The impact on wages also affects the relationship between collective bargaining and productivity growth. Centralized collective bargaining systems tend to be associated with lower productivity growth when agreement coverage is high. This result suggests that the lack of flexibility at the firm level characteristic of centralised collective bargaining systems could be at the expense of lower productivity growth. On the other hand, it is noted that greater coordination in decentralized systems does not have a detrimental effect on productivity. Coverage: Collective bargaining, not just union density, is crucial to measuring the relevance of the system. Collective agreements that cover a large proportion of workers can have a greater macroeconomic effect – positive or negative – on employment, wages and other outcomes than agreements limited to a few companies. Note: Results are based on Juhn-Murphy-Pierce decompositions that use employees without a collective agreement as a reference group and take into account gender, age groups, education, industry, occupation, firm size, type of contract and duration of employment. Depending on the country, the data date from the years 2012-16 (2006 for Germany). For countries with three types of bargaining, data are available for corporate and sectoral bargaining and without collective bargaining. For countries with two types of bargaining, data are available for collective bargaining at company level and without collective bargaining. “Sectoral collective bargaining” for Australia refers to the use of modern prices (see Box 3.5). There is no real sectoral negotiation in Australia.
Degree of flexibility: Sectoral or national agreements can differ considerably in the degree of flexibility they offer to businesses. For example, the possibility of opt-outs or the transfer of the application of the principle of favouritism to the social partners may increase the flexibility of the system and allow a stronger link between wages and company performance, with higher employment and productivity, but on the other hand higher wage inequalities. Analysis of how your offer compares to best-in-class benchmarks Even in countries where company-level collective bargaining plays an important role, it is often mostly limited to large and medium-sized companies. In order to extend social dialogue to all strata of society, some governments have tried to promote social dialogue in small enterprises. One example is the 2017 labour market reform in France. This introduced the possibility for companies with fewer than 20 employees to call on workers to vote on a company agreement even without a union representative, provided that at least two-thirds of employees support the agreement. It also allowed companies with 20 to 50 employees to negotiate with an elected representative, even if they were not explicitly mandated by the unions. Trade unions fear that these initiatives to promote social dialogue in small enterprises may in fact lead to abuses by employers who have greater bargaining power than employees. In France, however, the role of collective bargaining at the company level is still quite narrowly defined by sectoral agreements, which very often (at least until the 2017 reform) explicitly block renegotiation and exemptions at the company level on most issues.
Another example comes from Italy, where in 2017 the government increased tax incentives to promote negotiations on performance-related wages and benefits at the company level, with the stated aim of extending collective bargaining at the enterprise level to medium and small enterprises and strengthening the link between productivity and wage increases at the enterprise level (D`Amuri and Nizzi, 2017[61]). This section examines possible ways forward through the combined use of inclusion instruments (section 3.4.1) and instruments that help promote flexibility (section 3.4.2). In this context, inclusivity is largely about being represented; Therefore, the emphasis is on broad collective bargaining and social dialogue. Flexibility can be achieved in many ways, but the challenge is to integrate it into systems that offer broad coverage. Organised decentralisation (which leaves room for company agreements to set conditions of employment within a broader framework of sectoral agreements), a high level of representation at the local level and intersectoral wage coordination are among the most promising elements for effectively reconciling inclusiveness and flexibility. Agreements without figure: They do not contain wage standards that are left entirely at the company level. The duration of the derogation should be limited in order to ensure that the conditions return to the standards of the sectoral agreement. Organised, decentralised and coordinated collective bargaining systems: Sectoral agreements play an important role, but they also leave considerable room for lower-level agreements to set standards – either by limiting the role of renewals (rarely and never automatically or almost automatically), by leaving the design of the hierarchy of agreements to the negotiating parties or by allowing opt-outs. Coordination between sectors and bargaining units tends to be strong. In 2015, Austria, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden belonged to this group. The empirical approach to adjusting wage statistics, e.B average wage or D9/D1 ratio, for differences in composition is as follows.
Workers whose wages are not regulated by collective bargaining, b 1, are taken as a standard. In Belgium, France and Spain, where data are not available for unregistered workers, collective bargaining at company level is used as a criterion. The counterfactual salary of the employee covered by collective bargaining, b 2, is then calculated because we also provide our clients with benchmark price analyses for the price lists of IT consultants. Key submissions include Accenture, Ernst & Young, KPMG, Tata and Capgemini. When negotiating IT purchases and renewals, do you want to have a way to check if you have a good deal? NPI`s subscription service for IT price benchmarking and trading information – SmartSpend™ for IT Buyers – is specifically designed to meet this need and more. Add it all up and companies pay too much for more than 75% of their IT purchases! This is a problem that needs to be solved. “Common suspects” in this category include IBM, CA Technologies, BMC, Software AG, Compuware, and Allen Systems Group. These software publishers offer hundreds of mainframe software products (WebSphere, FileNet, Rational, TRIRAGA, DB2…) representing thousands of line product codes (EOD92LL, EOD93LL, EOD95LL, EOD96LL…). Businesses need an enterprise contract consultant who understands the unique dynamics of mainframe software and opportunities to reduce costs. Although strict conditions for the application of openness clauses help to maintain the organization of the decentralization process, they can also significantly reduce their role.
Where there are opening clauses, opt-outs are usually used by large companies that are not necessarily the most needy. Small businesses often cannot benefit from exemptions and opt-out clauses because they do not have the capacity or representation of employees. In a potentially extreme but not entirely unlikely scenario, opt-outs with very strict conditions can become an anti-competitive tool: large companies could first negotiate relatively generous terms in sectoral agreements and then exit to improve conditions in their favor, so competitors have to bear the brunt of the generous terms they negotiate.28 Model agreements: They set wages and working conditions, but these only come into force if the local parties do not reach an agreement. Therefore, company agreements can also set wages and working conditions below the standard level. In general, a price applies to employees of a particular industry or occupation and is used as a reference point to evaluate company agreements prior to their approval. Wage coordination: Wage coordination between sectoral agreements (or, as in the case of Japan, between company agreements) helps negotiators to internalize the macroeconomic impact of the conditions set out in collective agreements. This is usually achieved by keeping wage increases in the non-tradable sector in line with what the tradable sector can do, or by strengthening the system`s ability to adjust wages or working hours in the face of a macroeconomic downturn. Coordination can therefore serve as a tool for wage moderation and income flexibility throughout the business cycle, with potential benefits for employment and resilience. In sectoral collective bargaining systems and without broad representation, administrative extensions can help cover companies and workers who do not participate in collective bargaining. In order not to affect the economic prospects of start-ups, small enterprises or vulnerable workers, extensions must be well designed to ensure that the parties negotiating agreements represent the collective interests of a large group of enterprises and workers. This can be achieved by subjecting renewal applications to appropriate representativeness criteria and a meaningful assessment of the public interest, and by providing for clearly defined procedures for exemptions and derogations of undertakings in the event of serious economic difficulties.
If you have an Enterprise Agreement extension or an enterprise-level purchase on the horizon, it`s important to start optimizing early, ideally six months in advance and at least two months. Sufficient time and access to NPI provider-specific licensing experts ensure that your Enterprise Agreement meets your individual (and ever-changing) user needs at the lowest possible cost. The results of this section suggest that some collective bargaining systems may be associated with greater wage and productivity mismatches, with potential consequences for productivity growth […].