The Covid-19 pandemic has shed fresh light on the precarious state of many workers in the modern economy, with low-skilled workers not only more exposed to economic hardship but also to the health risks posed by the pandemic.

A new paper from Cornell University explores the role unions in Europe are playing in helping precarious workers, even if they’re not in a union themselves.  The article highlights how unions responded in a variety of different ways to growing worker insecurity.

For instance, in some instances unions would strive to improve the lot of their members at a firm while being quite happy for the management to cut pay or otherwise worsen the lot of nonunionized members.  This creates a dual labor market where unionized members do okay in terms of pay and security, whereas nonunionized members suffer with both.

Acting in solidarity

Alternatively, unions can act in solidarity with the nonunionized workers and strive to improve security and protections for all precarious workers.  The authors cite the example of the Unite union and their work for the cleaning profession in the UK, or the French union CGT, and the help they provided to undocumented immigrant workers.

“Unions’ attempts at inclusivity are not always successful—in other words, attempts to stand in solidarity with nonunion workers sometimes do not actually reduce their experiences of precarity,” the authors explain.

In all, the researchers found that solidarity was pursued in roughly half of cases, with the unions able to improve working conditions even for nonunionized workers.  A dualist approach was followed in around a quarter of cases, with no attempt made to better the circumstances of any nonunionized employees.

The remaining cases were either a failed attempt at solidarity that saw no real improvements for nonunionized workers, or there were no clear outcomes achieved regardless of the strategy used.

“The fact that successful solidarity was the most common outcome is notable,” the authors conclude. “This suggests there is cause for optimism, or that increased precarity is not the inevitable outcome.”