Through the analysis of the concept of emerging professionalism from collective agreements applied to the greatest number of workers (15 collective agreements, selected on the basis of the number of ...workers to which they apply and other criteria indicated), in this paper the Author points out that technological innovations are not producing a conceptual revolution comparable to that which was the unique framework of the 70s on the personnel framing systems, a fortiori because often the renewals of collective agreements take place after a considerable time; the problem, from the point of view of industrial relations, however, is that the increasing differentiation of the organizational models of enterprises could have the effect that the revision of the discipline of professionalism corporate, shifting the centre of gravity of collective bargaining towards a greater degree of decentralisation and hence the potential (and dangerous) extension of the employer’s powers. Finally, the effect of the interweaving between the protection of professionalism in national collective agreements and ius variandi of the employer is discussed
This article reports the findings of a field study on the emergence of collective agreements led by global brands enacting compliance measures to improve safety and working conditions in the ...Bangladesh garment industry. We explore how key actors in the Bangladesh garment sector who constitute the local production system of the global supply chain experienced the implementation of global agreements on factory safety. We argue that global safety compliance measures through multi-stakeholder initiatives provide legitimacy to multinational corporations and their global brands but do little to address the structural problems arising from exploitative pricing and procurement practices, which are the key reasons for deplorable working conditions in garment factories. Our findings indicate that neoliberal development policies of the state, where local economies are incorporated into global production networks, resulted in differential treatment and regulation of specific populations that comprise garment factory workers. The reconfiguration of state power to meet the demands of global supply chains also involved use of state violence to suppress dissent while undermining labour rights and working conditions. Our article contributes to the politicization of multinational corporations in global production chains by showing how contestations between workers, factory owners, the state, trade unions and multinational corporations create new private forms of governance and new regimes of compliance in the industry.
This article uses the European Structure of Earnings Survey to describe the evolution of collective bargaining coverage in European countries during 2002–2018 and how this affected the pay premium ...associated with being covered. Pay premia are an outcome of negotiations, reflecting the bargaining power on behalf of employees as well as the system of coverage, separately for the public and private sector. Descriptively, we show a decline in collective bargaining coverage linked to a general reduction in the pay differences. This hides much variation though. In a multivariate analysis of changes over time, we show that centrally bargained agreements are associated with larger pay premia if more people are covered and in countries and sectors with stronger trade unions. As this power declines over time, so do wage premia. At higher rates of coverage, there can be a spillover effect where wages for all workers increase, thereby reducing the premia.
Summary
Health promoters recognize the social determinants of health (SDOH) shape health outcomes yet generally neglect how unionization and collective agreements (CAs) shape these SDOH. This is ...surprising since extensive evidence indicates unions and CAs influence wages and benefits, job security, working conditions and income inequality, which go on to affect additional SDOH of food and housing security, child development and social exclusion. We argue unions and CAs should be a health promotion focus by examining how they influence the SDOH and health outcomes in wealthy developed nations in four ways. First, we consider how union density (UD) and CA coverage (CAC) are associated with differences between wealthy western nations in percentage of low-waged workers, extent of income inequality, and low birthweight and infant mortality rates. Second, we bring together literature that shows greater UD and CAC within national sub-jurisdictions are associated over time with more equitable distribution of the SDOH and better health outcomes. Third, we document—also using available literature—how within nations, union membership and working under a CA shape the SDOH one experiences. Fourth, we carry out a Canadian case study—applying a political economy lens—to examine how power relations, working through economic and political systems, determine extent of unionization and CAC and the inclination of health promoters to consider these issues. Implications for health promoters are considered.
Industrija videoigara jedna je od najbrže rastućih industrija s velikim ekonomskim potencijalom koja zapošljava sve veći broj radnika diljem svijeta. No, njezina „tamna strana“, na koju upozoravaju ...različita istraživanja, su nepovoljni uvjeti rada osoba zaposlenih u ovom području: predugo radno vrijeme, niske plaće, diskriminacija i uznemiravanje radnika, neadekvatna zaštita na radu, neravnoteža posla i obiteljskog života i drugo. Sindikalno organiziranje, kolektivno pregovaranje te različite formalne i neformalne kolektivne akcije i predstavništva radnika predstavljaju instrumente kojima se uvjeti rada mogu poboljšati, ali se još uvijek nedovoljno koriste. Riječ je o temi koja zaslužuje pozornost, a u Hrvatskoj još nije dovoljno istražena. U radu se najprije analiziraju uvjeti rada zaposlenih u industriji videoigara, posebno kroz prikaz rezultata različitih istraživanja provedenih među radnicima. Zatim se daje prikaz individualnih akcija te neformalnih i formalnih kolektivnih akcija koje poduzimaju radnici zaposleni u industriji videoigara u različitim dijelovima svijeta. Analizirane su odredbe Kolektivnog ugovora za radnike Gamechuck d.o.o. iz Zagreba. Na temelju dobivenih spoznaja izveden je zaključak o važnosti koju sindikalno organiziranje ove skupine radnika te kolektivno pregovaranje, ali i različite neformalne akcije imaju za poboljšanje njihova položaja i uvjeta rada. Kada je riječ o analiziranom Kolektivnom ugovoru, može se zaključiti da se njime jamči zavidna razina prava radnika, a dodatnu pozornost trebalo bi posvetiti jasnijem uređenju radnog vremena.
The video game industry is one of the fastest growing industries with a huge potential to employ more and more people all over the world. However, there is a dark side that different studies call attention to, all related to the poor working conditions: too long hours, low pay, discrimination and mobbing, inadequate occupational safety, imbalance between work and family life, etc. Organizing in unions, collective negotiations, various formal and informal collective actions and representations are instruments that may bring about better working conditions, but they are not sufficiently practiced. This is an issue that requires more attention in Croatia. The paper initially analyzes the working conditions of individuals employed in the video game industry, particularly focusing on the results of different studies carried out among the workers. Next, the paper presents individual actions, as well as informal and formal collective actions undertaken by the workers in this industry in different parts of the world. Provisions in the Collective Agreement of the Gamechuck d.o.o. based in Zagreb are analyzed. Findings indicate the importance of organizing in unions and collective negotiations, but also a variety of informal actions for the improvement of the workers’ position and working conditions. The analyzed Collective Agreement shows that a high level of workers’ rights is guaranteed, with more attention needed to arrive at a clearer definition of the working hours.
In the article, the regulatory trajectories of variable hours contracts (VHCs, denoting on-call contracts, and zero-hours contracts) are analysed in two countries, the Netherlands and Finland. The ...unity or disunity in social partners’ readiness for bringing the issue of VHCs to the agenda of collective bargaining has implications for the labour market regimes. From the institutional change perspective, the shared agenda in regulating the VHCs implies conversion of the labour market regime in the Netherlands. In Finland, layering was seen in the development of labour legislation, whereas the disregard of VHCs in collective bargaining implies drift. In Finland, the ‘legislative route’ of regulating conditions of labour may strengthen, undermining the negotiatory autonomy of social partners, earlier embedded in the structure of the Nordic labour market regime.
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 marginalization are highly divergent between its subsectors. In half of the CCI subsectors, some form of collectively bargained response to the ongoing flexibilization and marginalization has emerged. This first of all shows that creative workers do indeed not only care about expressing their creativity but also about their material working and living conditions. Also how employers’ organizations and trade unions respond to these developments by means of collective agreements varies. Where they disagree, concrete action is postponed. Where they align, either counteracting measures are included, or attempts are made to bridge the divide between employees and the self-employed to some extend in the collective agreement. By doing so, they counteract processes of dualization, paving the road for innovative approaches of industrial relations actors. Still, this counts only for part of the CCI as much of it remains not covered by collective agreements.
The gradual shift in power relations between organized employers and employees since the 1970s has increasingly affected the functioning of national industrial relations systems. According to a broad ...literature, the most important of these consequences is an increase in employer discretion. This article tests this claim by performing a longitudinal content analysis on three Dutch collective contracts. It develops an analytical framework based on four dimensions of employer discretion. Results show that although employer discretion did increase on all four dimensions between the mid-1970s and the 2020s, significant temporal and sectoral variation has occurred. In addition, the article argues that a loss of democratic influence by employees intensified the increase of the one-sided decision-making powers of employers, and that the collective contract is being transformed from a joint labor–capital effort to solve workplace problems to a management instrument.
Employers’ organizations (EOs) are the voice of business interests in social partnership and socio‐economic policy making. Their legitimacy depends on the willingness of employers to join them as ...members. We examine the role of two types of power that EOs confer onto their members as drivers of EO membership: countervailing power against labour and organizational power. By analysing large‐scale micro‐level data on more than 30,000 business establishments across 27 EU countries in 2013 and 2019, we find that at the micro‐level, company size, workplace unionization and the presence of trade unions and works councils are positively associated with membership, as is union density at the macro‐level. These findings suggest that, in contrast to contemporary arguments in the EO literature, countering the collective power of labour remains an important motivation for EO membership. The positive impact of company size also suggests that organizational power, that is the ability to influence public policies and collective agreements through EOs, dominates the services provided by EOs to their members as a selective incentive for EO membership. Further tests of this argument, however, yield inconclusive results.
This paper introduces a model of collective creativity that explains how the locus of creative problem solving shifts, at times, from the individual to the interactions of a collective. The model is ...grounded in observations, interviews, informal conversations, and archival data gathered in intensive field studies of work in professional service firms. The evidence suggests that although some creative solutions can be seen as the products of individual insight, others should be regarded as the products of a momentary collective process. Such collective creativity reflects a qualitative shift in the nature of the creative process, as the comprehension of a problematic situation and the generation of creative solutions draw from-and reframe-the past experiences of participants in ways that lead to new and valuable insights. This research investigates the origins of such moments, and builds a model of collective creativity that identifies the precipitating roles played by four types of social interaction: help seeking, help giving, reflective reframing, and reinforcing. Implications of this research include shifting the emphasis in research and management of creativity from identifying and managing creative individuals to understanding the social context and developing interactive approaches to creativity, and from a focus on relatively constant contextual variables to the alignment of fluctuating variables and their precipitation of momentary phenomena.
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