Unions as agents for institutionalisation of labour-centred social sustainability in tourism

This study examines how trade unions engage in the institutionalisation of labour-centred social sustainability in tourism, focusing on how they influence the field’s normative, regulative, and cultural-cognitive dimensions. While social sustainability has gained attention within environmental, social and governance (ESG) frameworks, the role of unions remains underexplored, particularly in tourism, where precarious employment persists. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 18 global union leaders and affiliates and informed by institutional theory, the study analyses how unions mobilise human rights-based framing, shape labour-related metrics and regulatory standards, and seek to shift societal expectations around decent work. Findings show that unions operate across multiple institutional domains, extending their influence beyond collective bargaining to broader field-level engagement. The study extends institutional theory by demonstrating how institutional actors actively mobilise normative, regulative and cultural-cognitive mechanisms to advance social sustainability. It further contributes to debates on the underdeveloped social dimension of ESG by highlighting the contested and political nature of defining and measuring labour-related sustainability. Unions emerge as important institutional actors in embedding labour standards within sustainability governance, while structural constraints continue to limit the realisation of labour-centred social sustainability in practice.