Solidarity Forever? Unions, Pensioners and Welfare State Reform in Europe.

Throughout Europe, workforces are ageing, and the membership profile of unions is becoming weighted towards older workers and pensioners. How do these changes affect the positions that unions adopt with regard to welfare state reforms? This paper argues that how pensioners are represented within unions, rather than how many pensioners there are in unions, helps shape confederal positions on pension reform. Our theory suggests that labor movements characterized by a high potential for pensioner influence at the confederal level and strong confederal authority over category unions will predispose confederal leaders to support pension reform proposals that involve substantial modifications to the future benefits of current workers, as long as the pensions of most current retirees are not threatened. Evidence from Italy and Germany confirms that the ‘graying’ of union membership per se is unlikely to be the source of union intransigence on pension reform. Our findings suggest that strengthening the representation of pensioner interests within unions may actually help, rather than hinder, the process of long-term pension system reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]