Editorial

Abstract

The articles in this issue of Economic and Industrial Democracy cover, e.g., union renewal, value chains and unions, job insecurity, workplace health, and various institutional and legal conditions in different countries. The first article in this issue, ‘Migrant workers trapped between individualism and collectivism: The formation of union-based workplace collectivism’, by Bjarke Refslund, Aalborg University, Denmark, and Markku Sippola, University of Helsinki, Finland, discusses transnational labour migration and the tensions between collectivism and workers’ rights for migrant workers. The individual strategies of migrant workers and employers’ segregation strategies are discussed in relation to the union strategies in the Nordic countries Finland and Denmark. The authors conclude that the complex interactions in relation to the success or failure of the unions might benefit from using situational occurrences of collectivism. Further, the authors emphasize the usefulness of discussing such issues from a dynamic, not static, perspective. The article ‘Does the household context matter for job satisfaction among low-wage workers?’, by Matthias Pohlig, Universität Bremen, and Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany, Sabine Israel, GESIS Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften in Köln, Germany, and Irene Dingeldey, Universität Bremen, Germany, illuminates the role of single earners and their job satisfaction. The results, according to the authors, show that this group has lower job satisfaction compared with secondary earners. Further, the household context was found to be important in order to understand the low-wage workers’ situation in terms of job satisfaction. Also, women report higher job satisfaction compared to men. Uwe Jirjahn, University of Trier, Germany, GLO and IZA, Jens Mohrenweiser, Bournemouth University, UK, and Stephen C Smith, George Washington University, USA, GLO and IZA, discuss workplace health promotion in Germany in the article ‘Works councils and workplace health promotion in Germany’. The authors find that if the establishments have works councils, this is clearly associated with more workplace health promotion, compared with the requirement by law. The strength of this association depends on the type of establishment as well as the location. These results also cover other measures of workplace health promotion. The article ‘Public support for a union default: Predicting factors and implications for public policy’, by Mark Harcourt, University of Waikato, New Zealand, Gregor Gall, University of Leeds, UK, Margaret Wilson, University of Waikato, New Zealand, Korey Rubenstein, University of Waikato, New Zealand, and Sudong Shang, Griffith University, Australia, investigates the level of support for a union default in New Zealand. Support among respondents is found to be high, underlaid by a strong belief that a union default 1112472 EID0010.1177/0143831X221112472Economic and Industrial DemocracyEditorial editorial2022