Jelle Visser

University of Amsterdam | UVA · Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS)

The paper takes up two questions. Do we observe, universally in the advanced capitalist world, the weakening of collective bargaining? Have employers everywhere and always tried to achieve this outcome and abandoned structures and policies that sustain collective bargaining? For answering the first question, the paper proposes three indicators—barg...

With rising consumer prices, tight labour markets, a resurgence in labour militancy, and a new post-Coved appreciation of the role of government and market regulation, the conditions for renewed union growth seem favourable. But unions have to come from far. Across the OECD unions have lost members and power, young people increasingly stay away fro...

In this chapter, we outline the combination of supply-side and demand-sidefactors which have allowed these countries to reconcile high employmentwith comparatively low inequality, and outline the trade-offs associated withthem. We discuss the combination of negotiated policy-making, continuouswage moderation, and flexibility through part-time emplo...

Resumen A partir de datos sobre cobertura de la negociación colectiva en 80 países, los autores analizan las ventajas de la extensión de los convenios colectivos como herramienta política para preservar unos mínimos en cuanto a condiciones de trabajo y empleo. Como instrumento regulador, la peculiaridad de un convenio de eficacia general es que se...

Résumé Les auteurs utilisent des données sur la couverture conventionnelle dans 80 pays pour évaluer l'apport des mécanismes d'extension des conventions collectives en tant que moyen d'instaurer des normes sociales et des conditions d'emploi minimales. Ce mode de réglementation, qui dépend des autorités publiques, a pour spécificité de reposer sur...

Using data on collective bargaining coverage for 80 countries, the authors analyse the merits of using the extension of collective agreements as a policy tool for creating a floor for conditions of work and employment. Issued by public authorities, this regulatory instrument is distinctive in that it is based on agreement between independent, auton...

The world of work is changing at a very rapid pace. The decline of jobs in manufacturing, the rise of non-standard and flexible work and the persistence and growth of the informal economy, coupled with changes in employment regulations and behavior and the limitation and violation of trade union rights, have caused unionization rates to fall in mos...

This chapter assesses the global evidence on major factors influencing the future of work.

This volume examines the extension of collective agreements and its use as a policy tool to expand the coverage of labour protection, and shore up collective bargaining.

Collective bargaining over wages and other working conditions between unions and employers is a key labour market institution in democratic societies. The coverage and impact of this institution varies over time and across countries. This policy brief examines differences in collective bargaining coverage for 75 countries.

Collective 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, an...

In this chapter we analyse patterns of policy change and employment performance in the social models of the Netherlands and Switzerland. We outline how these countries have been able to reconcile high employment levels, a lean welfare state and moderate levels of income inequality, three policy objectives that have been considered irreconcilable in...

In recent times, the Netherlands has been one of the most successful advanced economies in terms of raising employment levels and keeping unemployment down. Since 1993, it has maintained an unemployment rate consistently lower than the EU average, and employment rates for both men and women rising considerably faster than the EU average (see figure...

Measured by its achievements, industrial unionism represented the high point in the history of 20th century trade unions. This article analyses the defining characteristics and organizing model of industrial unions and argues that changes both in the labour market, in particular the decline of industry, and in union organizing and sectoral bargaini...

This article focuses on the role of unions and their influence on economic inequality. Section 2 reviews the literature regarding the union effect on wages and wage inequality. Section 3 considers the separate contributions of union power, membership composition, bargaining coordination, and wage policy. Section 4 introduces the distinction between...

The result of a four-year long comparative research study centred at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, and financed by the European Commission's Sixth Framework Programme, this book presents the first full-length theoretical and comparative empirical study of new social pacts in Europe. Its aim is to bring the level of sophistic...

This chapter assesses the book's analytical framework. Regarding social pact emergence, overall the evidence supports our central argument that pacts emerge via political processes driven by interests and power, not because of the role of ideas, through social learning, or via spontaneous coordination in response to problem loads. In instances of b...

The Dutch chapter demonstrates that social pacts are the standard operating procedure in times of crisis in the Netherlands. After the early Wassenaar agreement, pacts became the institutional alternative to state intervention. The chapter calculates that eleven of the thirty years since 1980 have been covered by pacts on wage moderation, and in no...

This article analyses the emergence and institutionalization of regional industrial relations arrangements in six regional integration agreements (European Union, North American Free Trade Association, Mercado Común del Sur, Economic Community of West African States, Southern African Development Community, Association of Southeast Asian Nations). I...

Trends in industrial relations institutions show a mix of continuity and diversity. Rates of trade union density, decentralisation of collective bargaining, employers’ organisations and collective bargaining have remained relatively stable. National industrial relations regimes remain diverse — mainly between the EU-15 and the 12 new Member States,...

In this chapter we interpret and analyse the findings of a wide-ranging study of modes of socio-economic governance in the European Union at supranational, national and subnational levels, including the ‘micro-level’ of firms and local networks.1 The governance modes studied here are not always easy to classify as ‘new’ or ‘old’. Some have long ped...

Using surveys from the International Social Survey Programme covering the period 1985-2002 for seven European countries (West and East Germany, Sweden, Norway, Italy, the Netherlands and Great Britain), we examine the effect of relative earnings on union membership and show that union density is higher among workers in the intermediate earnings gro...

Economists have largely neglected the analysis of the relevant factors that induce policymakers and trade unions to sign social pacts, despite their clear implications for economic policies and the functioning of labour markets. In this paper we fill this gap. We build a simple theoretical framework that models social pacts as the outcome of a barg...

This article analyses the trilemma the EU is facing concerning three fundamental principles on which the Community rests: free movement of services and labour; non-discrimination and equal treatment, and the rights of association and industrial action. With rising cross-border flows of services and (posted) labour after the Eastward enlargement, th...

Trade union legitimacy at national level is increasingly coming under pressure due to the new social challenges arising from the shifting of decision making from national to both international and decentralised levels. In this article we discuss representative opinion research on the social differences perceived by Dutch citizens and the priorities...

In this article, the direct role of the state in industrial relations is scrutinized by focusing on the political basis of decisions regarding the minimum wage. We argue that in order to ensure stability and growth, any state must balance the interests of capital and labour when taking this kind of distributional decision. This idea is operationali...

This article analyses the trilemma the EU is facing concerning three fundamental principles on which the Community rests: free movement of services and labour; non-discrimination and equal treatment, and the rights of association and industrial action. With rising cross-border flows of services and (posted) labour after the Eastward enlargement, th...

From a global perspective, the European Union is a forerunner in combining a market- building agenda with a social agenda which includes emerging European industrial relations. In other global regions this process has barely begun and the EU is sometimes seen as a model for the development of a regional social dialogue. While industrial relations a...

Industrial relations and the Lisbon reform agenda are interwoven. The Lisbon Strategy has entered the agenda of the social partners at all levels: European, national, in sectors and in companies. The use of instruments — law, collective agreements with and without binding effects, guidelines and benchmarking — varies and generally there is a tenden...

This paper examines the implementation of the first ‘autonomous’ agreement signed by the European social partners. The European Framework Agreement on Telework of July 2002 was to be implemented ‘in accordance with the procedures and practices specific to management and labour and the Member States’, using the first implementation route of Article...

If there is one non-controversial stylized fact about the development of employment in the western world, it is the feminization of labor markets. On average, calculated across twenty OECD countries, the female employment rate rose from 49.2 to 59.0 percent between 1983 and 2003, whereas the male employment rate decreased from 77.7 to 73.6 percent....

In this paper we examine the connection between union membership and economic inequality. Using several surveys from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) covering the period 1985-2002, we initially examine the impact of relative earnings position on union membership and show that union membership is concentrated in the intermediate earn...

h3. English summary This paper is written as a reappraisal of the work on inflation and wage bargaining of Ezio Tarantelli, the Italian economist who in 1985 was brutally killed by the Red Brigades. It returns to his ideas, and the discussion within the OECD, about combating inflation and free collective bargaining, as well as the relationship betw...

This paper commences with a survey of international trends in union membership, union density and collective bargaining, while focusing on the comparative position of trade unions in Germany. The author considers three hypotheses concerning the development of unionism in recent decades. The first one is that globalisation and structural change in t...

Document en accès libre sur le site "Archives of European Integration (AEI)" : http://aei.pitt.edu/13694/1/caruso_sciarra_n56%2D2007int.pdf

Preface. ....The University of Florence acted as the coordinator of a research project called 'La dimensione europea ed internazionale del diritto del lavoro: un laboratorio fiorentino di ricerca', launched by Professor Silvana Sciarra in collaboration with the Universities of Boston, Cambridge, Catania, Eichstatt Ingolstadt, EUI, Lyon II, Madrid C...

Against the background of changes in European integration, labor markets, firms, families, and politics, this paper surveys and discusses changes in union representation and labor regulation. In particular, the paper questions the role and presence of labor unions as collective intermediaries of employment relations and providers of employee rights...

[From p. 38] An analysis of "adjusted" union membership data in 24 countries yields past and present union density rates; the data provide explanatory factors for the differences and trends in unionization.

In the present period of globalization Governing Interests presents new research on the impact of internationalization on the organization and representation of business interests through trade and employer associations. By exploring ongoing, gradual but nevertheless profound changes in the structures and functions of business interest associations...

Despite surface stability, there are significant changes in the modes of governance regulating the relationship between law and collective bargaining as a source of labour rights, and between norms defined at EU, national, sectoral and company level. This article focuses on the European integration process as a key source of change, first outlining...

How robust is coordinated decentralization in socio-economic governance, especially in wage bargaining, when national economies are torn between internationalization on the one hand and decentralization or increased internal diversity on the other? How should the national state influence the behaviour of trade unions and employers’ organizations? W...

Flexibility has been a major labour market issue in all OECD countries in the past two decades with a strong employer push for increased flexibility. The growth in atypical employment and working time patterns has also increased concerns over the economic and social impacts of these new patterns in many countries. In New Zealand, labour market dere...

Within sociological and economic analyses of working time, important questions remain regarding women’s ability to combine paid and domestic work. While there is a growing body of research in this area, our knowledge and understanding of the relationship between working, social and private time, often remains limited, in particular regarding the fo...

Within sociological and economic analyses of working time, important questions remain regarding women’s ability to combine paid and domestic work. While there is a growing body of research in this area, our knowledge and understanding of the relationship between working, social and private time, often remains limited, in particular regarding the fo...

This paper provides the scientific framework for the NEWGOV project Distributive Politics, Learning and Reform. In Part I, we establish our own definition and conceptualization of social pacts. We distinguish four types of pacts with different scope and depth: shadow pacts, headline pacts, coordinated wage setting, and embedded pacts akin to neocor...

Introduction In 2000 the European Council in Lisbon agreed to set targets concerning employment–population ratios. The EU target for 2010 is 70 per cent, meaning that seven out of ten people in the working age (15–64) population should be employed. The current figure for the Netherlands is 74 per cent, which ranks the country in third place, after...

A comparison of developments in part-time work in New Zealand, the Netherlands and Denmark shows three very different trends. The Dutch are moving towards a 'part-time economy', the decline in Danish part-time employment confounds the common expectation of rising atypical employment, while the New Zealand case illustrates some of the negative emplo...

Cet article a posé et a répondu à quatre questions. Quel a été la cause de la diffusion rapide du travail à temps partiel aux Pays-Bas ? Comment a été évitée la marginalisation des travailleurs à temps partiel ? Est ce que l'actuel modèle d'un revenu et demi par ménage constitue une phase transitionnelle vers un modèle à deux revenus; ? et finaleme...

Can the recent decline in union density in Europe be attributed to specific economic, social or institutional causes? Can unions influence these causes and reverse decline? Using two data sources - a representative survey of Dutch employees and a data set for European countries between 1950 and 1997 - the author examines the determinants of union d...

Introduction On the surface, four features characterise the current 'full employment' labour market of the Netherlands: a high incidence of part-time jobs; widespread use of temporary agency and flextime work; low registered unemployment; and a high disability rate. Part-time jobs have become the dominant transitional arrangement between education...

In this paper I discuss the recent Europeanisation of employment policy. In the centre of my analysis will be the European Employment Strategy, its underlying philosophy towards social and employment policy, its method of achieving common goals in Europe, and its implementation, policy learning effects and limitations in one particular case, the Ne...

Corruption in the public sector erodes tax compliance and leads to higher tax evasion. Moreover, corrupt public officials abuse their public power to extort bribes from the private agents. In both types of interaction with the public sector, the private agents are bound to face uncertainty with respect to their disposable incomes. To analyse effect...

Current theories of unions are mainly theories of what unions were and did rather than theories of what unions will be and will do. Thus, the purpose of this book is to help make economic thinking about unions in Europe more forward‐looking and to discuss the role that unions are likely to play in the changed economic environment of the new century...

Current theories of unions are mainly theories of what unions were and did rather than theories of what unions will be and will do. Thus, the purpose of this book is to help make economic thinking about unions in Europe more forward‐looking and to discuss the role that unions are likely to play in the changed economic environment of the new century...

Current theories of unions are mainly theories of what unions were and did rather than theories of what unions will be and will do. Thus, the purpose of this book is to help make economic thinking about unions in Europe more forward‐looking and to discuss the role that unions are likely to play in the changed economic environment of the new century...

Current theories of unions are mainly theories of what unions were and did rather than theories of what unions will be and will do. Thus, the purpose of this book is to help make economic thinking about unions in Europe more forward‐looking and to discuss the role that unions are likely to play in the changed economic environment of the new century...