Documents Jaehrling, Karen 16 results

"Labour clauses in public procurement, which require contractors to provide their employees with a certain minimum level of wages and working conditions, have garnered increased political and scholarly attention in recent years. However, much of the discussion has centred on legal provisions, with less consideration given to the intricacy of how these clauses are implemented and integrated within existing wage-setting systems. This article focuses on the implementation and enforcement of labour clauses and their interaction with collective bargaining systems in two countries, Denmark and Germany, which continue to rely relatively strongly on collective agreements. Drawing on four case studies, we explore the challenges that arise from the implementation of labour clauses, such as tensions between economic and social policy objectives and between state regulation and collective agreements. These cases underscore the importance of learning processes among public authorities and social partners in trying to address these tensions and ensuring decent working conditions in publicly procured work."

"Bringing outsourced public services back in-house and thus ‘making' instead of ‘buying' decent work now features in policy debates and is a common policy priority of labour movements and unions with public sector membership. Theoretically at least, bringing workers (back) under the rules and standards governing direct public sector employment is a particularly effective and simple way of raising pay levels, improving work schedules and facilitating worker voice. In the past, public sector outsourcing took place within the framework of so-called ‘variegated neoliberalisation'. In a similar vein, current forms of organisational and institutional experimentation tend to be partial, fragmented processes of de-marketisation via insourcing. Drawing on empirical evidence from Germany, France and the United Kingdom, this article explores different trajectories followed by such partial re-insourcing processes and analyses how they are shaped by legacies of the past and how current conjunctural trends are to some extent aimed at correcting for these legacies."

"This article discusses the role of politics in the current ‘interregnum' following neoliberal hegemony, based on an analysis of procurement policies and practices in Europe. It shows how the re-politicisation of the neoliberal framework can be seen in the interplay between ‘noisy' legislative reforms and quieter forms of decision-making within the framework of local regulatory experiments, administrative procurement practices, case-law and soft law for public buyers. This interplay has given rise to a policy-specific interregnum that incentivises non-politics, but also gives space to policies and practices of ‘buying decent work'. The implementation of this framework is likewise characterised by a mix of noisy politics building up pressure to move away from ‘buying cheap' and quieter negotiations around the design and enforcement of social considerations. The article highlights the role of trade unions in this important arena of labour market regulation and industrial relations outside the traditional forms of collective bargaining."

"Drawing on the findings of research in the public hospitals sector in five European countries - France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and the UK - this article assesses the character of change in wage setting and collective bargaining. It demonstrates the diversity of national arrangements by comparing key characteristics: (i) the bodies of collective representation (unions, professional associations and employer bodies); (ii) the degree of integration with the wider public sector framework; (iii) coordination (or competition) with the private hospitals sector; and (iv) the practice of à la carte provisions within individual hospitals. Despite national varieties of wage setting and collective bargaining, each country sector faces similar tensions - most notably the opposition between public (labour market) rules and health (product market) rules, and pressures to segment or integrate employment conditions by labour force group. By examining the nature of change in institutions for wage setting and collective bargaining in each country, the article contributes to our understanding of the extent of coordination and change of public sector wage setting and describes three scenarios: fragmentation (Germany); continuity (France and the Netherlands); and reconstruction (the UK and Norway)."

"How do unions respond to the emerging threats and opportunities posed by digitalization in the sphere of employment relations? What factors account for the focus and varying effectiveness of their responses? This paper seeks to address these questions in the case of Italy—a theoretically interesting case that combines significant digitalization-related challenges, historically strong industrial relations institutions under increasing pressure, and diverse union confederations.

From the available evidence, we find that Italian union strategies and demands so far have been primarily focused on interventions at the macro and meso levels, with a view to extending traditional forms of protection—especially sectoral collective bargaining agreements—to deal with the disruptive effects of digitalization. This focus has been coupled with some limited innovation in union agendas and discursive repertoires focused on the micro level of intervention, as well as a shift in union preferences toward inclusion of platform workers and self-employed workers in their constituencies. Whilst highlighting the importance of agential factors, we nonetheless find that the focus and effectiveness of union interventions are crucially shaped by prior institutional legacies and distributions of power resources, as well as by the ideological orientation and strategic capabilities of individual unions themselves.

Overall, Italian unions have to date tended to privilege gradual response strategies based on extension and adaptation of existing and established institutions. It remains to be seen whether such adaptive approaches will be sufficient to effectively govern the digital transformation of work or whether more radical institutional experimentation will become necessary. Either way, in order to build smart industrial relations in Italy, unions will have an active role to play."

"This article investigates how cross-border mobility in the European shipbuilding industry affected the employment security of workers on standard and non-standard contracts in sending and receiving countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. It draws on qualitative findings from Germany, Italy, Norway, Poland and Romania, where shipbuilding production is integrated into transnational networks, leading to high cross-border mobility. Despite restrictions and a reduction of shipbuilding activities, the east-west labour mobility continued during the pandemic contributing to employment security in the east and addressing labour shortages in the west. The findings show that the type of employment contract, national employment protections and workers' mobility status (e.g. posted or self-initiated) influence workers' vulnerability. Specifically, the mobile workers with the most secure employment were also better protected by government measures than those in less secure employment during the pandemic, resulting in hierarchised groups of cross-border labour. Workers engaging in circular migration across Europe were the least protected."

"Mit dem Bedeutungszuwachs der oeffentlichen Auftragsvergabe werden Entscheidungen ueber Arbeitsbedingungen zunehmend jenseits der eingespielten Formen des Interessenausgleichs getroffen. Welche Verfahren der Entscheidungsfindung sich hier herausbilden und wie dies die etablierten Macht- und Interessenstrukturen in den industriellen Beziehungen veraendert, ist Kernfrage des Beitrags. Er zielt zudem darauf, Einflussfaktoren, Gegenstaende, Akteure und Mechanismen der Entscheidungsfindung im Bereich der oeffentlichen Auftragsvergabe in systematisierender Weise zu beschreiben und auf diese Weise zu einem besseren Verstaendnis der Konturen dieser emergenten Arena der industriellen Beziehungen beizutragen. Die Auswertung erster empirischer Studien zu Deutschland, Daenemark und Grossbritannien ergibt, dass die gezielte Nutzung der Auftragsvergabe als Instrument der Arbeitsmarktregulierung laenderuebergreifend auf grosse Huerden stoesst, und die traditionell staerker ausgepraegten Mitbestimmungsrechte von Arbeitnehmern in Deutschland und vor allem Daenemark in dieser emergenten Arena der industriellen Beziehungen bislang nur bedingt zum Tragen kommen."

"The article analyses patterns of atypical work and their dynamics of change in three service sectors (retailing, hotels and hospitals) in Germany and France. This sectoral approach reveals that the growth of atypical employment is not just a result of new exit options that allow employers to bypass national employment standards. To a significant extent, it is also the delayed effect of latent structures, in particular the weakness of industrial relations as well as pre-existing legal exit options and gaps in the regulation of working conditions. With increasing price competition, these latent structures have come more strongly to the fore as employers make use of their significant ability to unilaterally withdraw from an existing framework. In these service sectors, the process of dualization cannot be analysed as a mere consequence of deregulation policies nor as a result of the weakening of the generalization effect emanating from manufacturing industry."