Christian Lyhne Ibsen

Challenging Scandinavian employment relations: the effects of new public management reforms

Building on the convergence/divergence approach, this paper examines whether recent new public management (NPM) inspired reforms entailing inter alia cutbacks in the public sector, marketisation and management by performance measures have had significant implications for service provision and employment relations in the Danish, Norwegian and Swedish public sector. In this paper, we argue that although differences exist across the Scandinavian countries, it is evident that they have managed to adopt and implement NPM-inspired reforms without dismantling their universal welfare services and strong traditions of collective bargaining in the public sector. However, this restructuring is taking its toll on the work environment.

Trade union revitalisation: Where are we now? Where to next?:

In this article, we review and assess research on the role of trade unions in labour markets and society, the current decline of unions and union revitalisation. The review shows three main trends. First, trade unions are converging into similar strategies of revitalisation. The ‘organising model’ has spread far beyond the Anglo-Saxon countries and is now commonplace for unions as a way to reach new worker constituencies. Thus, even in ‘institutionally secure’ countries like Germany and the Nordic countries, unions are employing organising strategies while at the same time trying to defend their traditional strongholds of collective bargaining and corporatist policy-making. Second, research has shown that used strategies are not a panacea for success for unions in countries that spearheaded revitalisation. This finding points to the importance of supportive institutional frameworks if unions are to regain power. Third, especially in Anglo-Saxon countries, unions are building external coalitions with other social movements, including across borders, to compensate for the loss of power resources that were tied to national collective bargaining and policy-making. Research has shown that unions, even in adverse institutional contexts, can be effective when they reinvent their repertoires of contention, through political action or campaigning along global value chains.

Bargaining in the crisis - a comparison of the 2010 collective bargaining round in the Danish and Swedish manufacturing sectors

The economic crisis weighed heavily on the 2010 collective bargaining rounds in the Danish and Swedish manufacturing sectors — the pattern-setting sectors in both countries. This article analyses and compares the bargaining rounds from agenda-setting to signing, pointing to the significant differences in bargaining structures, processes and output. On the whole, the crisis seems to have had little effect on the Danish bargaining system due to a strong centralization on the employer side through the Confederation of Danish Industries, union moderation and the coordination of bargaining areas by Denmark’s mediation institution. Conversely, the bargaining round in Sweden puts a question-mark over the viability of the whole Swedish bargaining system. Union coordination was shattered when the white-collar unions broke ranks and concluded agreements before the LO unions. But more importantly, Teknikföretagen — the biggest employers’ federation — quit the Industrial Agreement after the negotiations and, once again, Swedish social partners are being forced to readjust the procedural framework for collective bargaining. La crise économique a lourdement pesé sur les rounds de négociation collective 2010 dans les secteurs manufacturiers danois et suédois, qui sont les secteurs qui donnent le ton dans les deux pays. Cet article analyse et compare les rounds de négociation, depuis la fixation de l’agenda jusqu’à la signature, en soulignant les différences significatives dans les structures de négociation, les processus et les résultats. Dans l’ensemble, la crise semble avoir eu peu d’effet sur le système de négociation danois en raison de sa forte centralisation du côté des employeurs, par le biais de la confédération des industries danoises, mais aussi de la modération syndicale et de la coordination des domaines de négociation par l’institution de médiation danoise. À l’inverse, le round de négociations en Suède conduit à s’interroger sur la viabilité de l’ensemble du système de négociation suédois. La coordination syndicale a été brisée lorsque les syndicats des employés ont rompu les rangs et conclu des accords avant les syndicats ouvriers. Mais il y a plus important encore: après les négociations, la plus importante fédération d’employeurs, Teknikföretagen, a dénoncé l’accord sur le développement industriel et la formation des salaires; une fois de plus, les partenaires sociaux suédois sont forcés de réadapter le cadre procédural de la négociation collective. In Dänemark und Schweden hat die Wirtschaftskrise die Kollektivverhandlungen des Jahres 2010 im produzierenden Gewerbe — in beiden Ländern die Sektoren mit Vorbildfunktion — schwer belastet. In diesem Artikel werden die Verhandlungsrunden, von der Festlegung der Tagesordnung bis zur Unterzeichnung, analysiert und verglichen und die wesentlichen Unterschiede der Verhandlungsstrukturen, Verfahren und Ergebnisse dargestellt. In Dänemark scheint die Krise insgesamt aufgrund der starken Zentralisierung auf Arbeitgeberseite durch den Verband der Dänischen Industrie, der Zurückhaltung der Gewerkschaften und der Koordinierung der Verhandlungsbereiche durch die dänische Mediationsstelle nur wenig Einfluss auf das Verhandlungssystem gehabt zu haben. In Schweden hingegen wurde in dieser Verhandlungsrunde der Fortbestand des gesamten schwedischen Kollektivverhandlungssystems in Frage gestellt. Die gewerkschaftliche Koordinierung wurde zunichte gemacht, als die Angestelltengewerkschaften ausscherten und noch vor den LO-Gewerkschaften Vereinbarungen abschlossen. Von noch größerer Bedeutung war jedoch, dass Teknikföretagen — der größte Arbeitgeberverband — nach den Verhandlungen mit der Begründung aus dem Tarifvertrag ausgestiegen ist, dass die Vereinbarung ihr Ziel der Sicherung der Wettbewerbsfähigkeit verfehlt habe. Die schwedischen Sozialpartner müssen so wieder einmal den Verfahrensrahmen für Kollektivverhandlungen neu justieren.

Three approaches to coordinated bargaining: A case for power-based explanations

This article discusses three theoretical approaches to the study of coordinated collective bargaining, each positing different causal mechanisms: rational choice, rationalist institutionalism and discursive institutionalism. Each approach involves a different view of the exercise of power and distributional consequences. The three approaches are applied to the critical cases of Sweden and Denmark. The conclusion drawn is that coordination is not purely cooperative, and that cooperation is itself conditioned by power relations. Thus power must be placed at the heart of coordination studies.

Striking a balance? Flexibility and security in collective bargaining

Often neglected in flexicurity studies is the question of how collective bargaining contributes to the development of flexicurity, despite the continued resilience of this form of regulation in many European countries. The article compares sector-level bargaining and flexicurity in the printing and electrical contracting industries of Denmark, Spain and the UK to assess this link. In line with prior research, the article finds that Danish agreements contribute significantly to flexicurity. Somewhat against conventional expectations, however, are findings in the UK and Spain. In the UK, agreements contribute significantly despite a hostile context for collective bargaining. In Spain, due to the heavy influence of legislation the contribution is more modest but nevertheless notable. This overall finding gives strong evidence for the proposed link. The article goes on to discuss if a positive contribution is facilitated by certain institutional and relational conditions.

Path dependence and independent utility regulation: The case of Danish energy and telecommunications regulation

Abstract The establishment of the Danish independent regulatory authorities for the energy and telecommunications sectors was based upon EU directives as part of their liberalisation process. Following the concepts of transaction costs and path dependency this article analyses differences in independence between the two authorities – the Danish Energy Regulatory Authority (Energitilsynet) and the National IT and Telecommunications Agency (IT- og Telestyrelsen) respectively. We find that the states negligible interest in the energy sector until the 1970s formed the basis for strong energy companies capable of influencing regulation in their interest. This condition made DERA relatively dependent on commercial interests compared to NITA. In contrast, the state had an early interest in controlling and regulating telecommunications services, which meant strong control of the telecommunications companies and a regulation contingent upon political interests that has continued to this day. We therefore suggest that sector-specific institutional processes have caused differences between the regulatory institutions mediating the influence of the EU.

Making sense of employer collectivism – The case of Danish wage bargaining under recession:

This conceptual article argues that preferences of employers for collective action cannot be reduced to rational actors making decisions based on market structures or institutional logics. Both markets and institutions are inherently ambiguous and employers therefore have to settle for plausible – rather than accurate – rational strategies among many alternatives through so-called sensemaking. Sensemaking refers to the process by which employers continuously make sense of their competitive environment by building causal stories of competitive advantages. The article therefore tries to provide a better understanding of how preferences for collectivism are formed, sustained and potentially changed by identifying dominant and competing stories that either reinforce or challenge preferences for collectivism. Hereby, the article fills a theoretical, empirical and methodological void in studies that allude to the ambiguous role of markets and institutions but do not study how actors deal with this ambiguity. The sensemaking concept is illustrated with an analysis of wage bargaining in Denmark during the recent recession when Danish labour cost competitiveness was in a deplorable state. However, unlike countries in similar situations, for example Finland and Sweden, Danish employers retained a coordinated industry-level bargaining system, which makes it an interesting paradox to study from the vantage point of sensemaking.

Importing low-density ideas to high-density revitalisation: The ‘organising model’ in Denmark

Why did union officials from a high-union-density country like Denmark choose to import an organising strategy from low-density countries such as the US and the UK? Drawing on in-depth interviews with key union officials and internal documents, the authors of this article argue two key points. First, rather than unions settling for a semi-automatic response to membership decline, the ‘organising model’ was actively imported as a strategic tool for challenging alternative responses to membership decline. Second, the organising model was actively translated into a Danish context and most unions cherry-pick some elements while leaving fundamental aspects out. The study nevertheless indicates that a lack of coherency and model-fit to Danish industrial relations might hamper the positive effects of the organising strategy.

Diverging Solidarity: Labor Strategies in the New Knowledge Economy

The transition from Fordist manufacturing to the so-called knowledge economy confronts organized labor across the advanced market economies with a new and more difficult landscape. Many scholars have suggested that the future of egalitarian capitalism depends on forging new political coalitions that bridge the interests of workers in the “new” and “old” economies. This article explores current trajectories of change in Denmark and Sweden, two countries that are still seen as embodying a more egalitarian model of capitalism. The authors show that labor unions in these countries are pursuing two quite different strategies for achieving social solidarity—the Danish aimed at equality of opportunity and the Swedish aimed at equality of outcomes. The article examines the origins of these different strategic paths and explores the distinctive distributional outcomes they have produced. The conclusion draws out the broad lessons these cases hold for the choices currently confronting labor movements throughout the advanced industrial world.

Instability and Change in Collective Bargaining: An Analysis of the Effects of Changing Institutional Structures

Previous studies on collective bargaining structures and macroeconomic performance have largely ignored the role of stable and instable institutional structures and the effects of institutional change itself. In this article we posit that institutional stability of collective bargaining is of major importance for the moderation of unit labour costs growth. This hypothesis is tested on the basis of data which cover the period 1965–2012 and includes 28 countries. The results show that institutional change impairs the capacity to moderate unit labour cost growth significantly in the subsequent years following the change. This effect also holds for changes in both decentralization and centralization of institutions.