Unions Divided : Trade Union Attitudes towards the European Unions’ Directive on Adequate Minimum Wages

In October 2022, the Council of the European Union adopted a directive on adequate minimum wages in the European Union (AMWD). This directive has sparked considerable controversy among trade unions in EU countries. While employers are united in opposing the AMWD, European unions are divided. Unions in many EU countries support the AMWD, while unions in the two Scandinavian EU members, Denmark, and Sweden, oppose it. This paper thus aims to answer the question: Why do unions in some member states support EU legislation regarding statutory minimum wages, while unions in other countries oppose it?To answer this question, the paper conducts two tasks: the first one is descriptive, and the second one is explanatory. First, using 26 semi-structured expert interviews with representatives of national peak-level union confederations, we identify the positions of unions and confederations in 13 EU countries towards the AMWD. We propose a typology of union positions towards the AMWD consisting of three types of positions: self-oriented support, other-oriented support, and protectionist opposition. Second, the paper proposes an explanation for why unions take different positions on the AMWD in different countries. Our explanation draws on the interaction of two variables: national-level bargaining coverage, and the role of state institutions in protecting bargaining coverage. We demonstrate that each of the three types of positions is associated with a distinct combination of values on these two variables. We argue that statutory minimum wage legislation either strengthens or weakens unions’ bargaining power, due to it interacting in different ways with features of the national bargaining model, resulting in different TUC positions towards the AMWD