Particularistic Solidarity?

The European Minimum Wage Directive triggered the most bitter internal dispute in the history of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), due to the fundamental opposition from the side of the Danes and Swedes. The article traces the Nordic’s opposition against the directive and identifies two causes. The first cause lies in in the – from a continental perspective – peculiarly low importance of legally enforceable individual labor law and the corresponding strength of collective rule-making. The second cause lies in the specific experiences that Denmark and Sweden had with European assurances that their collective models would be protected. In light of these findings, we deny that the attitudes of the Nordic trade unions testify, as suggested by Nussbaum Bitran and Dingeldey in issue 2023/2 of this journal, to a transnational solidarity deficit.