Forces of reproduction and change in collective bargaining: A social field perspective

Susanne Pernicka,Nele Dittmar,Klaus Neundlinger,Vera Glassner

doi:10.1177/0959680121998478

Abstract

The paper addresses the endurance of sector collective bargaining despite many announcements of its demise. Bourdieusian social theory is used to interpret collective bargaining as a dominated social field that is distinct and relatively autonomous from other economic, political and transnational fields. Empirically, we trace the trajectories of German and Italian metal sector’s collective bargaining fields. In Germany, field agents contributed to a continuing erosion of collective bargaining, regional differentiation of membership strategies, and a reorientation of dominated employers’ associations towards their members. In Italy, some field agents resisted supranational and national liberalization demands and contributed to the adaptation and innovation of bargaining practices and hence, to the preliminary re-stabilization and re-balancing of collective bargaining between industry and company level.

Highlights

In the last two decades, the literature on industrial relations and collective bargaining in advanced capitalist democracies has been dominated by institutionalist theories that emphasize the distinctiveness of national political economies (Hall, 2014; Hall and Soskice, 2001)
In applying Bourdieu’s social theory, we proposed an social field perspective (SFP) which allows to evaluate if a collective bargaining field is geared more towards social reproduction or change
While existing theories of institutional continuity and change explain variations in industrial relations’ agents’ behaviour by recourse to external forces’ impulsion and collective actors’ responses, SFP posits the historical emergence of distinctive and relatively autonomous collective bargaining fields whose forces impinge on agents ‘from the inside’

Summary

Introduction

In the last two decades, the literature on industrial relations and collective bargaining in advanced capitalist democracies has been dominated by institutionalist theories that emphasize the distinctiveness of national political economies (Hall, 2014; Hall and Soskice, 2001). Export oriented firms seek to cooperate with core workers and their union representatives to exploit the institutional advantages of coordination (e.g. a frictionless production process) This in turn sharpens insider–outsider divisions by cost cutting through liberalization at the fringes of the labour market (e.g. the services sector). Scholars of liberalization theory (LT) and dualization theorists (DTs), regard power (im-)balances between employers, unions, and the state as decisive in explaining outcomes Besides these differences, scholars share a common – even though not necessarily explicit – understanding of collective actors’ rationality. Even though Bourdieu devoted much of his research to reveal economic, cultural, social and symbolic power relations that reinforce social inequality (in particular: Bourdieu, 1986), his theory of social field, capital and habitus can be used to explain societal change not just reproduction (Boyer, 2014). Habitus functions as FIELD OF POWER States, quasi-state actors and powerful collectivities 1

Dominated

Findings

Discussion and conclusion