Nadja Doerflinger

Trade unions and labour market dualisation: a comparison of policies and attitudes towards agency and migrant workers in Germany and Belgium

This article addresses the questions of the extent to which, and the reasons why, western European trade unions may have privileged the protection of ‘insiders’ over that of ‘outsiders’. Temporary agency workers, among whom migrant workers are over-represented, are taken as a test case of ‘outsiders’. The findings from a comparison of Belgian and German multinational plants show that collective agreements have allowed a protection gap between permanent and agency workers to emerge in Germany, but not in Belgium. However, the weaker protection in Germany depends less on an explicit union choice for insiders than on the weakening of the institutional environment for union representation and collective bargaining. The conclusion suggests that European unions are increasingly trying to defend the outsiders, but meet institutional obstacles that vary by country.

Flexibility and Security within European Labor Markets

In this comparative qualitative study, the authors examine how local bargaining shapes the trade-off between labor flexibility and employment security policies in four multinational subsidiaries in Belgium, Britain, and Germany. They also consider whether and how union power to shape flexibility and security policies is affected by national institutions, the way that multinationals organize their subsidiaries, and local contextual factors. Findings support this multilevel, interdependent framework. Trade-offs are shaped by differences in workers’ structural power in specific local subsidiaries. Differences in inter-subsidiary organizational configurations, markets, and technologies modify how unions can leverage collective resources to wield power in their relationship with management.

Crisis-related collective bargaining and its effects on different contractual groups of workers in German and Belgian workplaces

This article investigates the effects of crisis-related collective bargaining on different contractual groups of workers. Comparing four workplaces of two multinationals in Germany and Belgium in the recent economic crisis, the authors observe that Belgian unions could protect some temporary workers’ jobs and when the crisis endured, the jobs and working conditions of the permanent workforces. In contrast, temporary jobs in the German workplaces were not protected and later on, the works councils had to concede on the permanent workers’ working conditions to safeguard their jobs. This is explained by the intersection of institutional and firm-level differences which interacted to offer (or not) resources to unions to enforce protection.

Expanding social actor-based explanations in labour market dualisation research: A combined macro-micro and micro-macro approach

The purpose of this paper is to contribute conceptually to debate on labour market dualisation by proposing a macro-micro and micro-macro (or macro-micro-macro) analytical approach to integrate actor-based explanations in the study of labour market dualisation.,This is a conceptual paper emphasising the need to combine qualitative and quantitative data and methods in studying the nature and incidence of labour market dualisation.,To study social divides – as a manifestation of labour market dualisation and, more generally, fragmentation – macro-micro and micro-macro (i.e. macro-micro-macro) relationships need to be established as part of an analytical approach to studying dualisation. This implies considering macro-level institutional and regulatory as well as micro-level workplace and organisational settings as factors in any analysis and interpretation of the determinants of labour market dualisation, i.e. integrating the dynamics of power and strategy as determinants of dualisation, fragmentation and more generally precariousness.,The paper points to the need to expand actor-based explanations within the labour market dualisation debate, which remains overly institutionalist in its approach. The authors propose a micro-macro-micro analytical approach as the way to systematise the study of concurrent macro-micro and micro-macro relationships shaping social divides in labour markets.

The distinctiveness of employment relations within multinationals: Political games and social compromises within multinationals’ subsidiaries in Germany and Belgium:

This work makes a theoretical contribution to our understanding of the strategic mechanisms that enable subsidiary management and union agency to exploit ambiguities in the subnational competitive context impacting labour flexibility–security concerns. In so doing, the article contributes to the distinctiveness of employment relations through scrutiny of the internal regime competition that fosters political games in multinational corporations (MNCs). Studying the dynamics, we identify the set of structuring conditions governing political games and explain why some workplace regimes generate social compromises whilst others do not. We reveal a set of strategic conditions (i.e. technology, embeddedness and MNC control) upon which compromise is built in six German and Belgian subsidiaries of four MNCs. Our analysis suggests that subsidiary control modes through expatriates and local embeddedness act as key mechanisms via which the effects of wider strategic drivers influence the form of social compromise.

Re-introducing the company in the analysis of labour market dualisation: Variety of patterns and diversity of outcomes between standard and non-standard workers in multinational subsidiaries in Belgium, Germany and Britain:

This article re-introduces the company in the analysis of labour market dualisation by studying local actors’ (i.e. management and employee representatives) strategies as embedded in organisational and institutional contexts. Building on 12 case studies of multinational corporation (hereinafter MNC) subsidiaries in Belgium, Germany and Britain, the authors illustrate how organisational and institutional legacies influence (but do not determine) local actors’ strategic arrangements regarding the working conditions of standard (insider) and non-standard (outsider) workers. The outcomes resulting from these local (negotiated) arrangements illustrate a variety of inequality patterns, rather than any single pattern. The study distinguishes between convergence, where differences in working conditions between the different groups of workers decrease as the result of reduced standards for the better-off group, and divergence, where these differences increase.

Explaining job insecurity for temporary agency workers: A comparison between Sweden and Belgium

Current research has shed critical light on the insecurity characterizing temporary agency work. To understand how this insecurity is produced, this article shows that we have to go beyond national and industrial regulation and analyse how this regulation shapes workplace practices and access to a collective voice. Thus, connecting the national and workplace levels is crucial in understanding job insecurity for agency workers. Job insecurity is shaped not only by the type of contract; it is primarily formed by how the national regulation, inclusive of collective bargaining and representation structures, shapes the modalities in accordance to which temporary agency workers are used at workplaces. The article is based on a cross-national comparative case study methodology, and compares two similar workplaces in two different institutional settings, those of Sweden and Belgium.

Management Perceptions of Social Dialogue at the Company Level in Belgium

The chapter deals with management perceptions on social dialogue in Belgium. Based on interviews with the HR managers of 5 different sectors together with the results of a survey, we conclude that Belgian HR professionals are overall satisfied with social dialogue in their companies. Although all HR managers appreciate company-level dialogue with employee representatives, sectorial and regional differences are observed. Specifically, social dialogue seems to be more conflict-driven in manufacturing, the energy and the food sector, whereas it is rather consensus-driven in banking and higher education. Furthermore, Belgium’s strong regional dimension causes variation, since social dialogue in Flanders is described to be consensus-oriented, while it is portrayed to be rather conflict-driven in Wallonia. Therefore, specificities related to the sector under investigation (such as the nature of the workforce, technology or developments within the sector) as well as regional patterns should be integrated when studying company-level social dialogue.