The Power to Dismiss: Trade Unions and the Regulation of Job Security in Western Europe. This item is unavailable.The Power to Dismiss: Trade Unions and the Regulation of Job Security in Western Europe

This first comparative-historical analysis of the regulations that restrict the managerial capacity to dismiss employees and use temporary forms of employment addresses four puzzles that have long troubled the comparative political economy literature. Who is the driving force behind the extension of dismissal protection? Why is statutory dismissal protection particularly extensive in continental Europe? How can the uneven temporal development of job security regulations be explained? And what are the causes of the two-tier labour market reforms in recent decades?
Analysing the historical development of job security regulations in Western Europe from the establishment of freedom of contract in the 19th century until the peak of two-tier labour market reforms in the 2000s, this book contributes to resolving these puzzles by emphasising the important role of trade unions, their preference for institutional control, and the strategic choices they make.

Patrick Emmenegger is professor of comparative political economy and public policy at the University of St.Gallen. He has published some forty articles and chapters in edited books, among others in Comparative Political Studies, European Journal of Political Research, Journal of European Social Policy, Socio-Economic Review and West European Politics. His latest book, entitled 'The Age of Dualization: The Changing Face of Inequality in Deindustrializing Societies' and co-edited Silja Häusermann, Bruno Palier and Martin Seeleib-Kaiser, has been published by Oxford University Press.