Part Of Labor Market Research Articles

From Conflict to Cooperation: Norwegian Labour Market Institutions in the Making

Moving a relationship of widespread conflicts and distrust into a virtuous circle of trust and cooperation is challenging, yet the case examined in this article shows that it is possible. A problematic start can indeed lead to a positive outcome. In the early twentieth century, Norway experienced the highest levels of labour conflict in Europe. Class conflicts were intense and often violent, with deep mistrust between the parties in the labour market. This situation changed markedly when the Norwegian Employers’ Confederation and the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions signed the Basic Agreement in 1935. This agreement not only led to a lasting decline in labour conflicts, but it also marked a crucial early step towards a system of close collaboration between labour and capital in Norway. By focusing on the intimate relationship between beliefs, trust, and cooperation, this article explores how the labour market parties transitioned from widespread conflict and open struggle to a system of peaceful negotiations and compromises. Changes in beliefs enabled the parties to coordinate on a new cooperative equilibrium, an equilibrium that continues to characterise Norway’s labour market today.

Young Labour Force and Labour Market Alignment in A Developing Economy: Turkey TRB2 Region Survey

The aim of this study is to discover the root causes of the labor market adjustment problem, which has not been resolved for a long time in Turkey, on the most fundamental basis and by observing in the least developed region. The study is based on data obtained from qualitative and quantitative field studies that lasted approximately nine months as part of a research project supported by the Eastern Anatolia Development Agency (DAKA). According to the results, social skills deficiencies have been identified among the causes of labor market conflicts and vocational skill deficiencies in regions with low socio-economic development. Contrary to most studies on education-employment fit, the results of this study show that central education remains a habit for the labor market parties but does not meet the expectations of both parties.

Technology as a Woman’s Call: The Efforts of the Fredrika Bremer Association to Promote Women’s Education in Technology 1978–1999

In 1978, Sweden’s oldest women’s organisation, the Fredrika Bremer Association (FBF), organised an event on women and technology. This was the first event of its kind in Sweden and it was met with great interest. Consequently, it became a recurring annual event until the late 1990s. At a time when the computerisation of society precipitated a response from the Swedish state, labour market parties and civil society, the FBF became an authority in the area of technology and gender equality. Framed within the field of history of knowledge, this article claims that the FBF sought to redefine the concept of technology to include what they considered to be female features. They circulated this new definition in the school system and among the broader society. The FBF has been overlooked as a relevant actor in the circulation of technology knowledge, even though it played a significant role in the discussion of women and computer technology in Sweden from the late 1970s to the late 1990s.

Multiparty work relationships in Denmark: The active role of social partners

The article discusses selected forms of multiparty work relationships that are surfacing in Denmark, and the responses of the social partners to these developments. The overall approach of the Danish labour market parties and legislators is with a view to ensuring that work performed by workers in atypical employment relationships, such as multiparty work relationships, are also covered by collective agreements, which can be enforced. Collective agreements must be effective and adhered to, and attempts to circumvent collective agreements are strictly prohibited. As such, multiparty work relationships are addressed as any other work relationships, and are often expressly included in normal collective agreements. This is the case, unless a setup is viewed as an attempt to circumvent a collective agreement by creating pro forma contracts. In particular, subcontracting by independent contractors has been the subject of legal review, where the trade unions have filed claims before the industrial courts to test the reality of subcontracting arrangements. Also, the question of who is the responsible employer surfaces in multiparty work relationships in particular, as the responsible employer is subject to the duty of adhering to the collective agreement and other workers’ rights. The duty to adhere to provisions in collective agreements covers fraudulent contractual setups, and the user entity that in reality is the employer can be liable for breach of the agreement. Furthermore, the social partners enter into negotiations in respect of new forms of work, adapting collective agreements to such new forms of work. This is the case for platform work. Finally, certain trade unions engage with the interests of their members in becoming independent contractors, and have developed support for their members’ endevaours by way of a formal service bureau to look after the administrative side of being an indepdent contractor. The role of the social partners continues to be central and necessary to counteract circumvention and fraudulent business structures. At the same time, the role of the social partners is also characterised as adaptive and dynamic as they seek to actively engage with the interests of their memberes, and to continue to be a relevant partner for their members as well as for society at large.

Everything Changes, But It All Stays the Same. Labour Market Parties, Corporatism and Norwegian Sick Pay Policies 1978–2014

Since the adoption of a generous and universal sick pay scheme in 1978, the key elements of Norwegian sick pay policies have remained the same. The present study focuses on the gradual developments in welfare corporatism and policymaking during this period, arguing that these changes paved the way for new and surprising strategies and behaviour among the labour market parties. Tracking several retrenchment attempts across decades, the analyses show how policymaking in corporatist committees was gradually replaced by less predictable processes. Successive governments of different colors have tried to bypass the social partners and legislate hierarchically, thus signaling a break with traditional corporatist norms and decision rules. Labour and business groups adapted by negotiating a pact that kept the existing distribution of economic risks in the sick pay scheme off the political agenda, and by backing each other and creating negative attention to government in the media to protect the pact. In sum, although sick pay policies have remained largely unchanged, this is a status quo upheld by processes of welfare policymaking that have changed substantially. The pact between the social partners and the state is currently a new vetopoint for welfare policymaking. But the piecemeal institutional transformation witnessed in this period, together with the need for conflictual media strategies and new alliances to protect the pact, suggest that it could be a fragile veto‐point.

Gender equality and the feminized public sector in the affective struggles over the Finnish Competitiveness Pact

AbstractCollective bargaining has been under great pressure in Finland and Europe, including demands for increased wage competitiveness and reductions in public sector spending. This article showcases how relatively gender‐equal states with strong corporatist traditions, such as Finland, may align with neoliberal austerity policies that have gendered implications, even when gender equality becomes a prominent issue in a policy debate. This article analyzes the case of the Competitiveness Pact, a recent policy reform to lower labor costs initiated by the Finnish government and negotiated with labor market parties. This analysis combines affect theory and a policy‐constructivist approach to analyze the positions and documents produced by the government and labor market parties during the Competitiveness Pact negotiations. We identify problem representations regarding national competitiveness and suggest that the problem representations constructed anticipatory regimes that focused on potential future threats and crises, especially those related to the public sector, which was portrayed as a source of potential crisis and a threat to the masculine export sector. The article shows how neoliberal economic and governmental policies exacerbate gender inequality in the labor market with the consent of trade unions.

The Shifting role role of unions in the social dialogue

The article deals with the declining union density and shrinking coverage of collective agreements in most EU/EES countries, in particular in Eastern Europe and Greece. In many countries, international organizations pushed through “structural reforms” weakening trade unions. The result is declining union density and decreased capacity to conclude sectoral collective agreements and avoid downwards derogations at company level. Even in some core eurozone countries have governments without much of social dialogue carried through “internal devaluation” to restore competitiveness. High union density (Finland) or high union mobilization capacity (France) could not prevent this development. The economic performance of a country and degree of globalization, including the absence of a national currency, appear to be more important. The Swedish (and Nordic) model of self-regulation, resting on negotiations between the labour market parties, contrasts sharply to French state regulation with its high frequency of state extension of collective agreements and minimum wages set by the state. Union density in Sweden is still among the highest in the world but has declined considerably the last twenty years, in particular among the rapidly growing share of foreign-born blue-collar workers. As a small, strongly export-dependent country dominated by large transnational groups, Swedish economy is very influenced by globalization. This has shifted the balance of power to the advantage of employers, and by that circumscribed the unions’ efforts to achieve developing jobs and improved working environment.

The sidelining of gender equality in a corporatist and knowledge-oriented regime: The case of failed family leave reform in Finland

Reform of the family leave system has been on the Finnish political agenda for a long time but has proved to be a challenging task. The challenges relate to ideological differences between the political parties and to non-decision making in tripartite working groups, where the labour market parties participate in policy formulation. The article analyses the recent attempt to reform the Finnish family leave system under a right-conservative government (2015–2019) as an example of how diverging political ideologies and vested interests undermine adoption of government gender equality policy. The case also serves as an example of the growing influence of knowledge, and especially economic knowledge, in policy-making. The article provides new insights into the changing processes of decision-making in relation to gender equality policy.

Malaysia and Its Transition Process Towards More Gender Equality at the Labor Market


 
 
 The promotion of labor market opportunities for females in Malaysia has been part of several quantitative studies. Although the empirical data stresses the existence of gender-related constraints females are facing when trying to access labor market, the reasons remain mainly unexplored. Thus, this qualitative study tried to identify major constraints and challenges females are facing when entering the Malaysian labor market. Focus group discussions with different groups of females aged 16 to 50 have been conducted, as well as with employers and HR Managers of global players. The study identifies local disparities between rural and urban living as major consequences for female labor market access and the achievable employment situation. The analysis of the focus groups also highlights that two groups of women – females living in Projek Perumahan Rakyat (PPR) or “People ́s Housing Project” areas and Single Mothers – are strongly affected from often being no constant part of labor market but trapped in side-jobs or non-satisfying microbusinesses. The solidification of social inequality by an absence of support structures and empowerment programs can be seen as the most important reason. Policy recommendations, based on the empirical results, are therefore discussed in order to stimulate a discussion on gender equality.
 
 

Kamppailuja merkityksistä, kustannuksista ja vaikutusvallasta – Juha Sipilän hallituksen perhevapaauudistuksen kaatuminen kolmikantaisen tasa-arvopolitiikan näkökulmasta

Perhevapaajärjestelmää on pyritty uudistamaan jo pitkään. Käytännössä uudistaminen on kuitenkin osoittautunut vaikeaksi. Uudistuksen kipukohdat liittyvät niin poliittisten puolueiden ideologisiin eroihin kuin uudistusten vesittymiseen kolmikantaisessa politiikkaprosessissa, jossa työmarkkinakeskusjärjestöt osallistuvat politiikan muotoiluun. Tasa-arvopolitiikan tutkimuksessa on keskeistä analysoida, millä ehdoilla ja minkälaisen prosessin kautta tasa-arvopolitiikka tulee voimaan. Epäonnistuneet prosessit ovat erityisen kiinnostavia, sillä ne kertovat paljon toimijoiden välisestä dynamiikasta ja valtasuhteista. Tässä artikkelissa tarkastelemme pääministeri Juha Sipilän hallituksen (2015-2019) epäonnistunutta yritystä uudistaa perhevapaajärjestelmä tasa-arvopolitiikan päätöksenteon prosessien näkökulmasta. Analysoimme uudistusta paitsi esimerkkinä valtiollisen tasa-arvopolitiikan epäonnistumisesta eriävien poliittisten ja ideologisten näkemysten ristipaineessa, myös esimerkkinä kolmikantaisen tasa-arvopolitiikan murroksesta. Artikkeli tuottaa uutta tietoa tasa-arvopoliittisen päätöksenteon muuttuvista prosesseista ja niihin liittyvistä haasteista. Artikkeli perustuu laajaan asiakirja-aineistoon (N=196) sekä uudistukseen osallistuneiden toimijoiden haastatteluihin (N=14), joiden kautta pääsemme pureutumaan, laadullisia menetelmiä hyödyntäen, syvemmälle siihen, miksi perhevapaauudistus kaatui.

Affective Institutional Work and Ordoliberal Governance: Gender Equality in Parliamentary Debates on the Competitiveness Pact in Finland

ABSTRACT The 2008 economic crisis and its aftermath have created opportunities for institutional actors to formulate and implement neoliberal reforms and policies. In this article, we analyse a recent ordoliberal policy measure of the Finnish government—namely, the Competitiveness Pact—and related legislative measures. Ordoliberalism, a variant of neoliberalism, entails a strong state which aims to protect the economy from interfering influences. The government’s main objective was to increase the competitiveness of the Finnish economy by lowering labour costs. However, the competitiveness measures caused a conflict between the government and labour market parties. As the measures mainly targeted the feminized public sector, they had clear gendered impacts that became central to the struggle between the government and trade unions. We utilize critical discourse analysis as a methodology to study affective institutional work and ordoliberal governance in parliamentary discussions on these measures. Our results show that gender equality was marginalized and considered a threatening issue for the ordoliberal regime. The Pact was also the government’s attempt to make institutional changes to the norms and relations of the corporatist system, as the government assumed the leading role by setting demands for the labour market parties to fulfil.

Diálogo Democrático Y Desarrollo: Un Obituario Intelectual De Björn Gustavsen

Björn Gustavsen, with an original professional background as a lawyer and judge in his native Norway, had a formative role in organisational development processes in Norway, Sweden, Scandinavia and the European Union over four decades. Following in the tradition of Norwegian working life research by Trist and Thorsrud, he provided the conceptual framework and practical case studies which have driven major national and international programmes. He learned from different experience of organisational change in, for example, the USA and Japan, but he identified a distinctive way forward for the European Union, where he acted as a senior adviser. In contrast to conventional Taylorist top-down management and reliance on expert consultants, his approach was bottom up and concept driven, with a focus on empowering workers. With a commitment to long-term sustainable processes, he emphasised the importance of capacity building and succession planning, highlighting development organisations. His approach to partnership and coalition building enabled collaboration across sectors, in the cause of creating collaborative advantage. He had a distinctive fluent academic writing style, but spentmost of his time engaged in the design and practice of development, and editing the work of younger colleagues. He saw the role of academic journals and edited books in the development process, so encouraged new publications, but without seeking to dominate. He took ideas of Action Research and case studies, and applied them to national enterprise development programmes, working with the labour market parties. This resulted in a distinctive research and development culture.

Democratic Dialogue and Development: An Intellectual Obituary of Björn Gustavsen

Björn Gustavsen, with an original professional background as a lawyer and judge in his native Norway, had a formative role in organisational development processes in Norway, Sweden, Scandinavia and the European Union over four decades. Following in the tradition of Norwegian working life research by Trist and Thorsrud, he provided the conceptual framework and practical case studies which have driven major national and international programmes. He learned from different experience of organisational change in, for example, the USA and Japan, but he identified a distinctive way forward for the European Union, where he acted as a senior adviser. In contrast to conventional Taylorist top-down management and reliance on expert consultants, his approach was bottom up and concept driven, with a focus on empowering workers. With a commitment to long-term sustainable processes, he emphasised the importance of capacity building and succession planning, highlighting development organisations. His approach to partnership and coalition building enabled collaboration across sectors, in the cause of creating collaborative advantage. He had a distinctive fluent academic writing style, but spent most of his time engaged in the design and practice of development, and editing the work of younger colleagues. He saw the role of academic journals and edited books in the development process, so encouraged new publications, but without seeking to dominate. He took ideas of Action Research and case studies, and applied them to national enterprise development programmes, working with the labour market parties. This resulted in a distinctive research and development culture.

Practical discourse and the notion of democratic dialogue

The notion of democratic dialogue made its entrance in Scandinavian workplacedevelopment in the 1980s. One reason was the need, recognised by the labour marketparties, for replacing negotiations with more evolutionary forms of communication in localdevelopment contexts. The article traces the emergence of the concept, its content and itsfate as a moving force in development processes. The movement towards dialogue has beensuccessful in the sense that dialogue has become common in workplace conversations. Thedevelopment also raises new challenges.

Introduction: How do we Understand Working Environment Policies, Programmes and Instruments?

How do different forms of regulation influence working environment and working life? How can centrally formulated programmes create changes at complex, often multi-layered local work places, and how can insights from work life studies shed light on the social mechanisms at stake in different types of regulation? Under the heading of working environment policies, programmes and instruments, the aim of the current issue has been to address these issues. In essences, it is society’s intentional attempt to regulate working environment conditions in the workplace. It could be through health and safety legislation and labour inspection. But it is much more than that: The states are not restricted to writing rules, inspecting and sanctioning them. They put together insurances systems and they support massive campaign efforts. And they get labour market parties, nationally, by the sector or within the companies or workplaces, involved in similar activities; sometimes, labour market parties or other stakeholders even do it without prompts from the state. All these efforts are made to a larger or smaller extent because they are seen as beneficial to the health of the employees. But we know surprisingly little about how policies, programmes and instruments work, the social processes at stake, to what extent they do work and whether there could be better ways to reach the overall goal of creating a better working environment. There seems to be several reasons for the lack of knowledge about the processes involved in regulating the working environment (...)

Sanctions for Unlawful Collective Action in the Nordic Countries and Germany

This article compares the industrial relations systems in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Germany with the aim of exploring the approach to remedies and sanctions in order to find out whether national remedies and sanctions for unlawful industrial action could also be applicable to situations of 'unlawful Collective Action under EU law'. In our opinion, it is crucial for such a comparison to focus not just on the legal remedies at hand in the national legal context, but also to take into account the context of industrial relations in which they function. A comparative study of sanctions and remedies in the Nordic countries and Germany opens up a spectrum of rather complicated rules that have been fine-tuned in legal practice at national level over several decades, including rules on defining lawful collective action, mediation, and interim injunctions. The legislator and the courts have built national systems that are based on an acceptance of Collective Action as a legitimate tool for trade unions, a tool that is not allowed to be misused and that has been developed to support and fit into the national industrial relations system and traditions of collective bargaining. The starting point is that unlawful Collective Action should be subject to economic sanctions, but these sanctions should not endanger continued contractual relations between the labour market parties. Economic sanctions are not primarily calculated on the basis of economic loss on the part of the employers, but many factors are taken into account, such as the size of the trade union as well as any mitigating and aggravating factors in accordance with national law and practice. These aspects should be taken into account also in cases of 'EU-unlawful' collective action.

Reinterpreting the Historicity of the Nordic Model

In conventional images of the so-called Nordic model, the strong state is opposed to markets or civil society and co-operation is opposed to conflict. These opposites appear problematic if one takes seriously the Nordic market- and interest-centered language used for the practices of social regulation, including the stubborn use of “labor market parties” instead of the EU concept “social partners”. Applying an approach sensitive to the historical and political aspects of language and concepts, the paper argues that a particular notion of social citizenship developed in the Nordic countries, in which interests rather than rights were put into the center. Such a notion of social citizenship was associated with two intertwined ideas, important in the development of the Nordic pattern of social reform: the idea of symmetry between workers and employers and the idea of a virtuous circle between divergent interests. With these ideas democracy and citizenship were combined with paid work and conflicting interests. This combination has been questioned by the projects for competitive national (and European) communities, responding to globalized and financialized capitalism. The vigorous comparisons of “models”, and the popularity of the concept of “the Nordic model”, can be seen as an aspect of this current transformation.

Joint Responsibility at its Peak – Searching for a New Nordic Unemployment Model

Earlier research has shown that the Nordic Ghent systems seem to be weakened. The unemployment insurances administered by the unions have experienced a decline in numbers of members, very similar to the drop in trade union membership. This article takes its point of departure in previous research into the decline in the membership densities of unemployment insurances in several Nordic countries. The article examines these tendencies and focuses on a new and rather atypical example of organizing unemployment systems in a Nordic context, namely that of the Faroe Islands. Based on interviews and documentation analysis, the article describes the system extensively and argues conclusively that the Faroese unemployment insurance system is an example of the deeply rooted Nordic negotiation tradition, albeit in a new context in which the labor market parties stand united to ensure the system’s autonomy from political influence.

The Journey of Finnish Forest Workers from the Woods to the Negotiating Table: the first collective labour agreement in 1962

The Finnish forest workers' trade union and employers' organizations signed their first wage agreement in 1957 and first collective labour agreement in 1962. Many other sectors had concluded such agreements years earlier. This article challenges the widely accepted idea that collective labour agreements were becoming ubiquitous in Finnish industrial relations soon after the Second World War. Forest workers were left out of this process, and up until the late 1950s their wages and working conditions were not determined by the labour market parties but by state authorities – the state legislated and regulated forestry wages. The explanation for the delayed development of labour market practices in this sector can be found in forest work itself as well as the state's active role. This work was, up until the 1960s, done mainly by small farmers who were reluctant to unionize and unable to otherwise promote their interests. The situation changed when professionalization made them more or less full-time forest workers who more often joined the union. At the same time, the state created organizations and institutions which encouraged labour market parties to cooperate. Their shared struggle against political interference pushed labour market parties towards collective bargaining.

The Internal Market and the Future of Labour Law in Europe: Insights from the Nordic Countries

EU law has influenced the Nordic labour law systems considerably. Although, an overall feeling that this has not caused many problems, some matters have been considered problematic. The problems concerns mainly two areas: Collective agreements and the labour market parties' freedom, and the question about social dumping. The author argues that the growing amount of EU legislation has reduced the labour market parties' freedom, and that the Laval case and its followers have challenged the Nordic labour law systems and traditions. Further, the author questions if the ongoing harmonization within the European Union not is downwards when it comes to the labour market and social standards.