A coordinated European Union minimum wage policy?
Fernández Macías, Enrique ; Vacas-Soriano, Carlos
European Journal of Industrial Relations
2016
22
2
June
97-113
EU policy ; low wages ; minimum wage
Wages and wage payment systems
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0959680115610725
English
Bibliogr.
"This article contributes to the growing debate on minimum wage coordination at European Union (EU) level. We consider the introduction of a hypothetical EU-wide minimum set at 60 percent of the median wage in each European country; we compare the diverse minimum wage-setting systems across Europe and discuss how they could be affected by such policy. The institutional impact of this European common threshold would be larger in those countries where minimum wages are currently collectively agreed by social partners than in those countries where they are set by statutory regulation. But according to our statistical analysis, such EU-wide minimum wage would affect a larger proportion of the workforce in those countries with statutory minimum wages, since they tend to have a larger low-paid segment of employment."
Paper
The ETUI is co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the ETUI.