Development in the Regulation of Wages and Working Conditions: The Employee Perspective (original) (raw)
Related papers
Collective bargaining as a tool to ensure a living wage. Experiences from the Nordic countries
Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, 2019
To date the Nordic countries have not had a public debate on living wages, in contrast to many Anglo-Saxon countries. This does not mean, however, that the concept of a living wage is alien to them. In this article we examine whether wage-setting mechanisms in the Nordic countries promote and secure a living wage for all employees, and how trade unions have approached the concept of a living wage.
The issue of statutory minimum wages: Views among Nordic trade unions
Economic and Industrial Democracy, 2017
Nordic trade unions are known to be sceptical of statutory minimum wages. The peak level organizations are generally against legislation, as they believe that their model of bargaining is preferable. In contrast, trade unions in many other parts of Europe find it necessary with statutory minimum wages to protect all workers and not just the unionized. Legislation can also be considered a way of preventing wage dumping and avoiding poverty. This article explores the attitudes among Nordic trade unions below the central/confederate level. The empirical basis is a survey of a large number of organizations in the five countries. The data show a great deal of scepticism towards statutory minimum wages, but some responding organizations recognize certain benefits. It is concluded that Swedish unions are most sceptical of the possible advantages of legislation, whereas in regard to attributed disadvantages Norwegian but also Danish unions are most inclined to agree. Type of industry and si...
European Journal of Industrial Relations, 2018
There has been much recent attention to the upheavals, often externally induced, in collective bargaining and labour market regulation in southern European countries. In this article, we introduce a set of studies of changes, typically employer-driven, in collective wage regulation in northern Europe. We discuss possible drivers of change: contagion from southern Europe, regime competition among the northern countries themselves and/or destabilizing effects of east–north integration, driven by free movement. These drivers interact with internal change dynamics spurring diverging actor responses and institutional outcomes. We outline the common research design, review salient features of wage regulation in six countries, and differences in institutions, production, markets and factor mobility in four sectors. We briefly review findings from the other articles.
Dilemmas of Collectivism: Danish Trade Unions in the Twenty-First Century
Journal of Labor Research, 2007
In general, labor market regulation in Denmark has been left very much to the two sides of industrial relations, reducing legal regulation to a minimum. Until recently, both employers' associations and trade unions were of the opinion that most labor market issues, if not all, were better solved by collective bargaining, excluding intervention by parliament or government. By implication, relatively few areas of working life were covered by law, compared especially to continental Europe, and, curiously, even many ILO conventions concerning working life issues had not been ratified by the Danish parliament, e.g., the first ILO convention C 1 from 1919 regarding the 48-hour work week. In fact, all issues regarding pay (including minimum pay) have been absent from Danish law; most issues concerning working time and gender were also left out. However, laws regulating working environment issues, holiday entitlements, and employment protection of salaried employees were enacted (Due et aI., 1994; Scheuer, 1998a).
Bringing the Unions Back In: Wage Bargaining Coordination and Institutional Renewal in Sweden
ABSTRACT Declining unionizations rates and the decentralization of wage bargaining have reduced the importance of organized labour in the political process. For some, this decline seems irreversible and the best trade unions can hope for is to be co-opted by governments or employers in'devil's pacts'. Over the last few years, however, some European trade union confederations have sought to reverse this trend by enhancing interconfederal coordination in wage bargaining demands.
European Journal of Industrial relations, 2018
How do government employers exercise power in highly voluntarist bargaining models? In this article, we analyse the potential power of public employers in Sweden, Denmark and Norway and examine how they use this potential. We call attention to three areas in which government employers exercise power: direct political intervention, attempts to decentralize wage bargaining and control of wage movements. We argue that government employers in the three countries have similar institutional capacities for power, but their ways of exercising power vary according to political norms and practice.
Economic and Industrial Democracy, 2011
This article analyses how the introduction of variable pay systems (VPS) has affected the role of trade unions and collective bargaining in company pay setting, and the role of these institutions in shaping VPS in Norwegian companies in blue-collar machinery production and white-collar banking services. The development of VPS has been fairly smoothly handled by the actors within, and with the help of, the established industrial relations institutions. In the machinery companies, VPS implied minimal changes in collective bargaining, whereas in banking significant individualization and more ambiguous effects for the role of company unions in pay setting were found.
Trade unions and the politics of occupational pensions in Denmark and Norway
Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research
Around 1990, trade unions in both Norway and Denmark moved away from their previous hostile stance, and started actively to promote occupational pensions. Over time, full coverage of occupational pensions was achieved in both countries, yet with different scopes, degrees of risk-sharing and modes of governance. Why did both countries go through similar institutional changes, and why were the outcomes still so different? The roads to full coverage were different: In Denmark, this was achieved through wage bargaining; in Norway, through mandating. Denmark developed far more collectivistic schemes than Norway, but recent developments indicate convergence: efforts are being made in Norway to develop encompassing schemes more similar to the Danish ones, while the Danish system appears to be moving in a more individual direction. In both countries, strong trade union branches have at critical junctures forged alliances with their employer counterparts at the expense of trade union solidar...
Trade Unions in the Nordic Labor Market Models – Signs of Erosion? Introduction to the Special Issue
Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies, 2022
The Nordic countries are known for being small open economies with large public sectors due to universal welfare states and high living standards across occupations and education levels. This combination has recently been characterized as a balanced growth model in which both exports and internal demand (private and public) contributes to economic growth. In contrast to export-led growth models – as seen in Germany – which have starved wages and thus internal demand to increase the cost competitiveness of the export sector (Baccaro & Pontusson 2016), the Nordic countries seem to be able to do both (Alsos et al. 2019). In 2013, The Economist proclaimed Nordic countries as the world’s next ‘supermodel’ due to the emphasis on market dynamics and income security rather than job tenure – a useful blueprint for labor market policy configured for the rapid technological changes foreshadowed in the twenty-first century (Wooldridge 2013).In more recent years, the OECD has linked the flexibil...