What happened to collective bargaining during the great recession?

Jelle Visser

doi:10.1186/s40173-016-0061-1

Abstract

AbstractCollective bargaining over labour conditions between unions and employers is a key labour market institution in democratic societies, guaranteed by international and national law. Its coverage, organization and impact have varied over time and across countries. Inclusive bargaining, conducted by employers’ associations with a mandate to bargain, and supported by the state, received a strong impulse during the interwar Depression. In the Great Recession a more exclusive version based on enterprise bargaining appears to have been favoured by governments and international agencies. How this relates to changes in bargaining coverage, multi-employer and multi-level bargaining, rules on extension and opening clauses is the subject of this paper, which surveys developments in 38 OECD and EU countries. A distinction is made between long-term and crisis-related changes, and between regulatory and non-regulatory changes during the Great Recession.

Highlights

1 Introduction Collective bargaining1 involves a process of negotiation between trade unions and employers or employers’ organizations to determine terms and conditions of employment
Collective bargaining has a protective function - ensuring adequate pay, establishing limits on daily and weekly working time, and regulating other working conditions for those with weak individual negotiating power; a voice or participation function - the collective expression of grievances and participation in the success of the enterprise; and a distributive function - securing a fair share of the benefits of training, technology and productivity growth
6 Conclusions Collective bargaining and many of its underpinning laws and institutions are the product of major crises, not least the Great Depression of the 1930s, which became the inspiration for multi-employer bargaining and the rules that for half a century and longer ensured wide-ranging coverage of wage agreements

Summary

Introduction

Collective bargaining involves a process of negotiation between trade unions and employers or employers’ organizations to determine terms and conditions of employment. The Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No 98) is one of the eight fundamental Conventions of the International Labour Organization (ILO). It guarantees collective bargaining as a voluntary process between independent and autonomous parties, and calls on governments to take “measures appropriate to national conditions [...] to encourage and promote the full development and utilisation of machinery for voluntary negotiation between employers or employers’ organisations and workers’ organisations, with a view to the regulation of terms and conditions of employment by means of collective agreements’ (art 4). Managerial control tends to be more acceptable and effective when legitimised through joint rules (Flanders 1968)

Findings

Discussion

Conclusion