Analysis reveals major challenges for collective bargaining

A new ETUI publication, Multi-employer bargaining under pressure: decentralisation trends in five European countries, investigates developments in the shift from centrally coordinated multi-employer to decentralized collective bargaining in a number of EU Member States where the former has been traditionally stronger (Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Spain). It also looks at whether company level bargaining can play a useful new role in setting working conditions, without paving the way for social dumping and widened inequalities.

On 29 April the ETUC submitted a document to European employment ministers who gathered in Athens for the Employment and Social Policy Council (EPSCO). The report analysed trends in wages, challenging the arguments from the European Commission and European Central Bank that so-called excessive wage increases had contributed to imbalances in the European economy. The ETUC's figures indicate, on the contrary, that over significant periods wages have not kept up with productivity growth. A further briefing, published by EPSU, also shows how wage growth has been outpace by increasing profits - an