Maarten Keune

Collective bargaining in a time of crisis: developments in the private sector in Europe

This article discusses crisis-related developments in collective bargaining in the private sector across the EU since the onset of the crisis during 2008. It analyses developments in the incidence, procedures and content of collective bargaining during the crisis and is cross-nationally and cross-sectorally comparative. It also examines how economic developments, industrial relations institutions and public policy might explain these developments. The article shows that collective bargaining responses to the crisis have been much more frequent in multi-employer bargaining systems than in single-employer bargaining systems, both at sectoral and company level. Major differences also exist between manufacturing and services, with bargaining being more prevalent in the former. In procedural terms, with some exceptions, the crisis has accelerated the longer-term trend towards organized decentralization. Substantively, restoring competitiveness and maintaining employment are central to the agenda of crisis-response agreements. The trade-offs are more integrative under multi-employer bargaining systems and where public policy offers support in negotiating short-time working schemes, and more distributive under single-employer bargaining. Cet article examine, s’agissant de la négociation collective du secteur privé, les développements liés à la crise, et cela dans l’ensemble de l’Union européenne, depuis le début de la crise au cours de l’année 2008. Il analyse les développements en termes d’incidence, de procédure et du contenu de la négociation collective, dans une perspective comparative transnationale et intersectorielle. Il examine aussi comment les évolutions économiques, les institutions des relations professionnelles et les politiques publiques peuvent expliquer de tels développements. L’article montre que les réponses de la négociation collective à la crise ont été bien plus fréquentes dans les systèmes de négociation à employeurs multiples que dans les systèmes négociation à employeur unique, tant au niveau sectoriel qu’au niveau de l’entreprise. Des différences majeures existent également entre l’industrie et les services, où la négociation collective est moins présente. En termes procéduraux, et malgré quelques exceptions, la crise a accéléré la tendance à plus long terme vers une décentralisation organisée. Sur le plan du contenu, la restauration de la compétitivité et le maintien de l’emploi sont les principaux éléments des accords de réponse à la crise. Les arbitrages présentent un aspect plus intégratif dans les systèmes de négociation à employeurs multiples et lorsque les politiques publiques offrent un soutien dans la négociation de formules de chômage partiel; ils sont plus distributifs dans le cas de négociation à employeur unique. Dieser Artikel befasst sich mit krisenbedingten Entwicklungen der Kollektivverhandlungen in der Privatwirtschaft in der EU seit Ausbruch der Krise im Jahr 2008. Die Entwicklungen der Häufigkeit, der Verfahren und des Inhalts von Kollektivverhandlungen während der Krise werden analysiert und einem sowohl länder- als auch branchenübergreifenden Vergleich unterzogen. Es wird auch untersucht, inwieweit diese Entwicklungen sich durch die wirtschaftlichen Entwicklungen, die Institutionen der Arbeitsbeziehungen und die öffentliche Politik erklären lassen. Aus dem Artikel geht hervor, dass in Verhandlungssystemen mit mehreren Arbeitgebern wesentlich häufiger in Kollektivverhandlungen Antworten auf die Krise gefunden wurden, als in Verhandlungen mit nur einem Arbeitgeber, und zwar sowohl auf Branchen- als auch auf Unternehmensebene. Auch bestehen große Unterschiede zwischen dem produzierenden Gewerbe und dem Dienstleistungssektor, wobei in ersterem häufiger verhandelt wird. Im Hinblick auf die Verfahren hat die Krise, bis auf wenige Ausnahmen, den längerfristigen Trend der organisierten Dezentralisierung beschleunigt. Inhaltlich stehen die Wiederherstellung der Wettbewerbsfähigkeit und die Sicherung der Beschäftigung ganz oben auf der Tagesordnung der Vereinbarungen in Reaktion auf die Krise. In Verhandlungen mit mehreren Arbeitgebern und dort, wo es staatliche Unterstützung für Kurzarbeitsmodelle gibt, werden mehr integrative Kompromisse geschlossen, Verhandlungen mit einem einzelnen Arbeitgeber weisen mehr distributive Elemente auf.

Transnational Industrial Relations as Multi‐Level Governance: Interdependencies in European Social Dialogue

Processes of transnationalization of industrial relations have been redrawing and increasing the complexity of the industrial relations map, adding new levels, actors and institutions, and creating new horizontal and vertical relationships and interdependencies. To capture these changes, we propose a multi-governance perspective enriched by due attention to power relations. We then apply this perspective to analyse the evolution of European social dialogue (ESD), showing that the conventional reading of ESD moving from dependency to autonomy is a false one: negotiated regulation emanating from the ESD rests on two-directional relations, between the European and national levels involving autonomy and dependency at the same time. It also involves differing forms of horizontal interdependency between private actors and the public authorities. To show its wider applicability, we also briefly relate this approach to International Framework Agreements and European Works Council agreements.

Understanding varieties of flexibility and security in multinationals: Product markets, institutional variation and local bargaining

Most studies of flexicurity have focused on formal institutions within distinctive national labour market systems. However, the level and types of flexibility and security in a national labour market are to an important extent influenced by company-level processes, relationships and policies; thus a micro-perspective should be integrated into the study of flexibility and security. This article advances understanding of the influences of decentralized rule-making and its links with the macro level by drawing on case study research in four multinational companies, each with subsidiaries in Germany, Belgium, Italy and the UK. It reveals major differences in terms of flexibility and security between companies operating in the same country, and major similarities between the subsidiaries of the same multinational. Product market characteristics affect local autonomy to define human resource policies; national institutions and local circumstances then affect the capabilities of trade unions and works councils to negotiate local flexibility-security trade-offs.

Negotiating the effects of uncertainty? The governance capacity of collective bargaining under pressure

The article makes four main arguments. First, that collective bargaining has the capacity to mitigate the negative externalities arising from market volatility, and the process of marketization, by establishing arrangements which provide substantive and procedural certainty for both workers and employers, and in particular greater security for workers. Secondly, that multi-employer bargaining arrangements are better equipped to fulfil this function than single-employer ones. Thirdly, that there are institutional differences amongst multi-employer bargaining arrangements concerning governance of bargaining at the company level which considerably influence their capacity to promote certainty and security. Fourthly, that under the pressures brought about by the crisis, the marketization of multi-employer collective bargaining is being accelerated either by the parties themselves or, more disruptively, by intervention from governments under pressure from international and European institutions, with potentially damaging consequences for the ability to address negative externalities.

Governance caleidoscopica, debolezza istituzionale e sviluppo locale

Attempting to avoid the excessive embeddedness and path dependence considered to have been associated with many past forms of local economic development, authorities are increasingly likely to favour light and fragmented arrangements. Institutions are rarely allowed to have much power, and their structures are frequently subject of reorganisation, even though the component elements that came together to make the reorganised forms are often the same. These governance patterns therefore resemble a kaleidoscope. The authors are critical of such policy approaches. They point out that frequent change prevents learning and the establishment of trust. Paradoxically, the net result is a strengthening of central governmental forces. They consider examples from a range of European countries, concentrating on cases from the UK and Italy. In the latter in particular there is evidence of dissatisfaction with fragmentation on the part of local actors, who often try to establish more substantive structures for steering development programmes.

The social dimension of european integration

While an economy is always ‘embedded’ in society, the relationship between the two is undergoing profound changes in Europe, resulting in widespread instability which is emphasised by the current crisis. This book analyses these changes, and in particular pressures of intensifying international competition, globalization and financialization within Europe.

Mittel- und osteuropäische Wohlfahrtsstaaten im Vergleich: Typen und Leistungsfähigkeit

Die stufenweise Erweiterung der Europaischen Union in den letzten Jahren hat eine erneute Debatte um das Europaische Sozialmodell, die Zukunft der verschiedenen Wohlfahrtsstaatsmodelle und die Interaktionen zwischen diesen nationalen Modellen angestosen (z.B. Hemerijck et al. 2006; Jepsen/ Serrano Pascual 2006; Keune 2006a). Gleichzeitig gibt es derzeit jedoch kaum vergleichende Analysen zu den in den neuen EU-Mitgliedsstaaten bestehenden Wohlfahrtsstaatstypen und deren Merkmalen, und es ist bisher nur selten versucht worden, die neuen Mitgliedsstaaten in breiter angelegte Wohlfahrtsstaatsanalysen und — typologien einzubeziehen.2 Der vorliegende Artikel mochte zu einer starkeren Berucksichtigung der neuen Mitgliedsstaaten in der Wohlfahrtsstaatsdebatte beitragen. Die zentrale Frage dieses Kapitels lautet, wie die Wohlfahrtsstaaten der acht Mitgliedsstaaten Mittel- und Osteuropas (MOE), die der Europaischen Union im Mai 2004 beigetreten sind, im Vergleich mit den Wohlfahrtsstaaten der ‘alten’ EU-Mitglieder Westeuropas (EU 15) abschneiden.3 Lassen sich diese acht einem der in der EU 15 bestehenden Wohlfahrtsstaatsregime zuordnen, oder bilden sie einen eigenen Typ? Sind sie als homogene Gruppe zu betrachten, oder bestehen auch innerhalb der Achtergruppe wesentliche Unterschiede?

The effects of the EU’s assault on collective bargaining: less governance capacity and more inequality

Until recently, EU economic and social policy included the aim of ensuring a strong role for trade unions and employers’ organizations in the Member States. The EU incessantly underlined the importance of social dialogue and autonomous collective bargaining as a core element of the European social model, stressing their contribution to democracy, good governance, economic efficiency, innovation and social cohesion (European Commission, 2002, 2004). It did so, among other things, to lessen the dominance of economic integration and to strengthen the social face of the EU. The commitment of the EU to social dialogue and collective bargaining was demonstrated by the development and financing of social dialogue structures – both inter-sectoral and sectoral – at the EU level, by the creation of European Works Councils as workers’ participation bodies in European multinationals and by the frequent consultation of EU-level trade unions and employers’ organizations in the making of EU economic and social policy over the past 20 years. In addition, the right of workers and employers, or their respective organizations, to negotiate and conclude collective agreements is included in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Indeed, the freedom to bargain collectively, at the levels chosen by the bargaining actors themselves, was considered a basic right within the EU. As a result, the Commission played a leading role in establishing a system of multi-level industrial relations in Europe (Keune and Marginson, 2013) in which unions and employers have influential voices and bargain autonomously on wages and working conditions. Since the start of the crisis, however, the position of the EU has changed dramatically. Its traditional discourse is increasingly being trumped by a counter-discourse originating largely in DG Economic and Financial Affairs, as well as in the European Central Bank (ECB). It depicts collective labour relations, and in particular trade unions, as obstacles to market coordination and hence to economic and employment growth. For example, DG Economic and Financial Affair’s 2012 Labour Market Developments Report (European Commission, 2012: 104) argues that the coverage of collective agreements should be decreased, collective bargaining should be decentralized, minimum wages should be reduced and the wage-setting power of trade unions should be diminished. Far from being only a discursive shift, this view has also found its way into the policy-making process. For example, the 2011 Euro Plus Pact, signed by the heads of state of the euro countries

Economy and Society in Europe

While an economy is always ‘embedded’ in society, the relationship between the two is undergoing profound changes in Europe, resulting in widespread instability which is emphasised by the current crisis. This book analyses these changes, and in particular pressures of intensifying international competition, globalization and financialization within Europe.

European Social Dialogue as Multi-Level Governance: Towards More Autonomy and New Dependencies

Almost twenty years ago the Maastricht Treaty introduced procedures for European Social Dialogue, as part of a larger package of measures to strengthen the social dimension of European integration. Through the Treaty provisions (articles 154-155 Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union), the European social partners received the competence to become, in principle, co-regulators of the European labour market. The conventional reading of the evolution of European social dialogue since its inception is that it has evolved from a relationship of dependency of the European social partners on the European institutions for the implementation of their framework agreements, towards a more autonomous position in which the social partners themselves take charge of implementation. Since the early 2000s, the argument continues, the social partners have taken a more proactive and independent stance and opted to focus on autonomous framework agreements, and other ‘new generation texts’, including joint reports, recommendations, compendia of good practices, etc., which are not directed at the European institutions in order to secure implementation. In this paper we want to challenge and move beyond this rather linear and one-dimensional conceptualisation of the evolution of European social dialogue. Empirically, we will show that there has not been a straightforward move away from the ‘implementation through Directive’ mode in favour of autonomous agreements. Whereas this may seem the case if we take a view of the cross-sector dialogue only, the picture changes when we have a closer look and include developments in the European sector social dialogue in the analysis. Analytically, we will argue that framing the issue in terms of dependency or autonomy does not do justice to the complexity of relationships that are involved in the European social dialogue and the European sector social dialogue, and in the implementation of framework agreements and other new generation texts. Also it accords little attention to the role of power in the relationships involved. We draw on a multi-governance perspective to analyse the dynamics of European social dialogue, which allows us to capture the relevant multiple horizontal and vertical relationships, or interdependencies, between the European and national, and public and private, actors involved. Interdependency implies the presence of both autonomy and dependence in a relationship, and our central proposition is that these interdependencies simultaneously enhance and limit the capacity of the European social partners to make and implement agreements.