The 2008 global financial crisis and the subsequent Eurozone crisis triggered dramatic changes in European labour relations. Unemployment and precariousness increased considerably. This was further exacerbated by austerity measures, leading to declining minimum wages and layoffs in the public sector. These structural changes varied considerably by country but collectively pose challenges to organized labour as they confront neoliberal restructuring. Concurrently, recent social struggles continue to develop with unemployed and precarious workers playing a major role as protest actors.Focusing on the triangular relationship of precariousness, trade unions and social movements, this book draws on a range of exciting cases, both comparative and country case studies, in order to understand how the shadow of the crisis still haunts organized labour in Europe. The chapters in this collection each offer a unique perspective on how the results of the crisis, in Western, Southern and Eastern Europe, are leading to a variety of new social movements as a consequence of increased precariousness and also how trade unions are attempting to respond.

Stefan Schmalz is Associate Professor at the Institute of Sociology at the Friedrich-Schiller University of Jena, Germany.Brandon Sommer is Researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague.

1. Confronting Crisis and Precariousness in the European UnionStefan Schmalz, Brandon Sommer and Antonio Loffredo2. Precariousness in the Eurozone: Causes, Effects and DevelopmentsKlaus Dörre3. The Competitive Architecture of European Integration: European Labour Division, Locational Competition and the Precarization of Work and LifeStefanie Hürtgen4. Precarious Environment: European Trade Unions in a Time of CrisesSteffen Lehndorff, Heiner Dribbusch and Thorsten Schulten5. Holding its Own: Labour Among Social Movements in FranceKarel Yon6. Are Trade Unions Trapped? Precarious Movements and Labour Struggles at the Left Turn in PortugalElísio Estanque, Hermes A. Costa, Dora Fonseca, and Andreia Santos7. Enduring Austerity: Memoranda Politics and its Impact on Labour in GreeceMaria Markantonatou and Geoff Kennedy8. Spatialities of Precarity: Young People in the Southern MediterraneanJörg Gertel9. The End of the German Model? The Transformation of German Capitalism and Fragmented Labour RelationsStefan Schmalz and Lea Schneidemesser10. Precarity And Counter-Movements in the European Semi-Peripheries:Adam Mrozowicki11. Labour Protests in Eastern EuropeJoachim Becker12. Conclusion: Two Worlds of Precariousness, Two Worlds of UnionismStefan Schmalz, Brandon Sommer, Raúl Lorente, and Johanna Sittel