand why labor conflict centeredaround this one particular issue. Although rigidities had also existed in employment practices .(hiring and firing procedures, internal labor mobility) and working time arrangements, theseissues were more easily resolved through either government policy (e.g., the gs.saintemzione, a state-funded redundancy fund permitted firms to lay-off workers whileguaranteeing them most of their wages) or collective agreements ~ t w e e n unions andmanagement over flexible work hoUfS'6, internal labor mobility, and more flexible hiringprocedures17 Thus, while unions were willing to n e g o ~ a t e a variety of ways in whichflexibility could be enhanced, and while they were willing to tinker with aspects of themobile, they nonetheless refused to reconsider its basic logic. As the unions' principle sloganin these years made clear "La scala mobile non si tocca" (Don't touch the scala mobile).

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In lieu of a ConclusionSeen through the analytic lenses of most traditional approaches to the study of labor, a

comparison of wage policies in Sweden, cost of living adjustment mechanisms in Italy, andwork rules in the United States would appear to be comparing fundamentally differentphenomena (apples and oranges). From our more contextualized perspective, however, wehave tried to illustrate how three seemingly different, nationally specific coDructs are, in fact,quite similar in that they each have provoked the union movements in the three respectivecountries to reconsider their long-standing political, economic and organizational strategies.

In Sweden, the struggle over solidaristic wage policy has not simply pit unions againstpeak employer associations but rather has called into question the basic position of. Swedishunions within the political economy. The debates surrounding this policy have heightenedtensions both within the union movement (e.g., between white and blue collar unions andamong the industrial unions within the LO), and strained long-standing ties ~ e e n theunions and the Social Democratic Party. As a result of the struggles over solidaristic wages,the organizational and id$!Ological coherence of the labor movement was compromised, andthe unions' traditional economic, political, and organizational strategies were thrown intoflux.

. A similar process took place in Italy. Conflicts over the scala mobile led to openconfrontation with organized business, major set-backs in the political arena (e.g., the defeatin the 1984 referendum) and organizational fragmentation within the union movement itself.Through the scala mobile and a variety of other reform projects, the unions had sought totranslate the power they had gained during the hot autumn into long lasting social and

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political change. Yet this attempt to recast Italian industrial relations failed, and as a result,unions were left weak, d i v i d e d ~ and politically isolated. Renewed divisions an;aong theconfederations and growing challenges from rival organizations like the CQBAS signal thegrowing weakness of the Italian unions.

In the United States an analogous process took place. There, managerial efforts torec,rganize production and change work rules undermined the unions' traditional source ofpower and called into question their long-established.role on the shop floor. As a result, thebasic premises on which American business unionism were founded are being swept away,provoking a reconsideration of labor's role within the broader American political economy.

. In short, contextua1i.zed comparisons allows us to unpack the particular struggles ofdifferent national labor movements and bring to light the key strategic dilemmas they allshare. Future comparative labor research needs to focus on these common dilemmas in orderto better understand the key variables or factors underlying these surprisingly paralleld e v e l o p m ~ in labor movements with radically different histories, ideologies, andorganizational features. Contextua1ized comparisons may also shed some light on future unionstrategy by more clearly outlining the future challenges and choices labor unions confront injust about all advanced industtial nations.

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1. For helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper, we would like to thank participants atthe Workshop on "The Shifting Boundaries of Labor Politics," Center for European Studies,Harvard University, March 12-14, 1993; and at the COnference on "Production Regimes in anIntegrating Europe," Wissenschaftszentrum, Berlin, July 23-25, 1993, as well as Chris Allen,Josh Cohen, Colin Crouch, Vicky Hattam, Gary Herrigel, Harry Katz, Steve Lewis, ChuckSabel, Ben Schneider, Peter Swenson, and Lowell Turner.2. We recognize that there exist a variety ofalternative approaches to the study of labor's currentdifficulties. Some of these approaches locate their explanations in the unique circumstances ofjndividual countries (e.g., Marc Maurice, Francois Sellier, and Jean-Jacques Silvestre, lllcSocial Foundations of Industtial Power, (Cambridge, MA : MIT Press, 1986); while others focuson broader shifts in the international economy and their impact on the organization of productionand labor-management relatioDS (e.g., Michael Piore and Charles Sabel, The Second IndustoalDiyide, (New York: Basic Books, 1984; and Thomas Kochan, Hmy Katz, and RobertMcKersie, The Transformation of American Industrial Relations, (New York : Basic Books,1986; Robert Boyer, ed., The Search for Labor Market Flexibility, (Oxford: Clarendon Press,1988; and still others employ game theory to illustrate the strategic logic underlying unionbehavior in a variety of national 'contexts (e.g., Peter Lange, Michael Wallerstein, and MiriamGolden, "The End of Corporatism? Wage Setting in the" Nordic and Germanic Coontries," inWork and Society: Golbal Pmpectiyes, Sanford Jacoby, ed., (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, forthcoming). '" The two approaches we discuss, in fact, draw on the insights of these alternative modesof analysis. For example; institutionalists, like structural Marxists, emphasize how the politicaland economic strUctures of society constrainIshape the behavior of actors. Politicalconstructionists, on the other hand, resemble rational choice theorists, by emphasizing thestrategic choices of, and interactions among, the actors themselves.3. See, for example, Suzanne Berger, ed., ftrDniWe Interests in Western Europe, (New yOrk: Cambridge University Press, 1981); Peter Hall, Goyernine the Economy: The Politics ofStateIntervention in Britain and France, (New York : Oxford University Press, 1986); PeterKatzenstein, ,ed., Between Power and Plenty, (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press,1978); David Soskice, "Reinterpreting Corporatism and Explaining Unemployment: C0 ordinated and Non-co-ordinated Market Economies, " in Renator Brunetta and Carlo Dell'Aringa,eds., Labour Relations and Economic Performance, (London : Macmillan, 1990) : 170-211;W\1lfgang Streeck, Social Institutions andEconomic Performance: Studies of1ndustrial Relationsin Advanced Capitalist Economies, (London : Sage, 1992); and John Zysman, Goyernments,Markets and Growth ; Financial SyStems and the Politics of Industrial Cban&e, (Ithaca, NY :Cornell University Press, 1983).

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4. Wolfgang Streeck,Social Institutions and Economic Performance; Kathleen Thelen, .Unionof Parts : Labor Politics" in Postwar Germany, (Ithaca, NY : Cornell U:niversity Press, 1991);and Lowell Turner, Democrac.y at Work ; Chan&ID& World Markets and the Future of I 'botUnions, (Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, 1991).5. See, for example, EUen Immergut, "The Rules of the Game: The Logic of Health PolicyMaking in France, Switzerland,. and Sweden, " in Structurin& Politics : Historical Institutionalismin Comparative Politics, Sven Steinmo, Kathleen Thelen and Frank Longstreth, eds., (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992) : 57-89; and David Sosckice, "Reinterpreting Corporatismand ExPlaning U n e m p l o y m ~ t : Co-ordinated and Non-co-ordinated Market Economies, "6. Good illustrations of this second, broader variant of institutionalism can be found in : PeterHall, "The Movement from KeyileSianism to Monetarism : Institutional Analaysis and BritishEconomic Policy in the 19708," in Steinmo,A...al, Structurin& Politics: 90-113; Sven Steinmo,"Political Institutions and Tax Policy in the United States, Sweden, and Britain, . World Politics,41, no. 4 (July 1989); and Margaret Weir, "Ideas and the Politics of Bounded Innovation," in .Steinmo, a.....al, Structurine Politics: 188-216.7. Ellen Immergut, "The Rules of the Game" : 84-85.8. Peter Hall, "The Movement from Keynesianism to Monetarism" : 91. Depending' on whetherpreferences are seen as exogenous or endogenous, institutionalists can thus lean toward a rational.choice perspective that "contextua1izes" rationality or toward a "social CODStnlctionist" view ofinstitutions. On the former, see Douglas C. North, Institutions. Institutional Chan". andEconomic Performance, (New York : Cambridge University Press, 1990); on the latter see,Frank Dobbin, Fomin& Industrial Polic.y : The United States. Britain and France in the Railway~ (New York : Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 1994).9. Robert Unger, False Necessity. Anti-NecessitariaD Social Them:y in the Service of RadicalDeII1OC1'8CY, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988; Joan Wallach Scott, "On"Gender,Language, and Working-Class History," in Gender and the Politics of Histo[y, (New York :Columbia University Press, 1988); William H. Sewell, "Toward A Post-Materialist Rhetoric forLabor History, " in Rethinkjn& l.ahor Histoor : Essays on Discourse and Class Analysis, Leonard .R. BerJanstein, ed., (Champagne-Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1993) : 15-38; HorstKern and Charles Sabel, "Trade Unions and Decentralized Production : A Sketch of StrategicProblems in the" West German Labor Movement," Politics and Society, 19, D. 4 (1991) : 373402; and Charles Sabel and Jonathan Zeitlin, "Historical Altemtives to Mass Production :Politics, Markets and Technology in Nineteenth-Century IndustrializatioD, " Past and Present, 108(August 1985) . 133-174.10. See Michael Piore and Charles Sab.cl, The Second Industrial Diyide; Gerald Berk,Alternative Tracks: The Constitution of the American Industrial Order. 1865-1916, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993); Victoria Hattam, Labor Visions and State Power: TheOri&ins of Business Unionism in the United States, (Princeton : Princeton University Press,

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1993); Gary B. Herrigel, ReconCWtualizin& the Sources ofGerman Industrial Power, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994 forthcoming); and Richard M. Locke, Rebuildine theEconomy: Local Politics and Industrial Chane,e in ContempoflPl Italy, (Ithaca, NY : CornellUniversity Press, 1994 forthcoming).II. Victoria Hattam, Labor Unions and State Power.12. Charles F. Sabel, Work and Politics; The Diyision of Labor in Indust[y, (New York:Cambridge University Press, 1982).13. See David Soskice, "Reinterpreting Corporatism and Explaining Unemployment : C0 ordinated and Non-co-ordinated Market Economies" for a good example of this more systemicview.14. the literature on corporatism in the 19708, for example, pointed to the importance ofcentralized, unified labor movements in sustaining incomes policies in that period..15. Steven Tolliday and Jonathan Zeitlin, "National Models and International Variation in Labou

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