Collective bargaining centralisation against all odds? The Italian telecommunications industry after market liberalization

The widespread trends towards markets liberalisation, decline in trade union power, and flexible work organization were expected to push collective bargaining institutions to converge to a decentralised bargaining structure. This crude version of the neoliberal convergence thesis, however, was not borne out. Instead, change in employment relations has been more nuanced than initially thought. This paper explores the conditions under which centralisation of bargaining is possible, even in a more competitive environment with pressures for greater flexibility. It draws on case study evidence from the Italian telecommunications industry, tracing back the process of liberalisation since the early 1990s. It is shown how the strategies and the coalitions between organised labour, business and the state explain in large part this path of institutional change

The evolution of national social dialogue in Europe under the single market, 1992-2006

This paper examines the evolution of national social dialogue (bipartite wage bargaining) across European countries. Several commentators in the 1990s expected the dismantling of national social dialogue institutions. Following the liberalisation of markets, intensification of competition, and declining union power, bargaining structures were supposed to converge to the Anglo-Saxon model of decentralised bargaining. The paper seeks to gauge the plausibility of the ‘decentralization thesis’ using novel indicators of collective bargaining centralization across the EU15. It is shown that despite the changes in product markets, flexible working, and declining union density, a generalized decentralization of bargaining did not occur. Instead, in many European cases there is a counter-trend of centralization, which casts doubt to the decentralization thesis

Embedding employability skills in UK Higher Education: between digitalization and marketization

This article contributes to the debate on employability skills in UK higher education. It starts by discussing the concept of employability and places the debate in the context of mega-trends affecting UK higher education and the broader UK labour market. It distinguishes between different types of employability skills, as identified by employers’ surveys, and matches them with specific small-group teaching activities, drawing on pedagogic theory and practice. The article concludes that, beyond work-integrated learning, traditional small-group teaching activities can go a long way towards bridging the gap between graduates’ skills and labour market needs

Empower workers to bridge the CEO pay gap by themselves

Public concerns over levels of CEO pay – especially in the banking sector – have triggered a debate on both sides of the Atlantic. These worries are anything but unfounded, but solutions are too often being sought in the wrong places

Mediating EU liberalisation and negotiating flexibility: a coalitional approach to wage bargaining change

How do we explain divergent trajectories of change in wage bargaining institutions? The advancement of European economic integration, leading to markets liberalisation and increased competition, was expected to bring the breakdown of centralised bargaining arrangements. This expectation was even stronger given the internationalisation of new management practices, pushing European firms to enhance their competitiveness via increasing flexibility. Despite strong theoretical expectations towards a generalised breakdown of wage bargaining, one finds divergent trajectories of change across European countries and sectors. The task of this thesis is to explain the puzzle of varied responses in otherwise similar sectors. Banking and telecommunications sectors in Italy and Greece display a diversity of paths of institutional change: breakdown of bargaining, reform of bargaining, successful centralisation, and failed centralisation. The direction of the paths of institutional change may be explained in large part by two factors ignored by earlier literature: ‘employer associability’ and ‘labourstate coalitions’. On the one hand, it is argued that employers associations which possess the legal competence and take into account the collective interests of both large and smaller firms, may reform the wage bargaining institution, getting the ‘best of both worlds’ for their members. Additionally, a ‘labour-state coalition’ may moderate the destabilising pressures to wage bargaining, as long as trade unions are able to speak with a ‘single voice’. The government will not only be motivated by electoral concerns, but also support centralised bargaining to gain ‘room for manoeuvre’ for tactical policy trade-offs advancing its agenda. Overall, the thesis refines earlier propositions, suggesting a more nuanced causal mechanism to explain institutional change. The argument speaks to wider debates in comparative political economy and comparative employment systems; it fleshes out empirically the role of the state in Mediterranean capitalism and highlights factors that moderate pressures to convergence to the Liberal Market model

European market integration and the political economy of corporate adjustment: OTE and Telecom Italia, 1949-2009

Despite the common challenges posed by European market integration and liberalisation, the behaviour of telecommunications operators across Europe suggests a variety of modes of adjustment and paths to privatisation. The article examines the puzzle of divergent responses to liberalisation by OTE and Telecom Italia (TI), casting light on their distinct paths to privatisation and internationalisation. The cases are considered in the context of the Varieties of Capitalism frame, which challenges the perspective that global market integration will lead to convergence in strategies and structures. Thus, the article suggests that the observed differences are largely explained by the domestic actors' preferences, and to a much lesser extent attributed to the globalising forces of technological change and competition

Social Partners and the Welfare State: Recalibration, Privatization or Collectivization of Social Risks?

The comparative political economy literature has been inconclusive in its assessment of the extent of welfare state retrenchment. One strand of research emphasised that welfare states have not undergone outright retrenchment, but recalibration. Another strand argued that there is a shift towards the privatization of risks and increased reliance on the market. While these assessments likely represent differences in magnitude, our paper seeks to contribute to these debates with an alternative argument: collectivization of social risks. We employ a method of contextualized comparisons, examining three cases of collectivization across diverse contexts: the financing of disability insurance in the Netherlands, training provision for employed and unemployed in Greece, and regulation of atypical contracts in Italy. The paper concludes by discussing the political dynamic that ensued and the wider relevance of the argument to debates in comparative political economy and comparative industrial relations.Keywords: Trade unions, Contextualized comparisons, Welfare Stat

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