While prior research has demonstrated the poor and unpredictable working conditions and ambiguous working arrangements characteristic of platform‐based food delivery, we lack research on the question ...of how well these workers are informed about essential aspects of their work, including protection of their rights, working time and schedules, and earnings. Comprehensive and transparent information on working conditions at an early stage is indispensable if workers are to be able to make informed decisions on taking up work and, where relevant, investing in equipment and exercising rights linked to a specific job. Drawing on the multi‐dimensional job quality literature, this article focuses on digital labour platforms in the food delivery sector across four countries: Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain. We exploit firm‐level variations, including with regard to the types of work arrangements used and the application—or not—of collective agreements. We draw on information provided to riders during the application process prior to the start of employment, including via websites and FAQs, as well as scrutiny of contracts, service agreements and collective bargaining agreements, where relevant. This information is complemented with interviews with trade union representatives. Our findings point to the relationship between a firm's choice of employment status and form of contract, on one hand, and the predictability and transparency of information provided to workers, on the other. Differences and similarities in such information seem to be more strongly bound to firm‐level decisions than to the welfare and industrial relations regimes in which the platform companies operate.
An interpretative qualitative research project has been carried out in north‐west Spain (Galicia) with the aim of identifying the priorities which, in the opinion of the different agents involved, ...constitute the major demands of inclusion for an inclusive social and educational transformation. The data collection technique used was the open interview, through which 44 participants, belonging to different groups (headteachers, teacher‐tutors, specialists, counsellors, families, students, associations and politicians), expressed their experiences in relation to the subject of the study. Content analysis was carried out, through a double coding process combining the deductive and inductive approach, supported by the professional software MAXQDA22. The results reveal three main priorities as the main demands of inclusion in order to move towards inclusive social and educational change: (1) reaching collective agreements, (2) creating micro support networks and (3) strengthening teacher commitment.
Starting from the empirical evidence that minorities are more likely to work on flexible contracts, we investigated the existence of an ethnic gap in flexible contracts between the native Dutch ...population and sub‐Saharan African immigrants between 2006 and 2012. The migrant group is taken as a test case of ‘outsiders’. This study found, quite surprisingly and contrary to what several theories predict, that the expected ethnic gap in job status between the two groups disappeared in the 6 years between 2006 and 2012. Many sub‐Saharan Africans successfully transformed their flexible contracts into permanent ones, catching up with the native Dutch by 2012. The analysis of the statutory provisions showed that the workforce numerical composition in the cleaning industry was important for the inclusiveness of sub‐Saharan immigrants. This numerical compositional effect was facilitated by the collective agreements negotiated by trade unions, agreements that were extended to temp workers. Sub‐Saharan Africans, overrepresented in the cleaning industry, have benefited disproportionally from the settled agreements. We thus conclude that trade unions can improve the inclusion of migrants not only by explicitly focusing on migrant representation but also by targeting sectors with an overrepresentation of migrants.
How do firm‐level collective agreements affect firm performance in a multi‐level bargaining system? Using detailed Belgian‐linked employer–employee panel data, our findings show that firm‐level ...agreements increase both wage costs and labour productivity (with respect to sector‐level agreements). Relying on approaches developed by Bartolucci and Hellerstein et al., they also indicate that firm‐level agreements exert a stronger impact on wages than on productivity, so that profitability is hampered. However, this rent‐sharing effect mostly holds in sectors where firms are more concentrated or less exposed to international competition. Firm agreements are thus mainly found to raise wages beyond labour productivity when the rents to be shared between workers and firms are relatively big. Overall, this suggests that firm‐level agreements benefit both employers and employees — through higher productivity and wages — without being very detrimental to firms’ performance.
This article reviews the year across collective bargaining, union policy and strategy, as well as industrial responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. While the industrial environment rebounded slightly ...from the initial impact of the pandemic in 2020, similar themes persisted throughout 2021, including declining coverage of employees under collective agreements, a difficult bargaining environment in ‘essential’ industries, limited cooperation of the industrial relations parties during developments in the pandemic response and a continued pattern of low wages growth. While trade unions achieved isolated ‘wins’ on key matters, at a system level there continues to be enduring issues of low wages, insecure work and frustrations with the collective bargaining system, while the nation attempts to recover from the impact of the pandemic.
This paper investigates the relationship between union organization, workplace representation, the quality of industrial relations and strike incidence, as well as the implications of the matters at ...stake in localized disputes. Strike incidence is found to be higher in establishments where union density is higher, and where workers are covered by mixed-level collective agreements and in flexible employment. Further, distrust is associated with increased strike incidence, and conversely for employee-focused strategies and heightened employee motivation. These results are robust to controls for possible endogeneity of union density and country (cluster) heterogeneity. In terms of outcomes, higher union density, works councils, profit sharing, and a machine/computer-driven work pace are associated with worker wins, while collective bargaining, firm profitability, and more frequent meetings with management are linked with more balanced agreements.
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