IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/treure/v7y2001i4p600-615.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Pacts for employment and competitiveness – an opportunity to reflect on the role and practice of collective bargaining

Author

Listed:
  • Keith Sisson

    (Emeritus Professor of Industrial Relations, Industrial Relations Research Unit, University of Warwick, UK. This article draws on two research projects for its material: the investigation into employment pacts of the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions and the study of ‘Emerging Boundaries of European Collective Bargaining at Sector and Enterprise Levels’ funded under the UK Economic and Social Science Research Council's ‘One Europe or Several?’ programme. Special thanks are due to Hubert Krieger and Paul Marginson, both of who have contributed considerably to the article's ideas, as well as being, respectively, the inspiration behind the two projects.)

Abstract

Pacts for employment and competitiveness (PECs) raise understandable concerns about the potential for ‘concession bargaining', ‘regime competition’ and the fragmentation of the inclusive collective bargaining structures characteristic of most European national systems. PECs are not themselves the source of the problem, however, and are unlikely to be a temporary phenomenon. Rather PECs are a manifestation of wider changes taking place in the process and structure of collective bargaining, reflecting the more complex role collective bargaining is playing in the light of ‘globalisation’ in general and ‘Europeanisation’ in particular. These developments are also bringing about a measure of convergence across EU countries in the form of substantial changes in the levels, scope, form and output of collective bargaining, all of which are being encouraged by the emerging multi-level system of industrial relations in Europe.

Suggested Citation

  • Keith Sisson, 2001. "Pacts for employment and competitiveness – an opportunity to reflect on the role and practice of collective bargaining," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 7(4), pages 600-615, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:treure:v:7:y:2001:i:4:p:600-615
    DOI: 10.1177/102425890100700404
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/102425890100700404
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/102425890100700404?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Streeck, Wolfgang, 1992. "National Diversity, Regime Competition and Institutional Deadlock: Problems in Forming a European Industrial Relations System," Journal of Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(4), pages 301-330, October.
    2. Paul Marginson & Keith Sisson, 1998. "European Collective Bargaining: A Virtual Prospect?," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(4), pages 505-528, December.
    3. Keith Sisson & Paul Marginson, 2001. "'Soft Regulation' - Travesty of the Real Thing or New Dimension?," One Europe or Several? Working Papers 32, One-Europe Programme.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Valeria Pulignano & Paul Stewart, 2012. "The management of change. Local union responses to company-level restructuring in France and Ireland – a study between and within countries," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 18(4), pages 411-427, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hyman, Richard, 2001. "The Europeanisation – or the erosion – of industrial relations?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 751, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Emilie Cloatre & Robert Dingwall, 2013. "“Embedded regulation:” The migration of objects, scripts, and governance," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 7(3), pages 365-386, September.
    3. Lars Calmfors, 2001. "Wages and Wage-Bargaining Institutions in the EMU – A Survey of the Issues," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 28(4), pages 325-351, December.
    4. Paul Marginson, 1999. "EWC agreements under review: arrangements in companies based in four countries compared," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 5(3), pages 256-277, August.
    5. Ines Wagner & Nathan Lillie, 2014. "European Integration and the Disembedding of Labour Market Regulation: Transnational Labour Relations at the European Central Bank Construction Site," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(2), pages 403-419, March.
    6. Wenchuan Liu & James P. Guthrie & Patrick C. Flood & Sarah Maccurtain, 2009. "Unions and the Adoption of High Performance Work Systems: Does Employment Security Play a Role?," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 63(1), pages 109-127, October.
    7. Burja, Camelia & Burja, Vasile, 2008. "Realităţi si perspective ale economiei bazate pe cunoaştere din România în contextul integrării în Uniunea Europeană," MPRA Paper 7842, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Schulten, Thorsten, 2001. "Solidarische Lohnpolitik in Europa: Ansätze und Perspektiven einer Europäisierung gewerkschaftlicher Lohnpolitik," WSI Working Papers 92, The Institute of Economic and Social Research (WSI), Hans Böckler Foundation.
    9. Olivier Sykes, 2006. "The Importance of Context and Comparison in the Study of European Spatial Planning," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(4), pages 537-555, September.
    10. Michael Mesch, 1999. "Vom Wettbewerbskorporatismus zur transnationalen Koordination der Lohnpolitik in der EU? (Teil 1)," Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft - WuG, Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien, Abteilung Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Statistik, vol. 25(4), pages 387-422.
    11. Keller, Berndt & Sörries, Bernd, 1999. "Der sektorale soziale Dialog und Europäische Sozialpolitik : erste Empirie und Entwicklungsperspektiven (Sectoral social dialogue and European social policy : first empirical analysis and prospects fo," Mitteilungen aus der Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 32(1), pages 118-127.
    12. Imre Gergely Szabó & Marta Kahancová, 2015. "Bargaining Systems, Trade Union Strategies and the Costs and Benefits of Migration," Research Reports 11, Central European Labour Studies Institute (CELSI).
    13. Adrien Thomas, 2016. "Degrees of Inclusion: Free Movement of Labour and the Unionization of Migrant Workers in the European Union," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(2), pages 408-425, March.
    14. Kittel, Bernhard, 2002. "EMU, EU enlargement, and the European Social Model: Trends, challenges, and questions," MPIfG Working Paper 02/1, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    15. Marta Kahancová, 2015. "Central and Eastern European trade unions after the EU enlargement," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 21(3), pages 343-357, August.
    16. Nussbaum Bitran, Ilana & Dingeldey, Irene & Laudenbach, Franziska, 2022. "Theoretical conceptions of transnational solidarity in working relations," Schriftenreihe Institut Arbeit und Wirtschaft 34/2022, Institut Arbeit und Wirtschaft (IAW), Universität Bremen und Arbeitnehmerkammer Bremen.
    17. Ian Cunningham & Philip James & Alina Baluch, 2022. "The influence of ‘soft’ fair work regulation on union recovery: A case of re‐recognition in the Scottish voluntary social care sector," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(3), pages 261-277, May.
    18. Calmfors, Lars, 2001. "Wages and wage-bargaining institutions in the EMU – a survey of the issues," Seminar Papers 690, Stockholm University, Institute for International Economic Studies.
    19. Tonia Novitz, 2002. "Promoting Core Labour Standards and Improving Global Social Governance: An Assessment of EU Competence to Implement Commission Proposals," EUI-RSCAS Working Papers 59, European University Institute (EUI), Robert Schuman Centre of Advanced Studies (RSCAS).
    20. Smismans, Stijn, 2006. "New Modes of Governance and the Participatory Myth," European Governance Papers (EUROGOV) 1, CONNEX and EUROGOV networks.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:treure:v:7:y:2001:i:4:p:600-615. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.