Europeanisation, National Identities and Migration ... - europeanization

200 Norbert Cyrus
3 Most of all, sector-bounded trade unions felt uncomfortable with the ETUCrepresentation
and founded separate alliances to lobby more effectively for the
common trade union needs and demands in particular sectors. One of the
sector-specific European Industry Committees in the EU is the European
Federation of Building and Woodworkers (EFBWW) founded in 1958. The
IG BAU is an important member of this confederation and is represented on
the executive board. The significance of the confederation is, however,
restricted because bargaining with employers is not undertaken at the European
level (Marks and McAdam 1996: 107).
4 The bi-lateral cooperation of national trade unions is another means to
overcome national isolation. After some delay, IG BAU started to sign
cooperation agreements with counterparts from Portugal (1996), Italy (1998),
Poland (1999), Belgium and the Netherlands (2000). With cooperation
agreements, trade unions declare that they will give mutual support during
industrial action and prevent all forms of strike-breaking through the use by
companies of workers from another country.
5 The fifth channel to deal with the new situation of a single market consists of
bi- or multi-lateral cooperation of national trade unions in particular areas of
concern, such as the initiative of Doorn. Such transnational coordination
focuses on particular regions within the European Union (see Weinert 2001)
and is also used by IG BAU (Cremers 1998: 25ff). In particular, the creation of
cross-border channels shows that trade unions are ‘Europeanising’.
Trade unions are also seized by a process of Europeanisation, which resembles
a development similar to the one the governments of EEC/EC/EU countries
have experienced since the early 1950s. Trade unions are part of this process,
they are passing through a very cautious process of development. The
contemporary level corresponds roughly to the governmental integration in
about 1958..., when the European Commission held a more coordinating
function. The liberalisation of the markets compels trade unions to go beyond
nationally closed options in order to act. This opening is necessary since
the institutions of the nation-state are losing relevance and the EU institutions
gaining in significance. A central result of the self-organisational European
policy of national trade unions is the construction of structures for transnational
coordination. By this process the national trade unions will gradually increase
their supra-national competencies. This process is lengthy and involves also a
longer process of the reduction of organisation–cultural otherness between the
trade unions.
(Weinert 2001: 335)
According to this statement organisational Europeanisation leads to the reduction
of the cultural distance between national trade unions or, in other words: the
re-shaping of taken-for-granted concepts of self and other.
The success of such cognitive organisational development depends as already
noted on the acceptance of the members. As organisations based on voluntary