DG Economic and Financial Affairs of the European Commission published a report on the European economy with a large section on collective bargaining. According to the EC the changes in collective bargaining structures and wage setting arrangements have been largely supportive of rendering wages more responsive to economic conditions at firm level. Measures taken towards decentralisation of collective bargaining include the ending of national collective bargaining (Romania), applying sectoral collective agreement to signatory parties only (e.g. Romania, Greece), the predominance of firm level/lower level collective agreements over higher levels (e.g. Spain, Greece), new criteria on trade union representativeness (Italy, Romania) and on the validity of company-level agreements (Italy), and the possibility of opting-out from law and national collective agreements (Italy). In addition, wage flexibility has been supported by temporary restrictions to the application of the wage indexation system in Luxembourg and Cyprus. Appendix 1 lists reforms that are ‘potentially leading to better employment outcomes (henceforth employment-friendly reforms)’: decrease of bargaining coverage, reduction of bargaining power of unions, decentralisation and introduction of derogations.
English: http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/publications/european_economy ...
For more information, please contact the editor Jan Cremers, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) cbn-aias@uva.nl or the communications officer at the ETUI, Mariya Nikolova mnikolova@etui.org. For previous issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit http://www.etui.org/E-Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net.