Northern European collective wage bargaining in the face of major political-economic challenges: common and differing trajectories

Abstract

We address developments in collective wage bargaining arrangements in northern Europe in the light of two major political-economic challenges: EU eastern enlargement and the financial and economic crisis which broke in 2008. Through the lens of debates on convergence and divergence, we examine three dimensions of collective wage bargaining: coordination across sectors; articulation between different levels; and regulation of wage floors. We draw on findings from five countries and four sectors. Our analysis undermines the proposition that developments exhibit a common liberalising trajectory. It points to the differential impact of the two major political-economic challenges as between sectors, highlights similar and different policy responses by actors within a sector across countries, reveals differing consequences for governance of collective wage bargaining across sectors and countries, and finds no uniform trend in wage inequality outcomes.

Why does Germany abstain from statutory bargaining extensions? Explaining the exceptional German erosion of collective wage bargaining

“…Every industrial relations regime can and should therefore be analyzed from the perspective of this conflict as well. In recent industrial relations research, the conflict has primarily been analyzed with reference to the Nordic countries, where it resulted in the controlled decentralization of formerly centralized collective bargaining systems (Baccaro and Howell, 2017: 152–158; Ibsen, 2016; Marginson and Dølvik, 2020; Thelen, 2014: 60–67). The conflict can also be observed in disputes about the transnational posting of workers, for example in Denmark (Arnholtz et al, 2018: 347).…”

Varieties of organised decentralisation across sectors in Denmark: A company perspective

“…Analytically, we use Visser's (2016) four models of organised decentralisation and contribute to the debates on decentralisation and its implications for collective bargaining by offering a company perspective. We thus move beyond the sector and national levels that often are the locus of analysis within much IR literature (Bechter et al, 2012; Marginson & Dølvik, 2020; Traxler, 1995). Two main aspects are emphasised in the discussion of our findings.…”

“…This has sparked academic debates about convergence/divergence of national IR models, where cross‐border commonalities appear similar across sectors alongside increasingly within‐country divergences between distinct sectors (Katz & Darbishire, 2000; Marginson & Dølvik, 2020). The union density, the collective agreement coverage, the coordination and centralisation of collective bargaining often differ across both countries and between sectors with collective bargaining being weaker in private services than manufacturing (Bechter et al, 2012; Leonardi & Pedersini, 2018).…”

“…The union density, the collective agreement coverage, the coordination and centralisation of collective bargaining often differ across both countries and between sectors with collective bargaining being weaker in private services than manufacturing (Bechter et al, 2012; Leonardi & Pedersini, 2018). These differences are often considered contributing factors as to why there are examples of collective bargaining eroding, but only in certain areas of the labour market and account for increased bargaining fragmentation (Marginson & Dølvik, 2020). Oberfichter and Schnabel (2017) note that IR systems, like the German, increasingly resemble a Swiss cheese that from the outside appears fairly resilient with formal national collective bargaining institutions, but with holes inside as collective bargaining covers a shrinking core of workers, notably in larger companies and certain sectors like manufacturing—aspects echoed by other research, but with important country variations (Artus, 2012; Molina, 2014; Müeller et al, 2019).…”

“…However, these studies often concentrate on the implications for national and sectoral bargaining institutions, notably within manufacturing as it is often, but not always, considered the dominant and trend‐setting sector regarding collective and individual wage bargaining (Visser, 2013). Although there is a growing body of literature that examines bargaining practices across sectors, such studies often involve relative few sectors and rarely analyse the decentralisation process from a company perspective (Bechter et al, 2012; Katz & Darbishire, 2000; Marginson & Dølvik, 2020).…”