Documents Nergaard, Kristine 13 results

"Using survey data collected in 2010-2011, this article examines patterns of lock-in among employees in the Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish labour markets. Workers are defined as locked-in if they have considerable difficulty in finding an equally good job with some other employer. Empirically we measure the concept by means of the employees' own assessment of their labour market prospects. Our results indicate that lock-in is a matter of the interplay between employers and employees. The proportion of those locked-in is lower in Norway - with its higher demand for labour and lower levels of unemployment - than in Finland and Sweden. Young age and good health are associated with relatively optimistic views of job prospects, probably because these attributes impact on the ability to adapt to the demand for labour and because employers tend to be cautious about hiring older workers and those with health problems. The most significant obstacles to finding another job reported by the respondents are the labour market conditions in their place of residence or within commuting distance and their age."

"This article compares the policy and collective bargaining responses in the three Scandinavian countries to the cost-of-living crisis that began in 2021. The countries are known for their coordinated and consensual response to exogenous shocks. However, Scandinavian variants of neoliberal reforms, the 2009 Financial Crisis and, more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic have challenged the model. The comparative analysis finds three things. First, Norway and Sweden opted for rather generous measures compared with Denmark, and their measures were generally universal in nature, whereas the Danish measures were more targeted on specific groups. Second, with no statutory minimum wage, all three countries relied on collective bargaining to shore up wage incomes. Third, the different responses in the three countries pertain to different political and economic problem loads. We also find signs of convergence as wage solidarity seems to be experiencing a revitalisation in all three countries. This could have lasting effects on bargaining systems."

"Trade unions have transformed from male-dominated organisations rooted in manufacturing to majority-female organisations serving predominantly white-collar workers, often in the public sector. Adopting a comparative case study approach using nationally representative linked employer-employee surveys for Norway and Britain we examine whether, in keeping with a median voter model, the gender shift in union membership has resulted in differential wage returns to unionisation among men and women. In Britain, while only women receive a union wage premium, only men benefit from the increased bargaining power of their union as indicated by workplace union density. In Norway, on the other hand, although a union wage premium arises from individual union membership for men and women in male-dominated unions, in workplaces where the union is female-dominated women benefit more than men from the increased bargaining power of the union as union density rises. The findings suggest British unions continue to adopt a paternalistic attitude to representing their membership, in contrast to their more progressive counterparts in Norway."

"Trade unions have transformed from male-dominated organisations rooted in manufacturing to majority-female organisations serving predominantly white-collar workers, often in the public sector. Adopting a comparative case study approach using nationally representative linked employer-employee surveys for Norway and Britain we examine whether, in keeping with a median voter model, the gender shift in union membership has resulted in differential wage returns to unionisation among men and women. In Britain, while only women receive a union wage premium, only men benefit from the increased bargaining power of their union as indicated by workplace union density. In Norway, on the other hand, although a union wage premium arises from individual union membership for men and women in male-dominated unions, in workplaces where the union is female-dominated women benefit more than men from the increased bargaining power of the union as union density rises. The findings suggest British unions continue to adopt a paternalistic attitude to representing their membership, in contrast to their more progressive counterparts in Norway."

"This article analyses how the introduction of variable pay systems (VPS) has affected the role of trade unions and collective bargaining in company pay setting, and the role of these institutions in shaping VPS in Norwegian companies in blue-collar machinery production and white-collar banking services. The development of VPS has been fairly smoothly handled by the actors within, and with the help of, the established industrial relations institutions. In the machinery companies, VPS implied minimal changes in collective bargaining, whereas in banking significant individualization and more ambiguous effects for the role of company unions in pay setting were found. "

"This article analyses the challenge of variable pay to collective bargaining, based on a cross-national comparison that takes banking organizations in Austria, Norway, Spain and the UK as representatives of Europe's principal bargaining systems. The hypothesis is that the capacity of collective bargaining to govern variable pay varies with the bargaining system. As the findings show, articulated multi-employer bargaining is more able to govern variable pay than its unarticulated counterpart and single-employer bargaining. Within the case of articulated multi-employer bargaining, single-channel systems of employee workplace representation are superior to dual systems, all the more since the former equip the unions with selective incentives for membership."

"The level of union density in Norway is medium high, in contrast to the other Nordic countries where high density levels are supported by unemployment insurance funds. Developments in union density over time are stable in Norway, contrary to developments in most western European countries outside the Nordic region. This article traces the effects of unemployment insurance funds by comparing density levels in Norway with those in Finland and Sweden. In addition, the stability witnessed in union density in Norway over time is a particularly puzzling phenomenon, and the authors seek to explain it on the basis of specific institutional and labour market factors."

"This article discusses differences in the responses of company employee representatives to variable pay systems, drawing on a comparative study in the metalworking sector in Austria, Norway, Spain and the UK. We find that the approaches of organized labour are contingent, first, on the type of pay system and its influence on total remuneration; and second, on the role of local trade unions or works councils within the national system of pay determination."