Bargaining Structure Research Articles

Firm-level agreements, employment strategies and temporary workers

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of two-tier firm-level collective agreements on firms’ propensity to use temporary employment, accounting for the process of self-selection of firms into different bargaining levels in the Italian context. It further examines which firm-level characteristics drive this process of selection.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical analysis uses a panel data set of Italian firms for the years 2005, 2007, 2010 and 2015. Estimations are produced and compared through ordinary least square regression, random-effects and fixed-effects models.FindingsResults show that enterprises adopting two-tier firm-level agreements (TTFA) are associated with lower levels of temporary workers. However, a longitudinal analysis suggests that introducing a TTFA does not impact firms’ propensity to employ temporary workers. This novel finding highlights the presence of a selection process based on firm-level time-constant characteristics. The paper argues that these characteristics refer to management orientation toward high-road rather than low-road employment strategies. Further evidence is brought in support of this claim, showing that firms’ propensity toward the provision of training for their labor force partially explain the process of selection.Originality/valueThe study is the first to analyze the impact of secondary-level collective agreements on firms’ reliance on temporary employment, offering new evidence on the causes of the expansion of temporary employment. It further highlights the relevance of employers’ strategies in shaping the impact of the bargaining structure.

Unshackling Plea Bargaining from Racial Bias

When an African American male defendant tries to plea bargain an equitable justice outcome, he finds that his justice rights are compromised because of the deep-rooted racial bias that casts African American men as dangerous, criminal, and animalistic. Because of its efficiency, plea bargaining has become the preferred process used to secure convictions for upwards of 97 percent of cases. This efficiency, however, comes at a cost. The structure and process of plea bargaining makes it more likely that, the racial bias that has historically existed against African American male defendants, will taint the negotiation process and justice outcomes. The racial profiling by the police, the presumption of guilt rather than innocence of African American men, the prosecutor’s discretion in charging the defendant, and the speed of the justice negotiation itself all contribute to the harsher negotiated sentences that African American male defendants receive compared to white defendants accused of similar crimes. These racially tainted outcomes threaten the integrity of our justice system and the core of our democracy. This article traces the origins of racial bias in plea bargaining by chronicling the historical relationship among three societal developments: the continuation of slavery, the development of our criminal justice system, and the evolution of plea bargaining The article then explains how the structure of plea bargaining as it is practiced today makes it likely for these historical racial biases to fester and manifest themselves. Culling from the research of cognitive psychologists, dispute system design scholars, and anti-racism educators, this article prescribes organizational and procedural reforms to unshackle plea bargaining from racial bias.

Price Information, Inter-Village Networks, and 'Bargaining Spillovers': Experimental Evidence from Ghana

Through a randomized experiment and detailed data on communications among farmers, we identify the impact of text-messages-based commodity price information on rural farmers. For yam, a crop with high prevalence of bargaining between traders and farmers, the intervention leads to a 9% increase in the prices received by farmers in the treatment group and to substantial indirect benefits for control group farmers with strong marketing ties to the treated group. As these control farmers do not gain price information, we speculate that the spillovers might be driven by bargaining spillovers, and capture this intuition in a formal model. The intervention has no impact on other crops grown in the area, which are characterized by different market structure and lower incidence of bargaining. The results expand our understanding of the mar- ket structure characteristics that make ICT interventions effective and highlight the importance of accounting for longer-run inter-village spillover effects.

Union Membership and Collective Bargaining: Trends and Determinants

This survey shows that union membership and density as well as bargaining coverage have fallen in most countries and that collective bargaining has become more decentralized over the last decades. However, there is a considerable amount of variation across countries and between different indicators of unionization and collective bargaining. Unionization is found to be related to a large number of structural, cyclical, institutional, and socio-demographic variables. Although changes in the sectoral structure of the economy and the composition of the workforce have played a role, their contribution to union decline seems to be smaller than widely believed. The effect of globalization on unionization and collective bargaining as well as the role of changing attitudes of employees towards unions are not fully clear, but the rise of the informal sector in various parts of the world poses a challenge to union recruitment. Union density and bargaining coverage are related, but the link is far from perfect. A more important predictor of bargaining coverage is the level at which bargaining takes place. Bargaining coverage is usually high and stable in countries with multi-employer bargaining, and the decentralization of bargaining structures in many countries has contributed to the fall in bargaining coverage observed in the last decades.

Right wing populism has sprung from the inevitable failure of neo-liberalism

18 | International Union Rights | 27/1-27/2 FOCUS | RIGHT-WING POPULISM, TRADE UNIONS, AND FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RIGHTS In the run-up to the 10th anniversary of the Mandate for the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Associatio, and in preparation for the Rapporteur’s thematic report to the Human Rights Council at its 44th session, a call for inputs was issued, seeking contributions ‘reflecting on the past decade and setting a vision for the mandate’s future agenda’. On behalf of ICTUR, Daniel Blackburn and Ciaran Cross submitted this reflection on the alarming global rise of the populist right and the implications for trade unions and for fundamental human rights. The past decade has been marked by the reverberations of the 2008 global financial crisis. In every corner of the world, the full brunt of the excesses fostered by forty years of neoliberal policies have been deeply felt: across the globe, workers have borne the cost of measures imposed to stabilise the financial system’s inevitable collapse. As early as Sept. 2008, European trade union leaders adopted the London Declaration, stressing that the crisis arose from ‘greed and recklessness in Wall Street, London, and other financial centres’1. Heedless, desperate governments bailed out banks and socialised their vast losses. Spurred on by international financial institutions (IFIs), many states imposed new strictures of neoliberal reform of the name of competition, efficiency and growth: a wave of ‘austerity’ measures accompanied by labour law ‘reforms’ designed to curtail trade union rights, dismantle long-established collective bargaining institutions and decentralise bargaining structures, limit the right to strike and criminalise trade union activities. European institutions weighed in to require economic and labour market reforms in EU member states, to similar effect. Between 2010 and 2015, austerity-driven labour law reforms were implemented in 89 countries and some 130 governments had implemented or planned publicsector job-cuts and wage restraints2. The 2010s have seen unprecedented levels of social unrest. In the absence of meaningful and effective avenues for social dialogue, workers across the world sought – as they always have done – to articulate their grievances through demonstrations and protests. Where legal reform proved insufficient to stifle workers’ voice, governments resorted to often-lethal force, deploying riot police and security forces to suppress popular dissent. These incidents involve a startling increase in the severity of violence reported in many countries, including in Bangladesh and the Philippines, where violence was frequently reported, and shooting incidents in several European countries (in one case, in Italy, a trade union activist was shot dead), continuing severe anti-union violence in Colombia, Mexico, and Guatemala, and cases of the utmost severity in Kazakhstan and South Africa. These cases paint a damning picture of the state of freedom of association and freedom of assembly rights in 2020, which we have condemned in the strongest terms, writing to relevant authorities in support of victims, and demanding they open thorough and independent investigations, calling for the prosecution of perpetrators, and for the provision of remedies to those impacted. In this context, the rise of populist, nationalist governments seeking to co-opt a widespread sense of powerlessness against the tides of economic globalisation is alarming. It is to this forbidding environment that we urge the Special Rapporteur to direct his attention and efforts in this review of the mandate and in planning its future activities. Our global economic and political systems are treading a path comparable to the trajectory of the last century. Indeed, while the 100th anniversary of the International Labour Organisation in 2019 should have been cause for celebration, it also served as a potent reminder of the conditions into which the ILO was born. A watershed moment born of a global desire to rebuild a better world, the ILO was founded around the idea that ‘universal and lasting peace can be established only if it is based upon social justice’ and that ‘the failure of any nation to adopt humane conditions of labour is an obstacle in the way of other nations which desire to improve the conditions in their own countries’3. Less than a decade had passed from the ILO’s founding before...

Variable Pay Systems and/or Collective Wage Bargaining? Complements or Substitutes?

Whether collective wage bargaining impedes the implementation of variable pay systems is uncertain. The authors argue that much of this uncertainty is attributable to the fact that research neglects differences in the institutional structure of bargaining. Using representative company-level data for all member states of the European Union, the authors investigate the incidence of variable pay systems in general as well as pay types that include payment-by-results, performance-related pay, and team-related pay under various bargaining arrangements. Findings show that the institutional structure of collective bargaining matters: Variable pay systems thrive under company and multilevel collective bargaining, whereas their implementation is limited under national-level collective wage bargaining.

Optimizing the sustainable decisions in a multi-echelon closed-loop supply chain of the manufacturing/remanufacturing products with a competitive environment

Along with raised public awareness about environmental issues, some supply chains have begun to develop eco-friendly strategies aiming to manufacture and (or) remanufacture green products. This research presents a new preferable gaming structure in a multi-echelon closed-loop supply chain including a manufacturer, a retailer/remanufacturer, and an intermediate collection center (which is a governmental entity). The supply chain is structured to sell the products in a first and a secondary market. The significance of the research ahead is enhanced due to the use of game theory in sustainability in a new competitive supply chain structure. Toward addressing sustainability requirements, emission reductions within manufacturing, remanufacturing, and delivery functions are considered in a two-period game-theoretic-based model. Regarding the customer’s low-carbon preferences in production and delivery, the manufacturer wholesales new products to the retailer, and then, the retailer forwards them to the primary market via a full truckload policy in the first period. Even more striking, considering the environmental commitments in the second period, used products are gathered by the collection center in a reverse flow and sent to the retailer/remanufacturer for remanufacturing processes. In this regard, a Stackelberg, a Nash game, and also a novel bargaining structure are developed in the first and second periods. Then, the resulting decentralized approach is compared with a centralized model, illustrating a better performance of the decentralized scenario. Finally, through numerical analyses, it is observed that there are ascending relations between the triple dimensions of reduction rates (in manufacturing, remanufacturing, and delivering) and the corresponding profits, in which incorporating low-carbon considerations in remanufacturing has a greater efficacy.

Beyond Dividing the Pie: An Experimental Study on Bargaining over Multiple Issues

Negotiations typically involve multiple issues: in addition to the transaction price, bargainers need to determine the scope of an agreement. We design a lab experiment to study behavior across different information and bargaining structures in a multi-issue context. Consistent with recent theoretical advances, we find that having information solely on the aggregate surplus of an agreement is a good substitute for being fully informed. Two components of the institution, free-form bargaining and bundling, play a crucial role for this result. We also study the causes of inefficiency which, depending on the bargaining setting, are incomplete information, aggressive bargaining stances, or delay due to haggling. Interestingly, improving information can have a detrimental effect on efficiency, in particular in large-surplus negotiations. Our findings have broad implications for the design of markets in which interaction occurs through bargaining.

Introduction to “Bargaining Structure and Inflation”

Introduction to “Bargaining Structure and Inflation”

“We feel that our strength is on the factory floor”: Dualism, shop-floor power, and labor law reform in late apartheid South Africa

ABSTRACTThis article explores the transformation of South African labor relations during the 1980s. In 1979, prompted by new shop-floor militancy, the Wiehahn Commission recommended that black workers, previously excluded from state labor machinery, be permitted to join recognized trade unions. Most discussions of this shift in apartheid labor relations focus on the ensuing debate within the black unions, torn between preserving their independence or securing state legitimation. This article looks instead at the related debate about ‘levels of bargaining’: should emergent black unions demand to negotiate at the factory level, where they had secured shop-floor strength through organizing and democratic practice, or pursue the benefits of the corporatist bargaining structures that had long excluded them and had privileged white workers? The eventual drift towards corporatism, I argue, imprinted the character of the South African labor movement into the post-apartheid era. An understandable desire to wield influence at the level of the national political economy eroded the tradition of workers’ control, shop floor democracy, and struggle unionism that black unions had forged during the 1970s and 1980s.

The Institutional Adjustment Margin to Import Competition: Evidence from Italian Minimum Wages

A growing body of research has contributed to understanding the labor market and political effects of globalization. This paper explores an overlooked aspect of trade-induced adjustments in the labor market: the institutional aspect. We take advantage of the two-tier collective bargaining structure of the Italian labor market, whereby the first tier entails setting minimum wages at the contract level. Using an instrumental variable strategy and exploiting variations in contract-level exposure to trade, we find for the 1995-2003 period that on average, the surge in imports decreased contractual minimum wages by 1.5%. This impact increased with the increase in the share of unskilled workers employed under this contract. This negative institutional effect contrasts with a nonsignificant effect of trade on total wages, with the latter becoming positive and large only for highly skilled workers.

8 good reasons why adult social care needs sectoral collective bargaining

In this booklet, Dr Lydia Hayes sets out the lessons learned from her interdisciplinary research into the social care sector, and builds upon the recommendations made in the Institute of Employment Rights' Manifesto for Labour Law: a comprehensive revision of worker’s rights to propose a sectoral collective bargaining structure for the negotiation of wages and conditions.

Re－prioritizing Policy Options for Achieving SDG Goals 7 in Korea

This paper attempts to review and reposition policy instruments in achieving SDG Goal 7 in Korea. It is necessary to flexibly re-prioritize current policies in response to new circumstances. As in detailed indicators of SDG Goal 7, the expansion of renewable energies and the energy efficiency improvement policies have been steadily strengthened in Korea, and the recent achievements of green growth and climate change are significant. This study analyzes the current state of energy-related sustainable development policies in Korea and suggests policy implications to improve the SDG Goal 7 targets. Incentive structures should be expanded in regulatory and monitoring frameworks, including subsidy and financial support. In addition, financial support should be extended to SMEs whose potential is not sufficiently managed due to institutional difficulties. The cooperation between large and small enterprises in the energy and greenhouse gas management is difficult to achieve due to the subcontracting structure and asymmetric bargaining structure in Korea. To improve this, it is required to enhance the system in which financial support for SMEs is strengthened. To improve energy efficiency and expand renewable energy, policy makers must maintain consistency in setting regulatory targets considering long-term goals.

An Empirical Analysis of the Signaling and Screening Models of Litigation

We present an experimental analysis of the signaling and screening models of litigation. In both models, bargaining failure is driven by asymmetric information. The difference between the models lies in the bargaining structure: In the signaling game, the informed party makes the final offer, while in the screening game the uninformed party makes the final offer. We conduct experiments for both models under a common set of parameter values, allowing only the identity of the party making the final offer to change. We find the anomalous behavior to be more common in the signaling game, but the frequency of this behavior diminishes in the later rounds of the experiment. Across both games, in the later rounds of the experiment over 90% of offers are consistent with the theory. Having the right to make the offer raises a player’s expected payoffs, but by much less than is predicted by theory. Dispute rates across the two games are approximately equal.

Non-standard Employment in Sweden

In Sweden, as in many other countries, marginal groups tend to be overrepresented in non-standard employment. A decomposition of the employment rate of full-time workers on permanent contracts reveals that non-standard employment contributes to a substantially weaker labour market attachment for females and the foreign born than suggested by conventional employment figures alone. Our econometric analysis shows that the negative wage premia associated with fixed-term employment are considerably smaller in Sweden, both for natives and foreign born, than those that have been found for other countries. This may be due to a highly compressed wage structure and extensive coverage of collective bargaining in Sweden. On the whole, the type of fixed-term contract seems not to matter for the estimated wage premia.

Non-standard Employment in Sweden

In Sweden, as in many other countries, marginal groups tend to be overrepresented in non-standard employment. A decomposition of the employment rate of full-time workers on permanent contracts reveals that non-standard employment contributes to a substantially weaker labour market attachment for females and the foreign born than suggested by conventional employment figures alone. Our econometric analysis shows that the negative wage premia associated with fixed-term employment are considerably smaller in Sweden, both for natives and foreign born, than those that have been found for other countries. This may be due to a highly compressed wage structure and extensive coverage of collective bargaining in Sweden. On the whole, the type of fixed-term contract seems not to matter for the estimated wage premia.

New European Economic Governance and Decentralisation of the Collective Bargaining Structure in Italy: Did It Work Out?

New European Economic Governance and Decentralisation of the Collective Bargaining Structure in Italy: Did It Work Out?

Workplace unionism under decentralised bargaining in France: a case study of the CGT in the car industry

AbstractConsidering recent theoretical accounts on the trajectory of French unionism under localised bargaining, this article examines potential consequences for the country's traditionally largest radical union, Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT). Deploying a case study of CGT at PSA Peugeot Citroёn and Renault in the years since the 2008 automotive crisis, the article observes a persistent pattern of militant opposition within company and plant union sections. Company bargaining structure, interunion reformist collaboration and electoral considerations are identified as workplace mechanisms reinforcing CGT actions at this level.

Macroeconomic outcomes, collective bargaining and intersectoral productivity differentials: a panel approach

Using a sample of 19 advanced countries from 1990 to 2014 and an Arellano–Bover/Blundell–Bond linear dynamic GMM estimator along with a bootstrap-based bias correction fixed effects estimator for dynamic panels, the paper examines the macroeconomic impact of collective bargaining structures in a context of varying intersectoral heterogeneity in productivity growth among the exposed and sheltered sectors of the economy. Results show a dampening impact of pattern and centralized bargaining structures on unemployment. However, strong domestic demand is a key precondition for such a favourable effect to materialize. Uncoordinated and centralized bargaining structures are the most efficient in terms of labour cost restraint while industry bargaining moderates labour cost growth as intersectoral productivity differentials widen.

A Cognitive Perspective on Categorical Ambiguity: Evidence From the Evaluation of New Offerings

Central tendency is a cognitive mechanism which makes us dismiss ambiguous offerings whereas conceptual combination is another mechanism which makes us ignore an offering’s prototypicality. Prior research has never tested directly the effects of these two mechanisms together. This paper achieves this, through experiments with students and a quasi-experiment with entrepreneurs. As expected, we find that there is a negative relationship between categorical ambiguity and evaluation, and more importantly, that when primed, conceptual combination moderates positively the main relationship --the more so for highly ambiguous products and less expert evaluators. This study has important implications for research on market categories, firms’ optimal distinctiveness, and attentional vs. bargaining structures in markets.