Trade unions and local development networks

Abstract

Local economic development is becoming an increasingly important policy arena as governments lose many of their former capacities for economic intervention. Governments can act to promote the competitiveness of firms by improving the ‘collective competition goods' that are available to firms. An important class of such goods operate at the local level. Examples include improving local infrastructure and policies for ‘place branding’. Unions are often left out of the key groups that formulate policies of this kind, but as this becomes a field of importance to workers, and where economic and social policy come together, unions have a major contribution to make. However, it is difficult for unions to make a significant contribution because of their past record of marginalisation and the difficulty they may have in acquiring competence in this area. The importance of the social issues involved and the democratic deficit of many of the arrangements for managing major urban agglomerations make it urgent that unions grasp this challenge.