Imre Szabó - Böcker

The Transformation of Discontent demonstrates that far from disappearing from the workplaces of the Global North, labor protest has merely changed character and now focuses on healthcare and education, with white-collar and white coat employees clashing with employers over wages, working conditions, and professional autonomy.Based on in-depth case studies of protest campaigns in four European countries – Denmark, Germany, Hungary, and Ireland – this book explores the ways in which teachers, nurses, and medical doctors have developed a new repertoire of contention that unites their power to disrupt services with their duty to care for service users, such as patients, children, and older people.A study of the changes to labor mobilization including new protagonists and a shift from mass strikes to duty-based protest, this volume considers the impact of public sector unions on the labor movement and their role in renewing labor’s power resources. It will be of interest to sociologists and scholars of political economy, social movements, public services, contentious politics, and employment relations.

This book examines the new economic governance (NEG) regime that the EU adopted after 2008. Its novel research design captures the supranational formulation of NEG prescriptions and their uneven deployment across countries (Germany, Italy, Ireland, Romania), policy areas (employment relations, public services), and sectors (transport, water, healthcare). NEG led to a much more vertical mode of EU integration, and its commodification agenda unleashed a plethora of union and social-movement protests, including transnationally. The book presents findings that are crucial for the prospects of European democracy, as labour politics is essential in framing the struggles about the direction of NEG along a commodification–decommodification axis rather than a national–EU axis. To shed light on corresponding processes at EU level, it upscales insights on the historical role that labour movements have played in the development of democracy and welfare states. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

The Transformation of Discontent demonstrates that far from disappearing from the workplaces of the Global North, labor protest has merely changed character and now focuses on healthcare and education, with white-collar and white coat employees clashing with employers over wages, working conditions, and professional autonomy.Based on in-depth case studies of protest campaigns in four European countries – Denmark, Germany, Hungary, and Ireland – this book explores the ways in which teachers, nurses, and medical doctors have developed a new repertoire of contention that unites their power to disrupt services with their duty to care for service users, such as patients, children, and older people.A study of the changes to labor mobilization including new protagonists and a shift from mass strikes to duty-based protest, this volume considers the impact of public sector unions on the labor movement and their role in renewing labor’s power resources. It will be of interest to sociologists and scholars of political economy, social movements, public services, contentious politics, and employment relations.