Wage Bargaining Structure Employment And Economic Integration

Analisi: INTEGRAZIONE. Economica. Teoria. ECONOMETRIA. Econometria applicata. MERCATO DEL LAVORO. Teoria.

Comparison of trade union and employers organizations' attitudes towards wage policy in France, Germany, Federal Republic, Italy and UK and their impact on regional level economic integration - explains employers' and trade union structures; discusses their role in collective bargaining and wage determination; finds that labour disputes are the main obstacle to integration in EC countries. Graphs.

Since the 1980s, the process of European economic integration, within a wider context of globalization, has accelerated employment change and placed a new premium on ‘flexible’ forms of work organization. The institutions of employment relations, specifically those concerning collective bargaining between employers and trade unions, have had to adapt accordingly. The Transformation of Employment Relations focuses not just on recent change, but charts the strategic choices that have influenced employment relations and examines these key developments in a comparative perspective. A historical and cross-national analysis of the most important and controversial ‘issues’ explores the motivation of the actors, the implementation of change, and its evolution in a diverse European context. The book highlights the policies and the role played by different institutional and social actors (employers, management, trade unions, professional associations and governments) and assesses the extent to which these policies and roles have had significant effects on outcomes. This comparative analysis of the transformation of work and employment regulation, within the context of a quarter-century timeframe, has not been undertaken in any other book. But this is no comparative handbook in which changes are largely described on a country-by-country basis, but instead, The Transformation of Employment Relations is rather focused thematically. As Europe copes with a serious economic crisis, understanding of the dynamics of work transformation has never been more important.

A historically unique experiment is about to enter its second decade - German unification. Early hopes for a rapid and smooth economic transformation soon turned out to be overly optimistic. Despite massive financial transfers, the political promise of a "blooming landscape" remains a vision. Actual developments have left deep scars on the labor market, and the effects will be felt for decades to come. Was this outcome to be expected, perhaps even inevitable? What went wrong, and what were the available options? Or is the current state of Eastern German labor market in fact better than is commonly assumed?

The contributors to this study examine the ways in which monetary union will affect collective bargaining in the six states that are adhering to the principles laid down in the Maastricht Treaty on convergence and monetary union.'

Recoge: 1. Introduction. - 2. Institutional and empirical evidence. - 3. Product market integration and wage formation. - 4. Product market integration and labour market flexibility. - 5. Concluding remarks.

Diplomarbeit aus dem Jahr 2010 im Fachbereich BWL - Wirtschaftspolitik, Freie Universität Berlin (Otto Suhr Institut - Politikwissenschaft), Veranstaltung: Politikwissenschaft, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: German trade unions' influence in industrial relations at the national level is curbed by the side effects of European integration. Supranationalization implies the transfer of regulatory power from the national to the supranational level. In the various policy areas, integration and supranationalization proceed at different speeds with regard to scope and level. This also applies to the neighboring policy areas of economic and labor policy. However, due to the overlap of these two policy areas, the asymmetrical integration of economic policy vis-a-vis labor policy leads to shifts in the German collective bargaining system, thus circumscribing the scope of German trade unions' action. More specifically, sectoral asymmetry leads to asymmetric political localization of the policy areas: Regulations in the economy are mainly taken at the EU level, whereas labor and social affairs remain national competences. Furthermore, the insertion of a supra-national layer is accompanied by a policy-theoretical change of the highest governmental and judicial authority from a hitherto (social-democratic) market-correcting consensus to a now market-making approach. This shift causes respective shifts at the national level as well. Additionally, the European Court of Justice possesses supreme judicial competence in both economic and social policy and hence is able to negate national particularities that conflict with EU law. Moreover, EU institutions are able to regulate national labor and wage policy, since there is a broad overlap between economic and wage policies. Supranational regulations in economic policy can thereby influence and constrain national wage policy. Finally, because of Economic and Monetary Union, the exchange rate mechanism is no longer applicable as a tool of economic policy, which entails high incentives for regulating labor costs by wage policy alone.

First published in 1999, this volume recognises that in the course of European integration, national economic policy makers lose some effective policy instruments. Contributors to this omnibus volume analyse the 'room for maneuvering' available to national and EU economic and social policies under the conditions of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). They explore the possibilities for European coordination and discuss the tasks of employers’ associations and labour unions on the national and EU level in wage, employment and macroeconomic policies. Section 1 of the book deals with the strengths and weaknesses of the EU in the context of global competition. In spite of national differences, many of the EU member countries share important characteristics. Section 2 addresses the need for and the feasibility of policy coordination in the EMU. With the start of the EMU, wage policy will have to bear the main burden of absorbing asymmetrical economic shocks. The authors from the DIW argue that a wage policy favourable to economic growth, employment and convergence has to be guided by the inflation target set by the European Central Bank (ECB) and by the long-term increase of productivity in individual countries. A precondition for this kind of wage policy is coordination between the main actors of EU economic policy (ECB, EcoFin, social partners).

Throughout the industrial world, the discipline of labor law has fallen into deep philosophical and policy crisis, at the same time as new theoretical approaches make it a field of considerable intellectual ferment. Modern labor law evolved in a symbiotic relationship with a postwar institutional and policy agenda, the social, economic and political underpinnings of which have gradually eroded in the context of accelerating international economic integration and wage-competition. These essays--which are the product of a transnational comparative dialog among academics and practitioners in labor law and related legal fields, including social security, immigration, trade, and development--identify, analyze, and respond to some of the conceptual and policy challenges posed by globalization.

Collective bargaining and workers’ voice are often discussed in the past rather than in the future tense, but can they play a role in the context of a rapidly changing world of work? This report provides a comprehensive assessment of the functioning of collective bargaining systems and workers’ voice arrangements across OECD countries, and new insights on their effect on labour market performance today.