Europe
The International Labour Organisation has published a briefing on collective bargaining covering 75 countries including many European nations. The report looks at long-term trends and some of the negative developments since the economic crisis. However, it also notes how levels of collective bargaining have held up in some countries partly as a result of an enabling legal environment based on measures to extend collective agreements, for example.
Read more at < ILO (EN)
A new report from the Eurofound research agency analyses trends in collectively negotiated wages compared to productivity over the 2000-2017 period. The report says that: "From an employee perspective...applying harmonised consumer prices, wages per employee have grown more slowly than productivity since the beginning of the millennium and the gap has been widening, despite hourly wages having been more aligned." It adds that: "In most countries with available data (14 EU Member States), there has been a positive wage drift since the early 2000s, indicating that actual wages have grown more
The latest annual pay survey from the EIRO industrial relations observatory shows a drop in average negotiated pay increases in 2009. The overall average fell from 5.1% in 2008 to 4.2% in 2009 while in the Eurozone the increases were lower, down from 3.9% in 2008 to 3.2% in 2009. The civil service increase in 2009 was lower again at 2.9%, down from 4.2% in 2008, with seven countries already registering a pay freeze in 2009. Read more at > EIRO (EN)
The Eurofound research agency has published an analysis of collective labour disputes. It found that collective bargaining was the context for over a third of disputes, with grievances over company-level policies making up another quarter and grievances over public policy accounting for a further 18%. More specifically, problems over pay accounted for over 40% of disputes, employment problems for 20%, other aspects of working conditions for 16%. In a period when the pandemic raised serious problems in terms of safety and staffing it wasn’t surprising that health and social care was among the