Ethical power: a supplement to the trade union’s power resources approach

Abstract Is the current Power Resources Approach (PRA) of trade unions capable enough to cope with the global socio-economic and geopolitical structural transformation resulting from automation, pandemic-induced economic fallout, and the Russia-Ukraine war? If so, then why are millions of workers living in extreme poverty, and why do we have a double-digit rate of global job gaps? To survive in this challenging period of the global labour market, trade unions have to trigger the fifth power’s resources, denoted as ‘ethical power’. This new dimension of PRA might facilitate the trade unions’ efforts to secure decent industrial relations and social justice in the workplace. Historically, gaining ‘institutional power’ and ‘societal power’ was subject to ethical confrontation, which is rightly omitted while defining the PRA. Therefore, this study coined the term ‘ethical power’ as a supplement to existing power resources theory and found that the application of ethics to the attainment and exercise of PRA is not something new but rather unrecognised.