Maarten Keune

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

In labour-intensive sectors, public procurement’s focus on price competition and efficiency jeopardises job quality. This study shows procurement’s negative impacts in all job quality dimensions in four sectors in the Netherlands. Employing an actor-institutionalist lens, the research investigates these problems by analysing several actor positions...

This introductory article to the Special Issue Marshall in Brussels? A new perspective on social citizenship and the European Union first argues that there is a need for a novel systematic framework that captures the increasingly complex web of relationships between the European level and the national and local levels in the creation and implementa...

The launch of the European Pillar of Social Rights has reinvigorated the debate on the role that the European Union can exercise in the sphere of subjective rights. Such debate has traditionally focused on the limits of the current social acquis, considered unable to create fully-fledged European social citizenship, that ultimately remains limited...

This article investigates values of work in the creative industries in the Netherlands by researching whether non-material values of work are more important than material values, and how this is impacted by precarity. Two approaches are evaluated: post-materialist theory and critical research on the creative industries. The results of the vignette...

This article presents a comparison of interest representation in the videogame industry in Denmark, Italy and the Netherlands. While traditional industrial relations actors play a minor role, interest representation is far from absent in this creative industry. Interest representation is, however, dominated by other actors that often cut across the...

The cultural and creative industries (CCI) is a sector where the workforce is highly educated, yet precarious working conditions are prominent. Although flexible and marginal work is often treated as an overall feature of the sector, this study based on register data on all workers in the sector shows that processes of flexibilization and marginali...

After some promise in the 1990s, European unions have grown increasingly disillusioned with regard to the results of EU social policy and EU social dialogue. The paper analyses the extent and reasons of this disillusion by looking at the impact on social dialogue of the Active Inclusion Recommendation launched by the European Commission at the outs...

The book is organized in four parts. The first part consists of the introduction that outlines the themes of the book and draws together the conclusions of the chapters of the book. Section 1 is largely conceptual and includes three broad papers providing a historical and theoretical analysis of the conditions that allowed for the emergence of the...

Resumen Los autores examinan en qué medida las propuestas de «crecimiento inclusivo» de la UE, la OCDE y el FMI responden a sus propios objetivos. Se identifican dos «eslabones perdidos» en estas propuestas: la distribución funcional de la renta y las instituciones laborales. Con datos de panel de 42 economías desarrolladas para 1990-2018, los auto...

Résumé Les auteurs se demandent si les déclarations des institutions internationales en matière de croissance inclusive sont bien compatibles avec les recommandations formulées par ailleurs. Ils attirent aussi l'attention sur deux éléments clés du débat, souvent ignorés: la répartition fonctionnelle des revenus et la couverture conventionnelle. En...

Dit rapport brengt de arbeidsmarktflexibilisering binnen de creatieve industrie gedurende het afgelopen decennium in kaart. Waar begin 2010 het vaste contract nog de meest voorkomende arbeidsmarktpositie was, zijn dit eind 2018 zzp'ers. De analyse van de ontwikkelingen in de deelsectoren van de creatieve industrie laat zien dat dit niet uitsluitend...

The aim of this article is to discuss the ‘inclusive growth’ proposals made by the IMF, the OECD and the EU, and to examine to what extent these proposals are consistent with the objective to be achieved. To do this, we examine the importance of two ‘missing links’ commonly overlooked by these institutions when promoting ‘inclusive growth’: functio...

In the context of rising inequality between capital and labour and among wage-earners in Europe, this state-of-the-art article reviews the literature concerning the relationship between collective bargaining and inequality. It focuses on two main questions: (i) what is the relationship between collective bargaining, union bargaining power and inequ...

De arbeidsmarkt en de arbeidsverhoudingen in Nederland zijn in de afgelopen jaren sterk veranderd. Dit artikel gaat met name in op groeiende diversiteit, fragmentatie en ongelijkheid op de arbeidsmarkt en toenemende druk op de representativiteit en legitimiteit van met name vakbonden, maar ook van werkgeversorganisaties. De auteurs betogen dat deze...

This book analyses the evolution of employment, job quality and labour relations in the public sector since the 2008 crisis in nine EU Member States: Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Slovakia, Spain, Czech Republic, and the UK. It focuses on three subsectors: primary education, health care and municipalities. The book shows that th...

Work in the creative industries seems to be characterized by a contradictory situation between (very) low levels of earnings pared with high levels of job satisfaction. Often this is attributed to creative workers ‘just valuing other aspects of their work’. Other explanations are also possible such as labour market conditions and a lack of collecti...

Betaald werk staat centraal in de levens van vele Nederlanders. De omstandigheden waaronder mensen werken zijn voortdurend in beweging. Er zijn tal van ontwikkelingen gaande op de arbeidsmarkt en in de arbeidsverhoudingen. Denk bijvoorbeeld aan de discussies over het pensioenstelsel, de toenemende aantallen zzp’ers op de arbeidsmarkt, de opkomst va...

We present comparative research on precarious work and trade union strategies in three sectors (construction, industrial cleaning, temporary agency work) across seven European countries. Specific sectors have a profile of precarious work that is remarkably similar across countries, originating from similar employer strategies and work organizations...

The central thesis of this article is that the formal institutions of the Dutch neo-corporatist model appear to display a remarkable stability and continuity, but that their actual functioning goes through a gradual transformation, whereby the system has essentially changed its character and has been eroded. First of all, the stability and continui...

In the period after the Great Recession and austerity politics, we have witnessed a growing interest among international economic institutions and in mainstream economics into the relationship between inequality and sustained economic growth. The term ‘inclusive growth’ has become widely used as a lever for economic change during and after the reco...

Following the seminal work of Richard Titmuss, who coined the term occupational welfare (OW) 60 years ago, the article approaches OW provision in Europe today. We first define OW as the sum of extra-statutory social benefits and services provided by employers and/or trade unions as a result of employment. We then look at its recent evolution: OW ex...

In this article, we discuss the role of trade unions in the evolution of occupational pensions in four countries: Austria, Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands. In all four cases, important reforms have been made to the pension systems, including the consolidation of extensive occupational pensions in the Netherlands, substantial expansion of occu...

In this paper we discuss to what extent these traditional industrial relations actors and institutions play a role in the creative industry in the Netherlands and to what extent collective interest representation is absent or new types of collective interest representation can be observed. Also, we analyse the state of play of job quality, the poss...

This article re-introduces the company in the analysis of labour market dualisation by studying local actors’ (i.e. management and employee representatives) strategies as embedded in organisational and institutional contexts. Building on twelve case studies of multinational corporation (hereinafter MNC) subsidiaries in Belgium, Germany and Britain,...

In this paper, we analyse the changing discourse of the EU institutions, and in particular the European Commission, concerning work, unemployment and worker vulnerability. In particular, we discuss two key elements of the recent discursive approach of the EU institutions: the entrepreneurship approach and the discursive shift towards questioning th...

In this chapter we examine the extent to which the economic crisis has affected the position of trade unions in the Netherlands. In the first section we give a brief overview of the Dutch system of industrial relations and the strengths and weaknesses of the unions. In the second section we focus on the effects of the economic crisis for the Nether...

In this article, we investigate the effects of economic conditions, families, education, and gender ideologies on the labor force participation rates of women in eleven age groups in 117 countries. We find that participation rates of young and older women are partly explained by sector sizes and the level of economic development. However, to explai...

The author argues that Europe's future industrial relations will be shaped by the resolution of three paradoxes embedded in today's labour markets, unionization dynamics, and EU policy. The first is the increasing individualization of employment relationships versus fictional “individual autonomy” and workers' growing market dependency and vulnerab...

Resumen El autor ve el futuro de las relaciones laborales en Europa dependiente de la resolución de tres paradojas actuales relacionadas con los mercados de trabajo, la dinámica sindical y la política de la UE: la individualización de la relación de trabajo frente a la falsa autonomía del individuo y su vulnerabilidad en aumento; el número cada vez...

Résumé L'avenir des relations professionnelles en Europe dépendra de la résolution de trois paradoxes. Premièrement, l'individualisation des relations d'emploi, fondée sur l'autonomie (fictive) des individus, mais qui entretient leur dépendance au marché et leur vulnérabilité. Deuxièmement, la détérioration de la qualité des emplois et la montée de...

This chapter presents a comparative analysis of trade union strategies towards precarious employment in six EU countries. It discusses the extent to which trade unions are interested in the fate of precarious workers, what strategies they follow and what instruments they employ. Since trade union membership among precarious workers is generally ver...

The paper wants to bring the firm back into the analysis of the dualization of labour markets, combining the presently dominant macro-perspective with a micro-perspective. Dualization was an issue that originally emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the analysis of firm practices (Berger and Piore 1980). Firms were seen to use dualization o...

Most studies of flexicurity have focused on formal institutions within distinctive national labour market systems. However, the level and types of flexibility and security in a national labour market are to an important extent influenced by company-level processes, relationships and policies; thus a micro-perspective should be integrated into the s...

The Bangladesh ready-made garment industry has recently been the scene of a number of major accidents, with the collapse of the Rana Plaza on 24 April 2013 as the deadliest garment-factory accident ever known. Under renewed international pressure for multinational corporations (MNCs) to take responsibility for working conditions in these factories,...

The article makes four main arguments. First, that collective bargaining has the capacity to mitigate the negative externalities arising from market volatility, and the process of marketization, by establishing arrangements which provide substantive and procedural certainty for both workers and employers, and in particular greater security for work...

In recent years, the concept of flexicurity has come to occupy a central place in political and academic debates regarding employment and social policy. It fosters a view in which the need for continuously increasing flexibility is the basic assumption, and the understanding of security increasingly moves from social protection to self-insurance or...

Processes of transnationalization of industrial relations have been redrawing and increasing the complexity of the industrial relations map, adding new levels, actors and institutions, and creating new horizontal and vertical relationships and interdependencies. To capture these changes, we propose a multi-governance perspective enriched by due att...

. Based on an analysis of collective agreements concluded across the EU in 2008–11, the authors examine their contributions to social policy through provisions for short-time work, training, wage moderation, and flexibilization of wage setting and working time. They highlight the distinction between the public and private sectors in this respect, c...

Resumen Los autores analizan los convenios colectivos concluidos en la Unión Europea de 2008 a 2011 y su contribución a la política social (desempleo parcial, formación, moderación y flexibilización salarial y organización flexible del trabajo). En el sector público, el clima de déficit creciente y austeridad ha cerrado el espacio de la negociación...

Résumé Les auteurs examinent les accords collectifs conclus dans l'UE en 2008–2011 et leurs apports à la politique sociale: réduction du temps de travail, formation, modération salariale, flexibilisation de la fixation des salaires et de la durée du travail. A cet effet, ils distinguent secteur public et secteur privé: dans le premier, les déficits...

Since the early 2000s, the ‘new social risks’ approach has shifted the focus in welfare analysis from so-called old social risks to the so-called new social risks related to recent changes in the labour market and family structures. This approach captures a number of important changes in contemporary societies. However, it fails to capture fully th...

Since the early 2000s, the ‘new social risks’ approach has shifted the focus in welfare analysis from so-called old social risks to the so-called new social risks related to recent changes in the labour market and family structures. This approach captures a number of important changes in contemporary societies. However, it fails to capture fully th...

La “flexicurité” est devenue un concept influent dans le discours académique et politique, en particulier depuis que la Commission européenne l’a placé au cœur de la Stratégie Européenne pour l’Emploi. Toutefois, le concept souffre d’un certain nombre de lacunes graves ; dans cet article, nous discutons de ses caractéristiques problématiques et de...

'Improving our understanding of how economy and society interrelate in Europe is of paramount importance. The rigorous and thought-provoking analyses about the interaction between markets and the institutions of society contained in this book undoubtedly represent an excellent example of how this improvement can be achieved, especially in these tim...

Almost twenty years ago the Maastricht Treaty introduced procedures for European Social Dialogue, as part of a larger package of measures to strengthen the social dimension of European integration. Through the Treaty provisions (articles 154-155 Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union), the European social partners received the competence t...

This article discusses crisis-related developments in collective bargaining in the private sector across the EU since the onset of the crisis during 2008. It analyses developments in the incidence, procedures and content of collective bargaining during the crisis and is cross-nationally and cross-sectorally comparative. It also examines how economi...

‘Flexicurity’ has become an influential concept in academic and political discourse, in particular since the European Commission placed it at the core of the European Employment Strategy. However, the concept is underdeveloped and suffers from a number of serious shortcomings. In this article we discuss a number of its problematic features. In part...

The Belgian collective bargaining system is highly institutionalised and coordinated. Over 90% of employees are covered by a collective agreement, placing Belgium among the countries with the highest coverage in Europe. Also, the Belgian trade unions have a relatively high level of membership compared with the European average, with over 50% of emp...

Collective bargaining has proven to be an effective instrument to maintain employment and to allow companies to find flexible solutions to deal with the steep economic downturn. In particular, social partners played an important role in implementing statutory short-time working provisions aimed at maintaining employment through the temporary reduct...

Flexicurity in Europe: a Critical Approach In recent years, flexicurity has become a key concept in European debate. We show in this article that flexicurity has indeed positively contributed to this debate, in particular as it has promoted a more holistic approach and overturned some of the neoclassic hypotheses. At the same time, this concept has...

The previous chapter demonstrated the error of treating Germany as a static exemplar of a formal model, but has depicted it instead as a system in the process of change. This is essential to appraise whether local institutional innovators are following or running counter to a presumed national system in their entrepreneurship. This chapter applies...

This chapter considers the development of two car-manufacturing plants, both of the VW-Audi group, in two areas that had been parts of the former Soviet bloc: Zwickau and Gyr. There appears to be a major difference between the two, in that Zwickau is in the former German Democratic Republic and therefore in that part of the former Soviet territorie...

Die stufenweise Erweiterung der Europäischen Union in den letzten Jahren hat eine erneute Debatte um das Europäische Sozialmodell, die Zukunft der verschiedenen Wohlfahrtsstaatsmodelle und die Interaktionen zwischen diesen nationalen Modellen angestoßen (z.B. Hemerijck et al. 2006; Jepsen/ Serrano Pascual 2006; Keune 2006a). Gleichzeitig gibt es de...

Although linguistically somewhat strange, “flexicurity”, the combination of labour market flexibility and security for employees, has become a much praised cornerstone of European labour market policies. Obviously, in an environment with rapid technical progress and frequently changing market conditions, employers need to manage their labour force...

Throughout Europe increasing fears have arisen over the temptation among employers to relocate jobs to low-wage countries. Sluggish economic growth and continued high unemployment in much of the EU15, and low employment and income levels in the new member states (NMS), exacerbate these fears. Companies seek to take advantage of newly emerged opport...

‘Flexicurity’ has become one of the more fashionable elements of the European political discourse addressing social and economic policies in general and employment and labour market policies in particular. The European Commission is strongly pushing for flexicurity as the answer to Europe’s employment problems and is trying to convince other Europe...

This chapter seeks to put in place a comparative basis for understanding the implications of eventual Eurozone membership for CEE welfare states. Based on the present nature of the welfare and public spending ‘problem load’ facing different CEE countries, and what we understand about their respective ‘institutional adjustment capacities’, we assess...

Relocation has recently raised renewed concerns in Europe, being seen as reducing employment. This article examines the characteristics of relocation, the factors driving relocation and related policy issues. The authors argue that a number of factors foster relocation but there are also important reasons why firms ‘stay put’. For the moment, reloc...

This chapter aims to contribute to the further clarification of the relationship between enlargement and the European social model (ESM) through a discussion of welfare state reform and performance in the new member states (NMS). It discusses this relationship from two different perspectives, corresponding to the two major ways of understanding the...

Introduction In May 2004, after a long period of preparation, eight former state-socialist countries joined the European Union (EU). The entry of these new member states (NMS) raises a number of questions concerning the relationship between the enlargement of the EU and the European Social Model (ESM). For some, enlargement is a threat to the ESM....