so what is happening to our Unions ?

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are our Unions going soft or are we about to enter a new model of Unionism ? a seat on the board seems the way to go ?

"A working-class hero is something to be," John Lennon once sang. For better or for worse, such romanticism rang true for many when the song was released in the 1970s and British miners flexed their muscles against the government over pay. Today, with British unions shrinking in size and influence, perhaps it doesn't. Instead, nostalgic unionists have started to look enviously at other countries, where workers appear to be faring better. Germany is top of their list.


Those who are put off by the male pugilistic muster of British unions, or are alarmed by images of spectacular clashes between Spanish picketers and police, find German strikes refreshingly civilised – orderly, uniformed marches throng the streets with neat, professionally printed placards. They are sometimes even known to end in kaffee und kuchen (coffee and cakes).


Yet German strikers still have clout. This week German unionists proved that orderly disruption is still disruption when they staged walkouts for a 6.5% pay rise. Public transport, hospitals, nursery schools and local government took part in the strikes, as well as airport workers, leading to the cancellation of hundreds of flights. Although the German government currently refuses to budge, Merkel may be forced to summon mediators to avoid further strikes.


German workers are also envied for their corporate power. Their influence within larger companies is guaranteed by their seats on supervisory boards; this gives them a say in the hiring and firing of management and decisions over company strategy. Such a system is lauded by Ed Miliband, who is infatuated with the Rhineland model of consensual capitalism.


The historically inclined have sought to extrapolate the reasons for this from the country's past. Their findings: although German trade unions were weakened in the 1990s, there has been no historic turning point when their power has been decimated, as in the UK. Some academic research hints that this idea may hold some truth: Niels-Erik Wergin of the London School of Economics contends that since the Thatcher years, "step by step almost all central institutions for multi-employer collective bargaining have been smashed" in the UK, whereas collective bargaining remained comparatively centralised within Germany until the 1990s. And Karl Koch of the London South Bank University actually thinks that German unions showed an "extraordinary resilience" despite the challenges of unification after the cold war, which "should be of interest to Britain".


But underlying their veneer of success is a worrying trend; collective activity is taking a perilous new direction and even the larger trade unions are anxious.


Germany's main trade unions have been haemorrhaging members for some time: membership to Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, the country's largest umbrella union, has plummeted by 5 million since 1990. In contrast, niche professional unions that undermine collective solidarity by vying for specific pay and work packages for their individual groups are proliferating.


Germany now hosts a confusing array of different professional unions. Take the healthcare sector, which has more than a dozen independent organisations, including three different nursing associations and even a union for hygiene inspectors. Or the aviation sector, which includes the Cockpit Union, the Independent Flight Attendant Organisation, the Ground Workers' Union and the Aviation Technology Union.


Reasons for the trend are complex. Familiar image problems beleaguer the big unions. They have failed to respond quickly to transformations in the modern workforce – such as the rise of female employment and white-collar workers – deterring younger generations from joining them.


The weakening of trade union negotiation power, which can be traced back to the large-scale unemployment and competition for jobs that accompanied the fall of the Berlin Wall in the 1990s, may also have instilled the German union industry with a ruthless, individualistic streak, from which groups eager to scramble for scant bargain pickings have sprung.


The appeal of niche unions may be rooted deeper still in the German psyche: perhaps the capitalist transformation of the country's desolate economy after the cold war has imbued Germans with a pragmatism and certain imperviousness to romantic ideals of worker solidarity.


The rise of small unions is worrying. It indicates the crumbling of a system where blanket labour contracts can be negotiated for entire industries or firms. Collective agreements have been crucial in safeguarding the labour that has driven Germany's economic growth. Their demise could seriously endanger its future.


Nor may the development be good for workers in the long term. The Confederation of German Trade Unions is rightly petrified that niche unions will destroy their ability to bargain collectively on the behalf of different professional groups working in the same sector or within the same large company.


Although large trade unions and politicians are consequently pushing for legislation to reign in their powers, it is unclear whether they can stem the tide of niche unions. After all, they are increasingly popular. These days in Germany it seems it's not so much a working-class hero as a small-time champ that's something to be.

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seems the French are having the same thoughts, consensual capitalism whats that all about ??

One of France's biggest trade union confederations is overhauling the "declaration of principles" it adopted 50 years ago, it's reported.

Apparently the text has survived unchanged ever since the CFDT (French Democratic Confederation of Labour) was founded in 1964. But now references to "Christian humanism" and "ideological trade unionism" may be stripped from the first chapter of the union's statutes, says Michel Noblecourt of the daily Le Monde. The pledge to fight against "any form of capitalism or totalitarianism" also faces the chop. All this is part of a "spring clean" of the founding document decided on by CFDT leader Laurent Berger, Noblecourt says on his labour issues blog.

The new text, due to be adopted next June, is expected to emphasize the value of "emancipation" and the goal of "social transformation". Emancipation is already at the top of the union's online list of values. The CFDT, which describes itself as "pragmatic" and "neither on the left nor on the right" but "on the side of employees", is France's biggest trade union confederation in terms of members. It is the second biggest, after the CGT, in terms of voting results for bodies in which trade unions are represented

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how about a new type of Capitalism ? the German Rhine Capitalism possibly favoured by Ed Miliband

the following characteristics of Rhine capitalism:

the world of finance is more dominated by the banks instead of the stock exchanges,
close relationships between banks and companies,
a well-adjusted balance of power between share holders and managers,
social partnership between employers and unions,
employees of higher loyalty,
better educated employees thanks to something like the dual education system,
more regulated markets and – last but most importantly –
shared values by most of the citizens regarding the ideas of equality and solidarity.

Tradable and non-tradable goods[edit]

According to Albert, both models differ little in their respective ideas about which goods are not tradable – with one major exception: religions. Areas where the models diverge significantly are the realm of negotiable goods (commodities, services) and that of mixed goods.
1.Religions in the Rhine model do not function as economic institutions as they do, in part, in the US.
2.Companies are, in the neo-American model, negotiable goods as any others, whereas in the Rhine model they are a community.
3.Wages are determined by a momentary market situation in the neo-American system, while in the Rhine model they are more constant and take into consideration qualifications, seniority and nationally agreed pay scales.
4.Housing is mostly a market commodity in the US. In Rhine economies it is mixed, costs are often subsidized.
5.Urban transportation would be partly regulated in the USA also, but is more a commodity than a mixed good.
6.The mass media is traditionally commercial in the US. While in the Rhenish system there is a tendency toward privatization, the opposite can be found in the USA, and in the Rhenish system, the most watched television stations tend to be state-run.
7.Education is much more a commodity in the USA than in the Rhine model.
8.Health and legal professions: In the Rhine model a long tradition frees the members of a profession (e.g. doctors and lawyers) from the need to chase profit in order to be able to concentrate in a disinterested fashion on serving the public good. The service is a kind of an honor, and the expression for the payment in these areas (Honorar) is closely related to this underlying idea