Editorial

摘要

This special issue focuses on the role of trade unions in the restructuring of welfare states. In much of Europe, trade unions exerted a key influence on the post-war elaboration of public systems of health, education and social protection, and in many countries acquired an important role in their administration. Changes to these systems therefore pose distinctive challenges to the unions, particularly when the rhetoric of 'reform' is simply a euphemism for the weakening or elimination of public provision.