25 research outputs found
Of minimum wages and other vices of the labour marketâŠ
The outcome of yesterdayâs first day of social dialogue regarding the future of the minimum wage in Greece is important for two reasons: first, because the social partners vowed their support to the 13th and 14th salary and agreed any pay decreases (or wage freezes â practically itâs the same any way) to be implemented from 2013 onwards (with the signing of the new national collective agreement); and, second, because their stance provides a firm answer to the governmentâs âthreatâ that it will legislate a reduction to the minimum wage if the social partnersâ agreement is not deemed viable
Process versus content; or the slow and painful death of social dialogue
The European Union is built on structures of economic co-operation, yet the sovereign debt crisis is testing to the limit its ability to avert a financial disaster. In the current Greek imbroglio, both Athens and its euro-zone partners seem unable to achieve their aims and are finding it impossible to convince the markets they have found a way out. Given both sides proclaimed a Greek default (and possibly an exit from the euro-zone) is what they wished to avoid, how come they havenât been able to cooperate and secure their shared goal
Industrial relations in crisis?: the ânew industrial relations' theory and the field of industrial relations in Britain
A common feeling among the Industrial Relations community is that the field faces a
crisis that challenges both its ability to address the phenomena it studies and its
institutional structures. However, the literature is not clear on the reasons for this
development. Some argue, predominantly in Britain, that the cause of this crisis is the
penetration of Human Resource Management (HRM) or, as this trend is also known,
of the New Industrial Relations (NIR) theory, in the intellectual and institutional edifice
of the field. Others, however, especially from the US, believe that the reason for the
inability of the field to deal with the external environment is its adherence to an oldfashioned
paradigm that does not take into consideration the changing nature of
industrial relations realities. For them, the solution is to incorporate the teachings of
the NIR theory in the intellectual corpus of Industrial Relations. Thus, one is faced
with two contradictory positions that have the same bases, namely that the field is in
a critical condition and that, somehow, a theory is involved (or should be involved) in
the picture. However, the discrepancy between the two theses poses important
conceptual problems for the future of the field for it is not as yet clear who is to blame
(if anyone) for its current situation.
It is, therefore, the aim of this Thesis to clarify the above picture. To achieve this,
both the above theses will be evaluated. To do so, it is imperative to study the
epistemological implications of the NIR theory for the field of Industrial Relations, and
then to examine the place the NIR theory occupies in the intellectual structures of the
field in Britain. Once this is achieved, the issue of crisis will be tackled in more detail
to determine whether British Industrial Relations actually face the crisis that the
various voices in the literature ascribe it with.
In the Introduction the general problem and the Research Questions of the Thesis
will be discussed. Then, the First Chapter will set the theoretical context upon which
the analysis will be based. Chapter Two will present the intellectual and institutional
development of the field of Industrial Relations, while Chapter Three will be devoted
to an analysis of the NIR theory. Chapter Four will examine the epistemic value of the
theory for the field of Industrial Relations and Chapter Five will investigate the
position that the NIR theory occupies in the British Industrial Relations fora of
knowledge development. Chapter Six will complement the above discussion by
examining the evolutionary dynamics of the NIR theory. In Chapter Seven the
intellectual status of Industrial Relations will be examined to see whether the field
faces an intellectual crisis. Then, Chapter Eight will analyse the dynamics of the field
in Britain to evaluate the condition of the fieldâs institutions. Finally, in Chapter Nine,
the institutional status of the field, together with some ideas about the fieldâs future
will be further discussed, and some promising avenues for future research will be
presented
United We Stand? Marketization, institutional change and employersâ associations in crisis
The continuous process of marketization of employment relations in a variety of European countries has raised questions about the power of collective social actors and their legitimizing role in policy-making. The article examines the responses of employersâ associations to institutional changes towards marketization in the context of the Greek economic crisis. The analysis exposes the hidden fractures between and within the peak-level employersâ associations and unveils a variation in their strategic responses towards institutional changes. To explain this variation, the article advances a power-based explanation and argues that the institutional changes altered the associationsâ interest representation and power resources, which in turn, redefined their role and identities in the employment relations system
Institutional change in Greek industrial relations in an era of fiscal crisis
The main aim of this paper is to contribute to the ongoing debate on the facets of the Greek crisis via an analysis of the changes in the institutional framework of the labour market that are introduced as a result of the EU/IMF mechanism for financial support. The paper tries to make sense of the immense transformation in the Greek industrial relations system and to evaluate the direction of change, using insights from the varieties of capitalism literature. In this strand of literature it is well established that the comparative institutional advantage and high economic performance of a country depends on its overall institutional arrangement and the fit between different institutions (including the industrial relations sphere). Thus, it is important to examine the current injection of liberal market elements in the Greek industrial relations realm vis-a-vis the wider institutional context. This will allow us to guage the suitability and chances for the implementation of IMF's 'one-size-fits-all' policies
The genesis of a scientific community: the British Universities Industrial Relations Association and the field of industrial relations in Britain, c.1950â1983
Scholarship dealing with labor-related topics has been prevalent in Britain from the early twentieth century, but a scientific field dedicated exclusively to the study of industrial relations did not emerge until the second half of the century. Although the socio-economic context of the post-war years provided a fertile ground for the fieldâs emergence, the reason for its eventual development was a socialization process that took place in the early 1950s with the establishment of an informal group of industrial relations scholars. The group would grow to become the British Universities Industrial Relations Association and its activities would help the emerging community develop a âdisciplinary identityâ and form the institutions that would subsequently define the field of Industrial Relations