Overcoming Barriers to Transnational Organizing Through Identity Work: Finnish–Estonian Trade Union Cooperation
本文分析了芬兰和爱沙尼亚工会通过建立跨国“波罗的海组织学院”来采用“组织模式”策略的项目，展示了跨国活动家如何通过身份工作克服结构性挑战和意识形态反对，推动工会合作。
This article analyses a project by Finnish and Estonian unions to adopt ‘organizing model’ strategies through establishing the transnational ‘Baltic Organising Academy’. Initially aimed at Estonian workplaces, successful campaigns inspired Finnish unions to copy the model in Finland. This cooperation was originally motivated by labour market interdependence between the two countries, and the failure of past social-partnership oriented union strategies in Estonia. The willingness of Finnish and Estonian unions to commit resources to transnational cooperation around an ‘organizing model’ marks a dramatic departure from the unions’ previous strategies. This change was accomplished by transnational activists who have developed and raised support for the adoption of an ‘organizing model’ in the face of structural challenges and ideological opposition by some union officials. The project’s transnational organizing exemplifies one possible solution to union weakness in Eastern Europe, and underlines the importance of ‘identity work’ in building transnational trade union coalitions around organizing.