The Future of Unions

For some 20 years now, it has been common to refer to a crisis of trade unionism. What the future holds for labor movements-or indeed, whether they still have a future-seems increasingly uncertain. For many critics (academic observers as well as trade unionists themselves), unions in most countries appear as victims of external forces outside their control, and often also of their own conservative inertia. In this article, I explore, schematically and with incautious generalizations, the pathways from path to present to future. An important focus is the choices to be made in terms of who unions represent, what interests they emphasize, how they are constituted as organizations, and how they mobilize resources for action. Depuis environ 20 ans, il est courant de parler d'une crise du syndicalisme. Ce que l’avenir reserve aux mouvements syndicaux est de plus en plus incertain. Il est meme de plus en plus incertain que ces mouvements ont encore un avenir. De nombreux observateurs universitaires et syndicalistes trouvent que, dans la plupart des pays, les syndicats semblent etre des victimes de forces independantes de leur volonte, et souvent de leur propre inertie conservatrice egalement. Dans cet article, j’examine les cheminements passes, presents et futurs des syndicats, schematiquement et en me fondant sur des generalisations peu prudentes. Je mets un accent important sur les choix a effectuer au sujet des personnes que representent les syndicats, des interets qu’ils defendent le plus, de leur constitution en organisations et de la facon dont ils canalisent les ressources dans l’action.