Matthew Allen (University of Birmingham, England)
E-Mail address: mma062@bham.ac.uk
The Varieties of Capitalism Paradigm: Not Enough Variety
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The aims of this paper are threefold. Firstly, it will seek to outline some of the differences and similarities between,
on the one hand, the varieties of capitalism approach and, on the other, the neo-classical and transaction cost
approaches to the impact of institutions on economic outcomes. The varieties of capitalism literature has often taken
the former of these two alternative approaches as its natural bête noir. The second aim of this paper will be to show
that this testing ground is far from ideal, and that some of the studies within the varieties of capitalism literature
have failed to take into account some of the observational equivalents between these two approaches. Therefore, this
paper will attempt, thirdly, to make the case for testing the hypotheses that stem from the varieties of capitalism
analysis against its neglected 'close relative', that is the transaction costs approach, which, like the neo-classical one,
argues strongly against the state intervening in the market and providing the legal basis for such things as co-
determination.
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Sabina Avdagic (Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne, Germany)
E-Mail address: avdagic@mpi-fg-koeln.mpg.de
Shaping State-Labor Relations in Central Eastern Europe: The Interplay of Political Strategies and Institutional
Structures
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Despite the fact that broadly similar national-level tripartite institutions have been introduced across Central Eastern
Europe (CEE), the results they have produced differ in respective national contexts. Even though, the transformation
process has negatively affected both organizational and political capacity of trade unions in CEE, union
effectiveness in obtaining certain material, legislative, and policy concessions varies across countries. The paper
examines the sources of these variations in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland, and argues that they can be
attributed to distinct incorporation paths – pragmatic bargaining, unstable bargaining, and cooptation – which are
the product of continuous strategic interactions between respective governments and unions within the general
framework of tripartite institutions. The paper proposes a dynamic model of government-union interactions by
identifying conditions that determine the initial choice of strategies (i.e. the degree of union fragmentation, the
nature of inter-union dynamics, and the existence of formal ties between unions and political parties), and factors
that influence continuation or modification of these strategies (i.e. the nature of broader economic and political
shifts, and the experience and lessons drawn from previous episodes of interaction). Outcomes of these interactions
shape tripartite institutions in such a way that they start reflecting accentuated power disparities between the
contending actors, and limiting the scope of possible choices for the weaker actor later on. The paper shows how
endogenous forces, and not only external shocks, can incrementally modify institutional arrangements, so that they
can start serving rather different goals and purposes. In this way, the paper seeks to more clearly conceptualize
processes through which institutions evolve and change over time.
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Lucio Baccaro/Marco Simoni (ILO, Switzerland)
E-Mail address: baccaro@ilo.org
Centralized Wage Bargaining and the 'Celtic Tiger'
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Ireland is the miracle economy of the 1990s. Its economic transformation began in 1987 and overlapped in time
with the institutionalization of social partnership, that is, three-year centralized collective bargaining agreements.
Drawing on a variety of sources and research methods, e.g. analysis of wage and productivity data, historical
methods, and field interviews, this paper seeks to determine whether or not, (and if so, how) social partnership
contributed to the Irish economic miracle, and to understand the political process through which social partnership
emerged and reproduced itself over time. It argues that social partnership boosted the competitiveness of foreign
multinationals by closely linking wage increases in the dynamic MNC sector to wage and productivity increases in
the much more sluggish domestic sector of the economy. It also argues that much received wisdom about
centralized wage regulation needs to be reconsidered in light of the Irish case. Public sector unions were key actors
and yet, because of the particular structure of the Irish economy, their leadership role did not undermine the
effectiveness of wage centralization. Also, distributionally neutral wage policies were more important than
corporatist institutions in accounting for the stability of centralized wage regulation.
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Kilian Bizer/Werner Sesselmeier (Darmstadt University of Technology, Denmark)
E-Mail address: bizer@vwl.tu-darmstadt.de/sesselmeier@vwl.tu-darmstadt.de
Coordinated Macroeconomic Policy in the E(M)U?
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Assuming the desirability of a coordinated macroeconomic policy in the European Monetary Union, this paper
explores the institutional preconditions for a successful coordination in the current state of the EU. Coordinated
macro policy is understood as including monetary, fiscal, wage and regulation policy. On the basis of game
theoretical considerations the paper develops criteria for a possible success of coordination and sketches institutional
innovations for decision structures. As a result it is shown that currently there are no appropriate institutions for even
a reduced version of coordinated macroeconomic policy, including only monetary, fiscal and regulation policy and
not wage policy. Though such a reduced version could be agreed upon by the ECB, the three remaining central
banks of Sweden, UK and Denmark and the national governments of all EU member states, the legal framework of
the treaties does not yet provide a proper institutional forum.
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Erica Bouri (University of Denver, USA)
E-Mail address: ericabouri@hotmail.com
The Interests and Identity of Labor: Towards an Anti-Essentialist Victim
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The Left has traditionally depicted labor as a victim capital; this victim label has been the identity of capital since
Marx first began writing nearly two centuries ago. The interests of labor have been aggregated around this signifier
victim and this paper intends to explore the implications of using "victim" to compose the interests of labor. What
sorts of victim representations are invoked to define the interests of labor? How well do these representations
capture the interests of the labor movement? This paper will argue that an anti-essentialist conception of the victim
is best suited to compose the interests of labor; interests that are more diverse, contradictory, and nuanced than
traditionally understood. Importantly though, the exploited position of labor, the status of victim, will not be lost,
rather it will be reaffirmed, suggesting an identity for labor that is simultaneously exploited an purposeful in
constituting the discourse of its exploitation. Finally, this paper will begin to articulate the practical political
strategies of liberation available to labor, once it is understood as having an anti-essentialist victim identity.
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Peter Brosnan (Griffith University, Australia)
E-Mail address: p.brosnan@mailbox.gu.edu.au
The Geography of Minimum Wage Systems
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The ILO acted within its first decade to adopt a convention on minimum wages (Convention 26) - its concern was to
ensure that global trade was not based on cheap labour. This is still a key reason for its being concerned with
maintaining adequate minimum wage systems, but other concerns include the reduction of poverty, fostering social
justice and economic development. As the pressures of globalisation make poverty, justice and development look
less and less likely for many disadvantaged communities, the need for an adequate minimum wage becomes stronger
than ever. On the surface, things look good. ILO 26 has one of the highest rates of ratification, with the number of
ratifications standing at 103. On the other hand, many of the countries that have ratified ILO 26, do not provide an
adequate minimum wage for their citizens. In many countries, the minimum wage only covers a portion of the
labour force, most countries have a minimum wage that is inadequate for meeting basic consumption needs, and few
countries maintain an adequate inspectorate. An analysis of the pattern of minimum wage systems across the globe
reveals that effective minimum wage systems are largely a European phenomenon.
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Isabel da Costa/Udo Rehfeldt (Centre d'Etudes de l'Emploi/Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales, France)
E-Mail address: Isabel.dacosta@cee.enpc.fr/Udo.Rehfeldt@ires-fr.org
"Economic Regionalization and Union Strategies : A Comparison between NAFTA and the European Union"
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This paper will compare union attitudes towards economic regionalization between the NAFTA countries and the
main member states of the European union. It will present some results of a recent research based on fieldwork we
have done in the USA, Canada, Mexico, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom.
The paper will start with an analysis of the institutional mechanisms provided by the NAFTA and European Union
agreements, and particularly those dealing with labour issues: respectively the NAALC (North American Agreement
on Labor Cooperation) and the so-called "Social Protocol" of the Maastricht Agreement now integrated into the
Amsterdam Treaty. The second part of the paper will analyze national union strategies as well as transnational trade
union coordination at the regional level.
Although the challenges of globalization are rather similar in Europe and North America, the institutional forms of
regional integration differ, and union attitudes towards economic regionalization differ even more widely. The paper
will explore these differences in order to suggest some interpretations linking industrial relations and the political
economy.
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Richard Croucher (Cranfield University, UK)
E-Mail address: r.croucher@cranfield.ac.uk
Stimulating Activism: The Impact of a Global Union Federation's Education Work with 'Unions in Transition'
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The paper will describe a five-year educational effort in large agricultural unions on the edge of Europe. The
subject is of interest because of what it tells us about union change as encouraged by union internationals through a
major educational project in this specific context.
Context will be given on the unions, their industrial and political position. It will examine the results of long-term,
on-going educational work by the IUF in these three countries, from the viewpoint of a Western participant involved
in the effort. The aims of the educational work undertaken over the last five years can mainly be summarised as the
stimulation of activism. How far this has been achieved, and with what knock-on effects on the unions involved,
will be assessed. The factors limiting change will also be identified and illustrated.
The nature of the contribution will be to show the extent and limitations of change in these 'unions in transition' as
they often describe themselves. The mechanisms involved in the change process throws some light on the uses
workers have put their new skills to in the workplace, but also the factors restricting the extent to which this has
been possible. Some unintended consequences will also be discussed, for what they reveal of the unions' internal
dynamics.
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Elena Danilova (Institute of Sociology/Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia)
E-Mail Address: elenadan@mtu-net.ru
Labor Relations at Russian Industrial Enterprises
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The paper aims at to exploring the relations between workers and managers at the Russian industrial enterprises, and
examining how they are being recast to accommodate the pressures associated with large-scale economic
restructuring. The paper contains a considerable amount of empirical data collected during several case studies at
former state machinery enterprises in 1997 and in 2002.
The core element of Soviet system of production was based on a quite specific conception of the enterprise not as
the technical and social organisation, but a view of the enterprise as a 'labour collective' which represents specific
type of relations, a particular collectivity with commonly recognised "rules of game". The paper argues that the
features of the core element of system retain and are being reproduced in modified forms at contemporary industrial
enterprises. The emergence of new owners at some enterprises has brought formalisation of the technological and
organisational measures, but even there both management and employees continue using informal rules and
bargaining practices. Moreover, reproduced non-antagonistic relations between managers and workers are
fundamental to carrying out production under increasingly strained technological conditions. This makes an
essential contribution to preventing workers' collective action, to promoting enterprise survival by keeping low
wages. Therefore, continuation of these relations under conditions of limited labour market in industry results in
survival of the enterprises and low (latent) unemployment, alongside with high labour turnover, but eventually leads
to lower efficiency and degradation of industrial labour force.
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Imene Debeche (LEST-CNRS, France)
E-Mail address: imene.debeche@wanadoo.fr
The democratisation of industrial relations in South and East Asia at the turn of the XX century
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In the course of the latest decade, developing countries in Asia have been conducting a twofold project of economic
development and political development. Industrial relations in the region have been determined by contradictory
tendencies between authoritarian forms of government deemed necessary during the first stages of the
industrialisation process and democratic forms of government generally associated with market economy societies.
As social peace has been the priority of national politics, it has favoured, in all cases, the authoritarian intervention
of the state in almost all economic and social spheres. Essentially the power relation between capital and labour
benefiting to capital, security has been considered from the viewpoint of capital thus justifying the containment of
social movements and workers movements. In the very beginning of the new century, however, domestic and
external pressure forces have been leading the major actors of industrial relations to consider democracy anew both
within and outside the work place, to find and set up their own way towards industrial democracy. Laws and
regulations are adopted ensuring workers with representation rights (Korea, Sri Lanka) while « des espaces de
regulation » are emerging implying worker's participation and representation (tripartite dialogue concerning
employment in Asia or concerning training in South Asia).
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Claudia Andreoli Galvão (University of Brasilia, Brazil)
E-Mail address: andreoli@unb.br
Human and Social Capital - A comparative study of Brazilian Regions
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This research relates economic performance of Brazilian regions to human and social capital, because it is believed
that those two forms of capital play a role in fostering economic growth. This is an important issue as the welfare
state reaches south and southeastern regions with more indulgence then the other Brazilian regions. Human capital is
created through qualification to increase productivity. Social capital is created when social relations facilitate action.
Political scientist, Putnan, asked why some Italian regions have prospered and others not, and the answer lies in
civic traditions. He explains social capital through trust, norms and networks. He points out that participation;
collaboration and association were responsible for the Economic Miracle of the Third Italy.
Referring to human capital, many studies find that education is related to economic growth. But quality of
education, learning on the job, and nutrition and health are also preconditions for a successful accumulation of
human capital.
This research provides comparisons on the differences in human and social capital between Brazilian regions. It also
explores the roles of productive performance and income distributions in explaining regional development.
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Rebecca Gumbrell-McCormick (University of London, UK)
E-Mail address: r.gumbrell-mccormich@bbk.ac.uk
"International Trade Unionism: Constructing inter-regional networks and developing new strategies for action"
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This session will focus on the growing complexity of international trade union work in developing appropriate
strategies for different levels of action. Articulating the interests of different groups of workers is difficult at the
national level; this process is even more so at the international level, where international and regional organisations
have to find new ways of representing workers and unions across a wide variety of industrial relations systems and
varieties of capitalism.
The three papers cover recent developments in union action at the international, regional (European, North
American and Asian) and national levels. Croucher and Wills present case studies of the work of a Global Union
Federation, the IUF, which represents and assists workers in the food, agriculture and allied industries. They
evaluate the IUF's contributions to international negotiating, lobbying, education and organising, and the relations
between the international and European levels of union organisation. Da Costa and Rehfeldt's joint presentation is
based on extensive field work in North America and Europe, analysing the differences between regional structures
and trade union representation and strategies on the two continents. A European trade union discussant will conclude
the session by drawing the lessons from each presentation for future trade union work.
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Anke Hassel/Werner Eichhorst (MPI for the Study of Societies, Germany)
E-Mail address: hl@mpi-fg-koeln.mpg.de
The Political Economy of Labour Market Reforms in Germany: The Alliance for Jobs and the Hartz Commission
in comparative perspective
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The paper explores the political economy of labour market reform in Germany. Germany has one of Europe's most
segmented labour markets which has shown weak job creation in recent years. Low employment creation can partly
be explained by institutional settings that inhibit job growth and external flexibility on the labour market and have
led to segmentation between insiders and outsiders. Political reforms increasing the potential for job growth and
labour market flexibility question both insiders' privileges and standard beliefs of political decision-makers about
the comparative advantage of the German model. Reform initiatives have to overcome cognitive and interest based
opposition.
In the last five years, the German government has used new forms of concertation with organized interests through
the tripartite "Alliance for Jobs" and the Hartz Commission on labour market reforms with different degrees of
success. The Alliance for Jobs was based on the traditional approach of German partnership in which centralized
organized interests are only indirectly steered by government policy and largely remain within the limits of the
German model of social partnership. The Hartz-Commission, on the other hand, went beyond the traditional
relations of German social partnership and thereby altered the public discourse on labour market reforms
considerably.
The paper uses the two examples of reform efforts in Germany to discuss theoretical approaches on welfare reforms,
in particular the interaction of veto points, consensus democracy and corporatism.
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Richard Hyman (London School of Economics, UK)
E-mail: r.hyman@lse.ac.uk
Can Theories of the Employment Relationship Transcend National Boundarie?
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This presentation (I cannot call it a paper) discusses work in progress. It draws in part on ideas I have discussed in two published articles - 'Industrial Relations in Europe: Theory and Practice", European Journal of Industrial Relations 1/1 (1995) and 'Trade Union Research and Cross-National Comparison", European Journal of Industrial Relations 7/2 (2001). More specifically it develops concerns addressed in a paper to the European IIRA conference in Oslo in June 2001, 'Industrial Relations Theory: Anglo-Saxon Individualism versus the European Social Model'.
Industrial relations systems became consolidated in the past century on a national basis. Each acquired unique characteristics, reflecting nationally distinctive economic structures, political traditions and social practices. As we understand the term today, industrial relations is an invention of the era of the nation-state. This much is obvious to any intelligent student of comparative industrial relations, what is less obvious, perhaps, is that ways of conceptualising industrial relations - or, indeed, whether the concept itself is regarded as coherent - likewise vary cross-nationally.
At the heart of the study of industrial relations is a complex interaction between theory and practice. The term itself is an Anglo-Saxon invention, denoting at one and the same time an area of socio-economic activity and the scholarly analysis thereof. The pioneers of this field of scholarship - the Webbs in Britain, Commons in the United States - were embedded in the world of public policy. Yet the pragmatic foundations of academic industrial relations ensured that intellectual perspectives were shaped by the nationally distinctive definitions of the key problems of the employment relationship.
And when the reach of our subject extended beyond the English-speaking countries - even if the label 'industrial relations' was often not attached - additional differentiation resulted from nationally distinctive intellectual traditions and modes of academic division of labour. In particular, there are obvious cross-national differences in the extent to which industrial relations constitutes a free-standing, multi-disciplinary field of scholarship, or is divided into a series of sub-disciplines of law, economics, sociology and so on.
Let me illustrate very briefly, with a few national (and primarily European) examples, how national distinctiveness has made the current concerns of industrial relations scholarship in key respects non-commensurable.
In Britain and the United States, the focal concern of modern industrial relations scholarship has been the practice and institutions of collective bargaining, or as Flanders put it (given his dissatisfaction with the very concept of collective bargaining inherited from the Webbs), of job regulation. Predominantly, attention has concentrated on relationships between trade unions and individual employers, and in particular the dynamics of conflict and its containment; in both countries, collective organisation and action among employers has long been relatively peripheral. Though Dunlop identified
the state as the third 'actor' in industrial relations, its role was barely theorised. We might note that while the Webbs, in their Industrial Democracy, viewed the extension of legal enactment as the inevitable and desirable future for industrial relations - a theme developed some four decades later by Milne-Bailey in his remarkable study Trade Unions and the State - their perspectives were soon discarded: Kahn-Freund in Britain and Kerr and his collaborators in the USA insisted that a detachment between political actors and job regulation was the hallmark of a 'mature' industrial relations system.
When, from the 1960s, in Britain at least the state became more centrally involved, it was political scientists with their theories of corporatism rather than industrial relations specialists who did most to make sense of the new trends
If industrial relations is defined in terms of an autonomous sphere of job regulation through collective bargaining between trade unions and individual employers, it is not surprising that the subject was thrown into disarray by the rapid decline of trade union membership and of the coverage of collective bargaining. The vacuum was of course filled, as Kaufman has charted, by the advance of HRM as both managerial and academic practice. The paths have however diverged. In Britain the collapse of collective industrial relations has been less radical than in the USA, and the advance of HRM more superficial.
Latterly, indeed, there have been elements of a collective re-regulation of employment relations, primarily driven by the 'social' legislation of the European Union. In key respects the practice of industrial relations in Britain has become Europeanised, giving a new vitality but also a new focus to industrial relations scholarship. (One may note, in passing, how the vocabulary of 'social partnership' has become embedded in British discourse - though the diverse and contradictory meanings of the term in continental Europe are rarely appreciated.)
In most of western Europe the realities, and the intellectual mind-sets, have been very different from those in Anglo-Saxonia. The collective organisation of economic interests, the social regulation of market transactions, and the systematic presence of the state in either the foreground or the background of these processes, have been taken for granted in the practical and analytical conduct of industrial relations. This is, of course, one reason why the very concept of industrial relations translates so uncomfortably into continental languages and is in many countries avoided altogether.
(Interestingly we may note that the German Industrial Relations Association calls itself precisely that, in English.)
I write these notes while in Germany, so let me refer to the lead headline in today's Frankfurter Rundschau (a paper not particularly given to sensationalism), which informs the reader that the opposition CDU has launched an assault on free collective bargaining. I use this English term as translation for Tarifautonomie, but let us note how context transforms meaning. The core CDU proposal is that, in the case of severe economic difficulties in a company, management and works council should be entitled to negotiate an agreement which undercuts the terms of the sectoral collective agreement,
whether or not the national union and employers' association agree. My purpose here is not to comment on the merits or otherwise of the proposal, but simply to remark that few Anglo-Saxon industrial relations scholars unfamiliar with the background would perceive it as an attack on free collective bargaining. This characterisation becomes comprehensible only if we appreciate the historical evolution of a delicate, legally enshrined balance between trade unions and works councils, the exclusive right of the former (at least in theory) to undertake collective bargaining with employers, and the
widespread perception that the primacy of multi-employer over single-employer regulation is the foundation-stone of the whole industrial relations edifice.
In many respects, the whole history of industrial relations scholarship in Germany has involved a debate over the nature, dynamics and internal contradictions of Tarifautonomie. The philosophy underlying the concept can be traced back to the writings of Sinzheimer almost a century ago. Recognisably modern industrial relations scholarship centred on a debate around the character of the so-called 'dual system' of industrial relations: with radicals in the 1960s and 1970s insisting that the legally mandated division of labour between works councils cooperating with management inside the company,
and trade unions undertaking collective bargaining outside, fatally weakening labour. By the 1980s, however, it was generally accepted that the concept of a dual system was a misnomer, that the two sets of institutions were deeply interdependent, and that in hard times the legal rights of the councils were a major protection for trade union organisation at company level. In the past decade the discussion has been dominated by two questions. First, would the institutional arrangements formally established in the neue Bundesländer in 1990 really function as they did in the west; and if not, would
their failure in the east have damaging feedback effects for Germany as a whole? Second, is the recent process of 'organised decentralisation' which has involved a controlled devolution of some bargaining functions to the workplace simply a fine-tuning of a system which retains its essential integrity, or does it undermine the whole structure? Only from such a perspective can current disputes over free collective bargaining, German-style, be understood.
Italy provides a very different example of the impact of historical and institutional context on industrial relations thinking. It is impossible to make sense of most Italian literature in our field without appreciating three key features of this context. The first is the omnipresence of a state which for most of the past half-century has been weak in political legitimacy, and of legal norms in part inherited from the fascist past but radically reshaped with the statuto dei lavoratori of 1970. The second is the bias to political engagement among the other key 'actors' of industrial relations.
The third is that efforts to establish some form of 'free collective bargaining' have been halting and uncertain, so that scholars have long complained of the 'weak institutionalisation' of the system.
Though industrial relations scholarship has been strongly rooted in the sub-discipline of labour law, in many respects its key insights have been drawn from political sociology, for the crucial underlying issue has been the adaptation of a balance of forces and the management of potentially explosive conflict between powerful actors. In the 1970s the focal puzzle was how the strongest communist party in the western world, and the main trade union confederation which was once its satellite, lent stability and legitimation to a system of governance with a severe democratic deficit. The concept of
political exchange, offered by Pizzorno as the key to understanding this paradox, soon became common currency in comparative literature on trade unions and politics; but it is questionable how far Pizzorno's meaning can be understood unless embedded in its Italian context.
Another term widely adopted in comparative literature is Regini's concept of microcorporatism. Detached from the Italian context, it is often used to mean little more than 'social partnership' in the company and workplace. However, the concept was developed to explain another distinctively Italian puzzle. The clash between a militant and assertive workplace trade unionism, emboldened by the victories of the late 1960s and early 1970s, and a management which had concluded that it must recapture control in order to survive, exploded in the disastrous Fiat conflict of 1980. For most commentators,
this was the prelude to a systematic assault on workplace union power across Italian industry. What occurred, however, was a largely consensual reconstruction of company-level systems of employee representation, organisational restructuring and workplace decision-making. In ways analogous to the explanations of macrocorporatism a decade earlier, the theory of microcorporatism identified the continuing power resources of workplace trade unionism (not least because of the rights conferred by the statuto) as a factor inhibiting a large-scale management offensive, but also stressed how a productivist
tradition (dating back at least to Gramsci) made workplace militants susceptible to processes of company-level joint regulation.
Another instance: for much of the 1980s and 1990s there was in Italy a process of negotiated reform of industrial relations (and of the welfare system which is itself inseparable form industrial relations), of peak-level agreements between unions and employers (typically brokered by government) which in many cases resulted in 'bargained legislation'. A key element in the process was a relaxation of the web of state regulation with a reciprocal extension of the scope of collective bargaining. A by-product was that the definite if at times precarious narrowing of the political divisions between union
confederations was reflected in a convergence in intellectual perspectives among academics whose partisan allegiances have always been intense. Whether the 'normalisation' of the practice and the theory of industrial relations will survive the Berlusconi era remains to be seen.
Let me end, somewhat diffidently, by considering the case of France. If much Italian scholarship sees the starting point for the modern industrial relations system as the 'hot autumn' of 1969, the rarely spoken French question is: whatever happened to 1968? The mass explosion of social, industrial and political protest was the wasted opportunity of the French labour movement; and indeed, Boltanski and Chiapello entitle one of their key chapters 1968: crise et renouveau du capitalisme. Elsewhere I have charted how the rise, decline and occasional reassertion of
collective conflict are matched by the shifting interest in collective labour relations in the pages of Sociologie du travail. The vacuum of collective industrial relations as conventionally understood elsewhere (Rojot is one of the few to dispute the notion of French exceptionalism) is in turn reflected in the bewildering fragmentation of approaches to this field (or non-field) of study.
Three broad questions seem however to dominate the scholarly agenda, and the answers are driven by intellectual-ideological divisions which are difficult for any outsider to chart. First, how do we make sense of French trade unionism, a movement almost without members (at least in the private sector) yet with seemingly considerable political influence (or at least veto power)? Do numbers matter (Labbé is one of the few to seek detailed data)? Do unions present, however opaquely, a progressive alternative to resurgent French (and
international) capital, or are they reactionary defenders of vested interests (a polarisation sharply displayed in the aftermath of the mass strikes of 1995, and no doubt soon to follow the current confrontations)?
Second, how do we comprehend the complex interconnections between work and welfare, and the role of unions in mediating the links between them? The French école de regulation has given us the concept of rapport salarial, essentially untranslatable but clearly identifying the 'social wage' as a fusion of income from the employer and entitlements from the state. If the idea of the 'social wage' is taken for granted in continental Europe though barely comprehensible in English (another index of the narrow focus of Anglo-Saxon industrial relations), France is indeed exceptional
in the degree to which trade unions have colonised the system and draw status and resources from this colonisation (and hence, are threatened organisationally by projects to 'reform' the system).
Third, what accounts for the seeming quiescence of private-sector employees, despite a Tayloristic work regime and the virtual absence of independent collective voice? Is the main explanation to be sought at societal level in the hegemony of an ideology of modernising capitalism, or at company level in the success of French managements (perhaps the most systematic European practitioners of American-style HRM) in persuading employees that insecurity and stress are indicators of the beneficial qualities of the employment contract?
One should add that those critical of the current balance of power in work and employment rarely see the labour movement as an agency of change: as so often the task is one for the state. This can be seen, for example, in Supiot's call for a new statut professionnel (another untranslatable term): labour law should recognise the growth of types of work which fall outside the definitions of the traditional employment contract, social security should adapt to the declining fixity of the individual job, both should recognise that workers have two genders. While the problems that Supiot addressed were general across Europe, the form of the solution was in many respects distinctively French: perhaps one reason why his report seems to have disappeared without trace.
I have given a number of illustrations of the ways in which nationally specific institutional configurations and modes of analysis shape the focus, and the mind-set, of industrial relations scholarship. This might well lead us to ask: can students of industrial relations communicate cross-nationally? My answer is: perhaps, but only if we first appreciate that in more than one way we do not speak the same language.
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Nahee Kang (University of Cambridge, UK)
E-Mail address: nk235@cam.ac.uk/nahee_k@hotmail.com
Political Economy of Industrial Relations: Korea in a Regulationist Perspective
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An important and pervasive change that has occurred in the past two decades in industrial capitalist economies is the
widespread pressures for market (neoliberal) reforms. Albeit in different speed and in varying intensity, many
economies have undertaken measures to de-regulate the labour market, often at the cost of destabilising their
industrial relations. Adopting a Regulationist perspective and its method of analysis, which allows a comprehensive
view of the institutional arrangements of political economy, and the dynamics of industrial relations system within,
this paper examines the case of South Korea (henceforth, Korea). To this end, the main questions raised in this paper
are as follows: (1) what are the major developments in the Korean political economy?; (2) what are their
implications for industrial relations?; and (3) what are some of the challenges faced by capital and labour in building
an industrial relations model that best accommodates recent changes in the political economy; and what is the role of
the state in this process?
On a theoretical level, this paper seeks to assist the theory-building endeavor of the French Regulation School by
testing the utility of its theory (taking into account some of its most recent "revisions") and by expanding its scope
of analysis. Empirically, it aims to provide insights into the rapidly evolving Korean capitalist system, and the
implications of market reforms on political and social levels, thereby contributing to the discussion on a newly
emerging form of industrial relations and model of development in Korea. Also, the findings of this paper are
expected to provide practical lessons for (developing) economies undergoing similar process of change and reform.
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Lane Kenworthy (Emory University, USA)
E-Mail address: lkenwor@emory.edu
Explaining Comparative Trends in Income Inequality in the 1980s and 1990s
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Most existing research on the rise in household income inequality in affluent nations has presumed (explicitly or
implicitly) that this increase is driven largely by a rise in earnings inequality among employed individuals. I use
Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) data for 14 countries in the 1980s and 1990s to explore (1) the contribution of
individual earnings inequality to household earnings inequality and (2) the contributions of household earnings
inequality and government redistribution to posttax-posttransfer household income inequality. I focus on cross-
country variation in changes over time.
My findings indicate that the principal determinant of mid-1980s to mid-1990s changes in household earnings
inequality is changes in employment. This suggests that, to the extent we are interested in longitudinal developments
in inequality, the prominence given to the "usual suspects" -- unionization, wage centralization, deindustrialization,
globalization, technological change, and so on -- ought to be downgraded. More attention should be devoted to the
work/nonwork distinction and somewhat less to the distribution of pay among those who work.
Employment trends also turn out to be the chief determinant of changes in government redistribution -- more
important than left government, corporatism, globalization, and other popular explanatory factors.
Because employment changes typically generate a shift in redistribution that compensates for changes in earnings
inequality, their net effect on posttax-posttransfer income inequality tends to be limited in the short run. Over the
medium- or long-term, however, sustained employment declines threaten to erode generous social-welfare programs
and thereby push countries up to a higher "equilibrium" level of posttax-posttransfer inequality.
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Guy Mundlak (Tel Aviv University, Israel)
E-Mail address: Mundlak@post.tau.ac.il
The "enabling conditions" of corporatism: a study in the relationship between the legal and the industrial
relations system
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While the rise, fall and re-emergence of corporatism have been extensively studied, the role of the legal system in
advancing corporatism and responding to its withdrawal has been generally neglected. In the words of Streeck and
Schmitter, corporatism requires a set of 'enabling conditions'. These conditions have often been identified as
including characteristics of the industrial relations system, such as union density. However, the legal regime
provides some of the necessary ingredients that accommodate centralized tri-lateral representation of interests.
Treating the law as exogenous to the understanding of corporatist and post-corporatist representation of interests can
only be justified if the legal order merely reflects the outcomes of the industrial relations system, or if the legal order
does not affect the industrial relations system altogether. Both arguments must be refuted, as the legal and the
industrial relations system affect one another in a dynamic relationship. Clarifying the relationship between the
corporatist industrial relations system and the legal system endorses the following objectives of the paper:
(a) To identify the legal 'enabling conditions' of corporatism, such as the use of extension orders,
derogation clauses in legislation, consultation with the 'social partners' before and after legislation,
constructing the cleavage between membership in a trade union and coverage of collective
agreements, and others.
(b) To identify how these legal constructs change in tandem with the changing nature of the industrial
relations system and particularly with the decline of concentrated, centralized and encompassing
negotiations over labor market issues and social policy.
(c) To identify the relationship between legal changes and changes in the industrial relations system,
and to endogenize the legal rule into the study of transformation in the industrial relations system.
More particularly, the objective is to question the assumption that law merely reflects the outcomes
of industrial relations and therefore of little interest in itself.
This paper is part of a broader project that studies the rapid collapse of corporatism in Israel. The transformation of
the Israeli industrial relations system from a corporatist system into a North-American pluralist system has been
'achieved' in less than a decade. The proposed paper however extends the discussion beyond the Israeli case study,
and observes similar changes (away from corporatism and into corporatism) over the last two decades in a
comparative and a theoretical perspective.
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Ulrike Muehlberger (Vienna University of Economics & B.A./European University Institute, Austria/Italy)
E-Mail address: Ulrike.Muehlberger@wu-wien.ac.at
Dependent Self-employment and Industrial Relations: The Cases of the British and Austrian Insurance Industry
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Recent economic developments have significantly changed the governing modes of economic exchange. On the one
hand, we observe an increase in mergers & acquisitions, which substitutes market for hierarchy, leading to further
economic concentration. On the other hand, we see an increase in outsourcing and subcontracting activities,
appearing to replace hierarchy by market forms of governance. However, there is evidence that an increasing part of
outsourcing activities is based on dependent business relationships. Additionally to changes in the business
environment, European labour markets are facing new developments. Heterogeneous life styles of workers,
increasing levels of education, boosting participation rates of women in the labour force, increasing heterogeneity of
the production process (in contrast to a fordist work organisation) have led to new contractual labour arrangements.
On the basis of 57 semi-structured interviews in the British and Austrian insurance industry, this paper aims, firstly,
at developing a systematic understanding of dependent forms of outsourcing and the creation of dependent self-
employment and, secondly, at the reactions and consequences for interest organisations such as trade unions and
employers' associations.
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Michael J. Piore/Sean Safford (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)
E-Mail address: mpiore@mit.edu
Toward Flexible Workplace Governance
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This paper explores the relationship between community and individual rights in work place governance in the
United States. It focuses particularly on the definition of the bargaining unit under the National Labor Relations
Act. Over time, the bargaining unit came to be understood and defined in a way that was too rigid to capture both
evolving forms of work organization as well as social identities based increasingly on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual
orientation, disability and the like. As a result, worker rights ultimately came to be defined in highly individualistic
and legalistic ways. We argue that this evolution toward rigidity, individualism and legalization was closely related
(if not directly responsible) for the collapse of collective bargaining in the 1980's and the emergence of an
alternative built around human resource management and substantive employment law. Ironically, recent evidence
indicates the human resource management system is now coming to exhibit many of the same legalistic
characteristics of the old collective bargaining regime. We explore alternative more flexible ways in which
bargaining units might have been conceived, and the different ways in which collective rights might be understood
and administered in the future.
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Michael J. Piore (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)
E-Mail address: mpiore@mit.edu
Ethnic Mobilization, the Demise of Collective Bargaining and the Rise of Legal Regulation in American
Industrial Relations.
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In the early postwar decades, work relations in the United States were governed by a system of collective bargaining
between unions and management within a framework of Federal labor law growing out of the 1930's. The number
of workers actually organized in trade unions was a minority of the labor force, but it was sufficient to establish
patterns which nonunion employers were forced to follow to avoid unionization. This system essentially collapsed
in the 1980's, under the pressure of heavy opposition from employers and a conservative shift in the political
environment. It opponents thought that it would be replaced by a system of unilateral employer control guided and
constrained by the market. But the new system operates under an increasingly broad and expanding body of
statutory laws, court decisions, and administrative ruling; to a large extent, it is this sustentative law, not the market
that has come to govern work relations. The emerging legal framework is a response to a new form of social and
political mobilization; if the old system was driven by mobilization around economic identities associated with
social class, with particular enterprises, or with crafts and professions, the new system is driven by mobilization
around social identities based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, physical disability, and age. This social
mobilization takes a number of different forms. This paper explores one of these forms, identity groups organized
within professional associations. It is based on material collected by a variety of small research projects conducted
by students at MIT in Boston and the New School in New York looking at particular groups operating within the
orbit of the engineering profession. It draws also on a small but growing literature on similar organizations, within
corporate enterprises. It is part of a larger project designed to trace out the origins of what is, in many ways, a new
industrial relations system in the United States.
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Magdalena Raczynska (Polish Academy of Science, Poland)
E-Mail address: mraczynska@wp.pl
New dilemmas of employee participation: lessons from the U.S.
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Learning from the dilemmas of employee participation is the best way to improve the process of industrial
democracy consolidation. A study of co-management – the most advanced form of employee involvement – reveals
three significant problems: irremovable antagonism between industrial actors, marginalization of labor unions, and
façadousness of participatory programs. Discussed is their influence on the overall ideologization and
marginalization of the discourse of participation. The essay concludes with applying the major lessons from the
Anglo-Saxon model to the current and problematic context of employee participation in Poland.
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Martin Rhodes (European University Institute, Italy)
E-Mail address: martin.rhodes@iue.it
Trade Unions, Veto Points and European Pensions Reform #1: Comparative Perspectives
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Notwithstanding declining resources, trade unions still play a crucial role in policy making. In some countries, in
fact, they act (and they are perceived) as the main defenders of welfare programmes and particularly pensions. Their
interest is not only in defending a particular social model but also in maintaining key sources of legitimacy and
organisational power. They act as defenders of their own managerial role in social insurance programmes while also
defending their membership interests and representing welfare beneficiaries, making them key interlocutors for
pensions reforms.
The aim of this session on comparative perspectives (and its parallel session on national experiences) in pensions
reform is to further our understanding of how reforms are made, with differing degrees of success or failure, in veto-
heavy Bismarckian welfare systems. For despite the often-antagonistic attitude of unions to reform, reforms are
achieved, often via negotiation and political exchange producing compromise packages and complex policy trade-
offs. Innovative reforms are sometimes more successfully implemented than apparently path-dependent solutions.
Understanding why requires consideration of the ways in which veto player opposition can sometimes be turned into
a resource for policy makers.
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Martin Rhodes (European University Institute, Italy)
E-Mail address: martin.rhodes@iue.it
Trade Unions, Veto Points and European Pensions Reform #2: National Cases
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Notwithstanding declining resources, trade unions still play a crucial role in policy making. In some countries, in
fact, they act (and they are perceived) as the main defenders of welfare programmes and particularly pensions. Their
interest is not only in defending a particular social model but also in maintaining key sources of legitimacy and
organisational power. They act as defenders of their own managerial role in social insurance programmes while also
defending their membership interests and representing welfare beneficiaries, making them key interlocutors for
pensions reforms.
The aim of this session on national cases (and its parallel session on comparative perspectives) in pensions reform is
to further our understanding of how reforms are made, with differing degrees of success or failure, in Bismarkian
welfare systems. The three cases presented in this session - on Italy, Greece and the Netherlands - present interesting
contrasts between countries in which unions have played important veto-player roles. They provide examples,
respectively, of incremental and negotiated reform, reform blockage and non-reform, helping us advance our
knowledge of the conditions under which successful reform can be achieved in veto-heavy policy systems.
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Joyce Robbins (Columbia University, USA)
E-Mail address: jtr13@columbia.edu
The Politics of Federalism: Subnational Influences on U.S. Employment Policy, 1960-2000
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This paper argues that mesocorporatist arrangements at the state-level shape national business agendas, which, in
turn, affect the direction of national employment policy. First, state-level economic development agencies
formulated a role for government in producing quality workforces. Working closely with business, they redefined
the problem addressed by employment policy from unemployment to competitiveness. At the national level,
organized business streamlined this agenda and then successfully pushed for its adoption over alternatives that
viewed workforce training as an anti-poverty measure.
The current literature explains the direction of U.S. employment policy in terms of short-term initiatives of Congress
or the president, or long-term institutional constraints on the American political system. Neither approach is
adequate for understanding policy changes that collectively are called "workforce development": a switch to the
private firm as the client of government programs rather than the unemployed individual, a new active role for
business in policy planning, increased power of state and local workforce development boards, and greater emphasis
on gathering and distributing labor market information. The main contribution of this study is the production of a
theoretical model for understanding the mediating role of interest groups in federal systems and multi-tiered
international governance structures.
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Ian Roper/Paul Higgins/Phil James (Middlesex University, UK)
E-Mail address: i.roper@mdx.ac.uk
"Partnership" and Public Service Provision: Win-Win, Win-Lose or Lose-Lose? The Case of the "Best Value"
Performance Regime in UK Local Government
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The introduction of Best Value (BV) into British local government was claimed to provide a policy framework that
would improve the efficiency, quality and accountability of service provision and overcome the weaknesses of the
previous policy of compulsory competitive tendering (CCT) which was primarily associated with the reduction of
costs via a lowering of staff terms and conditions.
In theory this rebalancing of producer and consumer interests seems to fit well with the notion of 'social partnership'
between employers and unions. However, in practice, tensions have been building between Government and unions
as a result of the latter's concern that BV is incentivising a return to the win-lose culture of CCT and thereby
encouraging the development of a 'two-tier workforce' and undermining collective bargaining.
In this paper data from a survey of all BV Lead Officers in England and Wales is used to examine the degree to
which 'social partnership' between employers and unions is compatible with a 'partnership' between public sector
'enablers' and externalised 'providers'. In particular, it seeks to examine whether the two forms of 'partnership' are
mutually supportive (win-win); whether they are mutually exclusive (win-lose) or whether they may damage all
parties simultaneously (lose-lose).
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Eric Salomon (Eurogramme, Luxembourg)
E-Mail address: eric.salomon@eurogramme.lu
Private-Public Sector Collaboration for Research
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There are various types of collaboration between research centres and industries, the collaboration being dependent
upon the needs and goals of the parties involved. A definition for each type of collaboration that we have found to
exist is provided.
First, we discovered from various documents and websites that the number of types of possible collaborations
between public research centres and industry is fairly limited. There are 6 main types of collaboration, of which 3
can be broken down into two sub-categories.
Once the different kinds of collaboration are defined, we aim to define a "public spin-off" and state, which types of
collaboration could possibly lead to the creation of a new "public spin-off".
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Mai-Brith Schartau (University of Södertörn, Sweden)
E-Mail address: mai-brith.schartau@sh.se
In search for a new identity via working life
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Different social trends can be seen in the changing labor market. One is that some groups are searching for a new
and better identity via their working life. In the Swedish social democratic welfare state, with its huge public sector,
large groups are now tired of the many bureaucratic rules and the low status of the work. In the new purchaser-
provider system they start a corporative company of their own and start bidding for contracts. The aim is not
primarily to make money but to be able to influence and control their working situation in a more democratic
organization. This could be compared with the situation in the Eastern parts of Germany where a large number of
employees have lost their identity after the reunion when the Western models were forced upon the working life.
Although large sums have been pumped in from west the unemployment is high. Many Easterners have been
encouraged to start a company of their own, but many have failed because of lack of traditions. The situation is now
slowly changing. Also here we find a renewed interest in smaller organizations where the members can make their
voice heard.
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Renata Semenza (University of Milan, Italy)
E-Mail address: renata.semenza@unimi.it
The Institutional Framework of Education and Training in a cross-country perspective
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The aim of this paper is to compare the main characteristics of the educational system (which includes education and
vocational training) and its institutions in EU countries and some other Oecd countries (such as the US and Japan).
In particular, we will consider the incidence of initial and continuing training, the weight of apprenticeship and the
pattern of transition from school to work, the role of the social partners and more in general of the industrial
relations systems.
To measure the effectiveness of the different institutional frameworks and the different changing perspectives and
reforms on different outcomes in terms of reduction of the skill gap at the national and European level and to
consider the correlation between the human capital quantitative and quality investments and the skill gap trends.
To analyse the recent trends and reform in education and qualification issues and goals (such as the risk of over-
education in Spain, the more market oriented education policies in Sweden, the decreasing number of available
training places in Denmark's companies); the recent reforms (such as the reform of Italy's University System and
apprenticeship scheme) and the educational strategies, to show how each country is adapting its own institutions,
programmes, contents to the changing labour demand. It could be possible to understand if there is a sort of
institutional convergence, also related to EU strategies towards a common framework.
The indicators that we consider represent a selective choice of the available international statistics (Oecd, Eurostat,
Cedefop) on how to measure the current state of education and vocational training in a cross-national perspective.
According to the current socio-economic debate (Wagner, Wurzburg 2001) redefining education quality and
efficiency means to consider not only the academic proficiency of students, but also its capacity to be inclusive and
to sustain and maintain quality. Inclusiveness must be seen as a plural-dimension concept, which includes both
quantitative and qualitative aspects.
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Adriaan Van Liempt/Martijn Van Velzen (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands)
E-Mail address: liempt@jur.uva.nl/velzen@jur.uva.nl
Industrial Relations in the Dutch and U.S. IT Industries: Two Systems Moving Apart Together?
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Since the mid-1990s, the Dutch industrial relations system has caught the attention of international scholars and
politicians for its crucial role in realizing job creation and economic growth. While this system of close ties between
employers and organized labor (the so-called 'polder model') has been in place for most industries, it is largely
absent in the Dutch information technology (IT) industry. This is best illustrated by the lack of an industry-wide
collective agreement and a preference for individually negotiated conditions and terms for employment. Given this,
and the fact that the corporate culture in many Dutch IT companies is strongly influenced by American companies,
the IT industry in the Netherlands may be typified as the least 'Dutch' of all industries. In this paper, we contrast
these features with recent developments in the industrial relations domain in the U.S. IT industry. We conclude that
while the Dutch IT industry resembles the general U.S. system of industrial relations, the U.S. IT industry appears to
gain traits of the Dutch 'polder model'. As both industries seem to diverge from their respective national industrial
relations systems, we examine the principal factors underlying this development. We tentatively answer the question
whether the divergence of the industrial relations systems in the Dutch and U.S. IT industries is a precursor of a
convergence of the systems in both industries.
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Guy Vernon (SKOPE University of Oxford, UK)
E-Mail address: guy.vernon@economics.ox.ac.uk
Does Managerial Prerogative Deliver? Comparative Historical Evidence.
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It is a commonplace of economic and business discussion that whilst social rights and joint regulation that impinge
on managerial prerogative may offer employees some advantages, they can only inhibit 'flexibility', to the detriment
of productivity and productivity growth. The industrial relations community, encouraged in particular by the work of
Wolfgang Streeck on the West German car industry, tends in contrast to allow the possibility that the containment of
managerial prerogative may promote productivity by nurturing an organisation of work which fosters more
competent management and enables employee participation. Comparative historical evidence from the panel
econometric study presented here, on the development of hourly labour productivity in the manufacturing sectors of
ten advanced industrialised nations over the period 1970-95, suggests that the containment of managerial prerogative
over the organisation of work generally brings relatively rapid sustainable productivity growth. There is in contrast
little to suggest that greater managerial prerogative generally offers a path to sustained rapid growth. These results
are of particular significance as production and productivity may be much better gauged in manufacturing, and as it
is this sector which is most acutely exposed to the forces of globalisation often regarded as punishing of departures
from a neo-liberal ideal of unhindered management.
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Jane Wills (University of London, UK)
E-Mail address: j.wills@qmw.ac.uk
Bargaining for the space to organise in the global economy: A review of the Accor–IUF trade union rights
agreement
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At the present conjuncture there are real opportunities for international trade unions to forge coalitions with other
social movements, to foster transnational connections between workers, consumers and intermediaries, and to
engage directly with global employers in order to bargain for workers. As companies declare their support for
ethical practice in production and trade, a number of global union federations have seized the opportunity to sign
International Framework Agreements with trans-national companies. These agreements secure commitments on the
part of TNCs to respect workers' rights. The agreement between the French-owned global hotel chain Accor and the
International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations
(IUF) is explored in this paper. The Accor-IUF agreement has proved critical in supporting union organising efforts
in the United States, Canada and Indonesia. It has also allowed the IUF close involvement in trade union
organisation in Australia, in educational activities in Africa and Asia-Pacific, and in efforts to start organising work
in the UK and New Zealand. By integrating the international agreement into the operation of the European Works
Council, the IUF has also found a means to overcome the geographical parochialism of many such bodies. This
paper argues that such international agreements are an excellent way to defend and advance workers' rights in the
global economy while also allowing trade unions to develop a sophisticated multi-scalar response to the challenges
of globalisation.
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Perez Yannick (Universite de Paris I, France)
E-Mail address: yannickp@univ-paris1.fr
Industrial and institutional feasibility in European Electricity market reforms.
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At the present time, European electricity market reforms are commonly questioned as their capacities to have an
impact on price and incentives to invest, and the question of the evolution of the previous institutional and
technological characteristics are generally accused to have created a negative path dependencies on market reform.
In this paper my purpose is to use an institutional & technological framework to analyse the evolution of electric
market reforms. My purpose in doing so, is (1) to define how the production of a new market institution is
constrained by institutional & technological characteristics, (2) how theses constraints matter and (3) the precise
nature of path dependencies. In order to do we are going to follow these points:
First, We define institutional feasibility as a degree of executive, legislative and judiciary concentration of powers.
This concentration determines the scope of negotiation between stakeholders necessary to produce a new electric
governance structure. We will show that the more concentration of Powers, the less negotiation is needed between
government and stakeholders, and therefore, the less the new institutional arrangement is constrained by institutional
determinants.
Second, we define industrial feasibility as the combination of (1) public property rights of assets, (2) the institutional
arrangement prior to reform (3) the technological network access and openness. In this case, the more the property
rights are in public hands, the more the new governance structure is independent from long term contracts and, at
last, the more the networks are open, and the less the feasibility is constrained by industrial settings.
The third point aggregates the previous institutional and technological feasibility, in order to produce two opposite
benchmark cases of maximum and minimum feasibility in electricity market reform. With this framework, we
analyse 3 specific market reforms, namely England & Wales, Germany and Spain.
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Martin Zagler (Vienna University of Economics, Austria)
E-Mail address: zagler@isis.wu-wien.ac.at
Economic Performance, Unions, and Long-term Wage Accords
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This paper presents case study evidence on the impact of long-run wage accords on economic performance, in
particular on economic growth and unemployment. It is a disputed issue in social sciences, whether union power
(and in particular the degree of centralization) matters for the performance of an economy. The argument is typically
that central bargaining, which incorporates the leapfrogging externality incorporated in firm-level bargaining, will
yield lower rates of unemployment for a given rate of economic growth. The increase in labor resources will in turn
also yield faster growth rates in a corporatist economy. Evidence on this issue is mixed. However, when unions
focus on issues other than short-term wage increases, they may even outperform the non-unionized economy, as
they can induce knowledge formation and innovation through long-term wage moderation accords. Evidently, as the
number of wage accords is low and the time span long, we cannot adopt econometric evidence. This paper is
restricted to case study evidence on wage accords, unemployment, and economic growth for a series of European
countries which recently or in the past negotiated explicit or implicit wage accords, namely Austria, Ireland, the
Netherlands, and Sweden.
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