Wagner, I. (2018). Workers Without Borders: Posted Work and Precarity in the EU.

Abstract

risks, moving fast, and breaking things can mean disaster. Pensions can be lost. Health-care costs spiked. If the key thesis of this volume is that new approaches are available to be implemented, union practitioners may rightly worry that we do not yet have detailed evidence about whether and under what conditions these approaches will succeed. The most powerful response offered by No One Size Fits All to these reservations is the detailed organizational analysis that takes up the first third of the volume. As scholars of work, occupations, and organizations, we should be inspired. Thousands of studies dissect for-profit business practices. Yet, when unions implement solutions that seemingly work for businesses, they often violate crucial standards of voluntary commitment, democratic accountability and oppositional practice (exhibit A: the ill-fated Detroit SEIU call center). Organizational research that can be used by labor unions must be developed by researchers in concert with labor insiders. We should be running field experiments in unions, identifying what works for running successful contract campaigns and union elections. We should consider how network analysis can augment traditional organizing mapping. We should study union structure, asking how varying levels of centralization and coordination relate to efficacy, democracy, and union growth. No One Size Fits All points the way forward.