This year’s edition of the annual OECD Employment Outlook presents new evidence on changes in job stability, underemployment and the share of well-paid jobs. The report focusses i.e. on the implications of digitalisation, globalisation and ageing as well as on employment protection and social protection reforms. With regard to collective bargaining the reports shows that low levels of organisation among workers, in particular non-standard workers, pose a serious challenge. This partly reflects legal obstacles for workers classified as self-employed, for whom the right to bargain collectively may be seen as infringing competition law. In this context, some OECD countries have made tailored extensions of collective bargaining rights to some non-standard workers. However, practical difficulties remain. Employers’ organisations are being put to the test by the emergence of new forms of business. Established trade unions are developing strategies to reach non-standard workers, while new vehicles of workers’ representation are also emerging.
Read on: in English . The report: in English .
For more information, please contact Sanne van der Gaag or Sjaak van der Velden, De Burcht (Scientific Bureau for the Dutch Trade Union Movement) sannevandergaag@deburcht.org or the Head of communications at the ETUI, Steve Coulter scoulter@etui.org. For previous full issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit www.etui.org/E-Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter or consult the archive with all articles in our database at www.cbnarchive.eu. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org.