Collective Agreement Clauses and Sector Patterns Across Europe

Abstract

Knowledge about what exactly is concluded in collective bargaining is a blank spot. Beyond wages, no cross-country sources are available about clauses. In view of the EC’s re-launched dialogue with social partners at European level (European Commission 2016), such data is critical for monitoring progress in collective bargaining outcomes. Yet, while collective bargaining is crucial to both agreed wage levels and working conditions in Europe, our knowledge about the outcomes of collective bargaining is limited due to a lack of systematic data collection and coding of provisions collective bargaining agreements (CBAs). COLBAR-EUROPE, funded by the European Union ( VS/2019/0077), aimed to gather and code hundreds of CBAs across Europe and associate countries. In total 602 CBAs could be analysed for 25 of the 28 EU countries (555 CBAs), for two of the five Associate countries (35 CBAs) and for one not-scheduled EU partner, namely Switzerland (12 CBAs). This report addresses COLBAR-EUROPE’s research objective 1): Which topics are agreed upon in the agreements and can patterns in bargaining topics be identified within and across countries and private and public sectors? In the CBA Database ten topics have been distinguished. Nine topics are discussed in this report. A tenth topic, wages, is discussed in another COLBAR-EUROPE report.