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Mobilizing to Win in Europe: Change to Win and the Diffusion of Union Strategy
Author(s) -
Givan Rebecca Kolins,
Eaton Adrienne E.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
british journal of industrial relations
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.665
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1467-8543
pISSN - 0007-1080
DOI - 10.1111/bjir.12537
Subject(s) - power (physics) , european union , political science , political economy , internationalism (politics) , economic system , sociology , economics , international trade , law , physics , quantum mechanics , politics
Why would European unions, in countries with greater union density, seek support from American unions who are struggling to retain power and influence? Why would Change To Win (CTW), an upstart union confederation, expend its limited resources supporting the European labour movement? These questions motivate this paper that analyses the activities of CTWs European Organizing Center and its partner unions. The paper uses the diffusion literature to argue that CTW and its partners have developed a common sense of the problems facing unions globally, and solutions rooted in specific organizing practices and broad power resources, abstracted and adopted to varying local contexts. The paper further argues that this North–North collaboration constitutes a new form of labour internationalism through the intentional diffusion of organizational strategy and that US unions bring a particular set of power resources to these cross‐Atlantic relationship resources born of the more advanced version of neoliberalism found in the United States.