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Abstract
Belgium was the first industrialized country in continental Europe, but a modern nation-wide union movement developed rather late. Moreover, a number of pre-modern traits and social cleavages of ideological, linguistic and territorial origins cut across the class cleavage which emerged with industrialization. The strong interrelations between union movements and allied political parties crystallized into a pillared system of interest organizations divided by Weltanschauung. This has contributed to, and was reinforced by, a corporatist system of industrial relations, based on flexible co-operation between elites and supported by a clientelist Christian-Social welfare state. Unique among organized labour in Western Europe, the Christian union confederation is the largest in the country. Belgian unions are the only union movement in continental Europe (outside Scandinavia) that organizes more than half of the work-force. In addition to close ties with the political system and participation in national concertation, Belgian unions are involved in the administration and adjudication of unemployment insurance and have a strong presence at the workplace through union delegations and works councils. So far, most Belgian unions and their confederations have resisted pressures towards regional break-up which has marked Belgian politics during the past thirty years. Currently, A second consideration concerns the retention of membership after retirement. Adjustment of membership statistics is needed before comparable ‘net’ union density rates can be calculated.
... M t and D t indicate union membership and union density, respectively. The variables are taken from Ebbinghaus et al. (2000). P t , W t and RW t indicate consumer prices, gross nominal wages, and gross real wages, respectively. ...
Based on the seminal contribution of Bain and Elsheikh, this article explains the ebb and flow in trade union membership in Belgium from 1948 to 1995. With only four explanatory variables, the model clarifies more than 75 per cent of the fluctuations in Belgian trade union membership. The results show that rises in inflation, real wages and, due to the Ghent system, unemployment have a positive impact on unionization. Although there is an enforcement effect, a saturation effect takes over, indicating that further union growth is hampered by the union's own size. Mainly due to the 'Allgemeinkoalitionsfähighkeit' of the Belgian government system, the impact of leftist parties on unionization is not significant in a quantitative framework.
The development of socio-economic conflict in Belgium in recent years needs to be seen in the context of an economy undergoing transformation. The sources of this transformation are varied, and in several cases relate to factors outside Belgian society. Two factors in particular stand out as important: a change in the relations between the two regions of the country, with the industrialisation and development of Flanders and the structural decline of Wallonia;1 and the growth of foreign investment and a shift in the control of industry.
Like most Western market economies in the past decade, Australia has been beset by rising unemployment and inflation. Unlike them, its unions have been able to maintain, if not improve, their position while the influence and power of employers have waned. This seeming paradox may be largely explained by the country's centralised system of industrial relations regulation, in which wages are determined mainly at the national level and particularly by the Arbitration Commission. -from Authors
En se referant aux theories de la psychanalyse familiale, l’auteur presente la place que prend le jeu dans ce cadre, ou il s’insere naturellement comme experience de l’intersubjectivite. A travers l’exemple d’une famille monoparentale « amputee d’une lignee », sont presentes certains fragments decisifs pour l’elaboration psychique groupale. La construction du soi familial en sera favorisee, pour peu que le deni ait fait place a la reconnaissance de la douleur originaire liee a l’experience esthetique, ici concomitante de la perte des origines du cote paternel.
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