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Analyses the UNI‐Europa Graphical Sector (UEGS) agreement on European co‐ordination of collective bargaining initially made in 1999. Explains the purpose of the agreement, its objectives, its main components, the principles underpinning it and the mechanisms by which it is reviewed. Provides empirical data on the extent to which graphical trade unions (all affiliated to the UEGS throughout Europe, in their 2000 collective bargaining round with graphical employers, were able to make accommodations consistent with the spirit of the co‐ordination of collective bargaining agreement. The research is based on official publications of UEGS, the Minutes of its Collective Bargaining Committee, the reports of its annual general meetings and attendance at its Annual Collective Bargaining Conference for Negotiators.

The chapter presents a historical and economic analysis of Nordic wage formation, with a special focus on how collective agreements really work. A stereotypical interpretation of the evolution of Nordic wage bargaining systems is that a centralised setting of wages has gradually been substituted with more decentralised pay bargaining. This overlooks the fact that central organisations could never really control wage levels, even in the golden age of centralised bargaining. Instead, central pay bargains defined minimum wage changes that ensured that local conflicts would be ruled out. Moreover, the central stipulations could often be overruled or adjusted at the local level. Following insights of Teulings and Hartog, we argue that the main function of Nordic collective agreements has always been to rule out local conflicts that would otherwise be initiated to seek local rents. Thus, collective agreements combine macroeconomic flexibility with adequate investment incentives at the local level. In this crucial sense, Nordic collective agreements are a completely stable institution. The most important transformation that has taken place is that formal peak bargaining on mean pay increases has been substituted with pattern bargaining where the manufacturing industry acts as a wage leader. Economic theory suggests that this almost amounts to centralised pay setting.

First contract arbitration (FCA) provisions are posed as a solution to the difficulties of negotiating a first contract for newly certified bargaining units. FCA is a longstanding, and no longer controversial, element of Canadian labor legislation. FCA provisions now exist in six Canadian jurisdictions and four distinct FCA models have developed (the exceptional remedy or fault model, the automatic access model, the no-fault model, and the mediation intensive model). In the United States the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) included a highly contested proposal to amend the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) to include an FCA provision similar to the Canadian automatic access model. This chapter offers a balanced assessment of FCA evidence from Canada addressing the main objections to FCA in the EFCA debates. Individual case level data from jurisdictions representing each of the four FCA models is examined. The evidence demonstrates that although FCA is widely available in Canada, it is an option that is rarely sought and, when sought, rarely granted; that parties involved in FCA are able to establish stable bargaining relationships; and, that this process does not, as critics charge, simply prolong the life of nonviable bargaining units. This chapter concludes by suggesting that the practice under Quebec's “no-fault” model and British Columbia's “mediation intensive” model merit consideration for adoption elsewhere. These models position the FCA process as a mechanism fostering collective bargaining and voluntary agreements, rather than treating it as a remedy for dysfunctional negotiations and as part of the unfair labor practice framework.

The purpose of this paper is to fill several knowledge gaps regarding the contents of collective agreements, using a new online database. The authors analyse 249 collective agreements from 11 countries – Benin, Brazil, Ghana, Indonesia, Kenya, Madagascar, Peru, Senegal, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda. The authors research to what extent wage and other remuneration-related clauses, working hours, paid leave arrangements and work-family arrangements are included in collective agreements and whether bargaining topics cluster within agreements.

The authors use the web-based WageIndicator Collective Bargaining Agreement Database with uniformly coded agreements, that are both collected and made accessible online. The authors present a quantitative multi-country comparison of the inclusion and contents of the clauses in the agreements.

The authors find that 98 per cent of the collective agreements include clauses on wages, but that only few agreements specify wage levels. Up to 71 per cent have clauses on social security, 89 per cent on working hours and 84 per cent of work-family arrangements. The authors also find that collective agreements including one of these four clauses, are also more likely to include the other three and conclude that no trade off exists between their inclusion on the bargaining agenda.

Being one of the first multi-country analyses of collective agreements, the analysis is primarily explorative, aiming to establish a factual baseline with regard to the contents of collective agreements.

This study is unique because of its focus on the content of collective bargaining agreements. The authors are the first to be able to show empirically which clauses are included in existing collective agreements in developing countries.

I. INTRODUCTION In this monograph we point out and analyse various dimensions of bargaining structure, which we define broadly as the institutional configuration within which bargaining takes place, and attempt to provide some guidelines for management action. We look at the development, theory, and present framework of bargaining structure in Britain and then examine it in terms of choices: multi‐employer versus single employer, company versus plant level bargaining, and the various public policy issues involved.

This article shows that regulation of the employment relationship in European public services has tended to give more importance to collective bargaining than to unilateral employer regulation. Although collective bargaining is a general trend, it is not the same in every country. This article concentrates on collective bargaining levels and the outcomes of collective bargaining in selected European states. A major explanatory factor of the extent of collective bargaining is the nature of the civil service system. Reformed “non‐career” systems tend to adopt collective bargaining institutions, resulting in binding collective agreements between employers and unions, while classical “career” systems do not.

Aims to test Walton and McKersie’s theory on labour negotiations, specifically in the case of German car manufacturers.

The research is based on interviews with industrial actors in Germany’s car industry – an empirical case study.

The article explains the structural force behind the managerial drive towards production. While German managers act at an enterprise level, a structural force has been responsible for the success of Germany’s post‐WW II manufacturing. Germany’s collective bargaining structure removed wage and working‐time bargaining from local management and opened four managerial options: production, productivity, innovation, and quality. This structure forced management to focus on these four options because they lie within the realm of management prerogative. The article explains how structural divisions between intra‐enterprise level arrangements and extra‐enterprise level collective bargaining at a conceptual level can best be understood.

Argues that a regional and industry collective bargaining structure has supported the success of a competitive car industry in Germany.

Nigeria is experiencing an expanding variety of what is termed collective bargaining, which is being propelled by socio-economic challenges and the emerging political dispensation that had long eluded the country, albeit the numerous contours needing some pragmatic approaches from the state, employers of labour and the trade unions at the local and national levels. Therefore, this study represents an attempt to illustrate the rising collective bargaining pattern in Nigeria.

This study drew on employee and employer sectoral associations examples together with labour union structures of the state to assess what underlined collective bargaining developments from the broad context of collective bargaining and the industrial relations implications. Content analysis was employed to analyse the secondary data (found in relevant company handbooks, policies, collective agreements, etc.) and primary data obtained through unstructured interviews.

A form of collective bargaining is emerging where the trade unions are embracing symbiotic agreements at plant levels to improve conditions of employment and thus weakening the hold of the national union from collective bargaining – a move that may challenge the conceptual framework of collective bargaining as conceived by many states in developing economies.

This is an investigative paper, carefully trailing the framework of collective bargaining from direct contacts with all stakeholders in the labour corridors of Nigeria – such as the Nigeria Labour Congress, Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association, Chemical and Non-Metallic Products Employer's Federation, Metal Products Workers Union of Nigeria and Personnel Practitioners, cutting across all the segments of the political and economic development of the country.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to reassert the persistent association of the decline in collective bargaining with the increase in income inequality, the fall in the share of wages in national income and deterioration in macroeconomic performance in the UK; and second, to present case studies affirming concrete outcomes of organisational collective bargaining for workers, in terms of pay, job quality, working hours and work-life balance.

The paper is based upon two methodological approaches. First, econometric analyses using industry-level and firm-level data for advanced and emerging economies testing the relationship between declining union density, collective bargaining coverage and the fall in the share of wages in national income. Second, it reports on ten in-depth case studies of collective bargaining each based upon analysis of collective bargaining agreements plus in-depth interviews with the actors party to them: in total, 16 trade union officers, 16 members and 11 employer representatives.

There is robust evidence of the effects of different measures of bargaining power on the labour share including union density, welfare state retrenchment, minimum wages and female employment. The case studies appear to address a legacy of deregulated industrial relations. A number demonstrate the reinvigoration of collective bargaining at the organisational and sectoral level, addressing the two-tier workforce and contractual differentiation, alongside the consequences of government pay policies for equality.

The case studies represent a purposive sample and therefore findings are not generalisable; researchers are encouraged to test the suggested propositions further.

The paper proposes that tackling income inequality requires a restructuring of the institutional framework in which bargaining takes place and a level playing field where the bargaining power of labour is more in balance with that of capital. Collective bargaining addresses a number of the issues raised by the Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices as essential for “good work”, yet is at odds with the review’s assumptions and remedies. The case studies reiterate the importance of the development of strong workplace representation and bargaining at workplace level, which advocates for non-members and provides a basis for union recruitment, organisation and wider employee engagement.

The paper indicates that there may be limits to employer commitment to deregulated employment relations. The emergence of new or reinvigorated collective agreements may represent a concession by employers that a “free”, individualised, deinstitutionalised, precarious approach to industrial relations, based on wage suppression and work intensification, is not in their interests in the long run.