Collective actions or individualism in working life – mapping Danish wage earners experiences and attitudes before and after the financial crisis

Abstract

The financial and economic crisis has had an incontrovertible impact on wage earners’ experiences, values, and attitudes by changing the distribution of burdens and gains between different groups in society. In this article, we seek to map these changes by analyzing wage earners own self-reported experiences and attitudes related to trade unions, the workplace and the welfare state in Denmark. This is made possible by combining to large cross-sectional surveys (APL-surveys 2002, 2014) into a longitudinal study. We challenge the widespread (theoretical) understanding of wage earners turning increasingly to individualization and thereby discarding col- lective actions and solidarity as means to withstand the consequences posed by the crisis. Instead we find an increase in wage earners’ demand for collective solutions in trade unions and the welfare state. However, wage earners are (still) critical of trade unions’ ability to obtain influence both on the political agenda and in relation to their employer counter-parts. Finally, we discuss trade unions opportunities for turning the tide on the basis of our empirical finding in relation to the existing and ever-growing ‘revitalizing’ literature with a spe