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Explaining Preferences in Labor Shortage Policymaking: Comparing Preference Aggregation in Dutch and German Trade Unions

Elites
Interest Groups
Public Policy
Representation
Qualitative Comparative Analysis
Qualitative
Pieter Tuytens
Erasmus University Rotterdam
Adrià Albareda
Erasmus University Rotterdam
Menno Fenger
Erasmus University Rotterdam
Jacob Moser
Erasmus University Rotterdam
Pieter Tuytens
Erasmus University Rotterdam

Abstract

This paper presents a novel qualitative comparative case study design for the study of interest groups, specifically looking at the role of trade unions in policymaking around labor shortages. Particularly, the paper investigates the aggregation of preferences within unions around the issue of using labor migration to solve shortages. Interest groups in general are thought to be crucial actors in immigration policymaking on the basis that they are more organized than the general public, which suffers from collective action problems. But there has still been limited work on the dilemmas of specific interest groups in immigration policymaking including unions, which have been subject to contradictory views in the literature. Do unions resist efforts to recruit workers from abroad? Do they include migrant workers within union ranks? Incorporating the role of the macroeconomic context, the question of labor shortages, in a climate of increasing anti-immigration public opinion and politics, presents another layer of complexity that has yet to be explored. In the context of labor surplus, labor unions are thought to be less willing to recruit migrant workers. Would they be more willing in a context of labor shortage? This paper investigates whether, over the past 15 years or so, some unions are shifting to less restrictionist approaches and, if so, what explains it, using a qualitative comparative case study design. We use a most-similar case study design to compare unions in the manufacturing sector in Germany and the Netherlands. The two countries are theorized to have similar labor market and welfare state structures, a similar past with unions and migration, and protracted scenarios of widespread labor shortages in key sectors. However, findings show that German unions are less restrictionist in their preferences for using labor migration as a solution to labor shortages than Dutch unions. The paper focuses on the processes of preference aggregation and representation within trade unions as key factors in explaining the variation in strategies between unions in the two countries, given that migration issues bring to light internal contradictions. While there are some studies in political economy attempting to understand social partner preferences on immigration through game theory applications, the application of insights from the interest group literature to this case has been neglected. For example, interest group scholars show that the oft-heterogeneous and potentially conflicting preferences within interest groups have implications for their representative capacity. These cases are researched using document analysis, descriptive statistics, and interviews with relevant stakeholders including union representatives, employer associations, and public officials.