Protection against arbitrary dismissal plays a fundamental role in protecting trade unions’ position in the workplace because such regulations make it more complicated for anti-union employers to impede the development of local trade union organisations by discharging trade union activists. Hence, dismissal protection is a source of institutional power that feeds back into trade unions’ compulsory power (their ability to mobilize members to achieve industrial and political goals). Given the central role of dismissal protection in the management of the workplace, conflict-oriented approaches point to the central role of political actors’ power resources in the industrial and political regulation of dismissal protection. Simply put, strong union movements are expected to enforce better protection against dismissal than weaker ones. Paradoxically though, some of the historically strongest union movements such as the British, Danish and Swedish ones have failed to provide significant protection against dismissal in the first half of the 20th century. In contrast, workers in France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands have benefitted from better protection. In this analysis, I argue that this counterintuitive outcome can be explained by trade unions’ interest in maximizing control by regulating dismissal protection in collective agreements. However, the preemptive regulation of job security in collective agreements was only possible under unique circumstances. Most notably, it required a strong union movement that could conclude collective agreements before the employment contract was first regulated in labour law. This initial regulation of job security had paradoxical consequences: As the regulation of job security progressed faster in labour law than in collective agreements, countries with weaker labour movements soon featured higher levels of dismissal protection.
