JournalTOCs

European Journal of Industrial Relations
Journal Prestige (SJR): 1.463

Citation Impact (citeScore): 2
Number of Followers: 34

Hybrid journal (It can contain Open Access articles)
ISSN (Print) 0959-6801 - ISSN (Online) 1461-7129
Published by Sage Publications

[1174 journals]

Working in hospitality and catering in Greece and the UK: Do trade union
membership and collective bargaining still matter'
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  Authors: Orestis Papadopoulos, Gregoris Ioannou
  Abstract: European Journal of Industrial Relations, Ahead of Print.
  Existing literature suggests that terms and conditions of employment are universally poor in hospitality and catering. Based on fieldwork comprising more than 70 semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted in the UK and Greece in 2018 and 2019, this article maps the field in the two countries and discusses the key parameters that structure working conditions, pay determination, and the impact of trade unionism and absence thereof. Poor working conditions and precariousness are prevalent in both contexts as expected, but surprisingly wages and other terms and conditions at least for a significant section of the hospitality workforce are comparatively better in Greece. An explanation for these findings is suggested with reference to the tradition of collective bargaining in hotels in Greece which partially survived the 2008 crisis and the legal reforms that followed. Trade unionism, despite its weakening and discrediting, has left its mark as a tradition contributing to the emergence of formal labour-based initiatives and more broadly to maintaining an openness to collectivism and collective action, more so than in the UK context. This combination of the distinct institutional and sectoral features of the Greek case and worker agency has served to ameliorate the context and content of employment for substantial sections of the hospitality workforce.
  Citation: European Journal of Industrial Relations
  PubDate: 2022-05-30T12:50:10Z
  DOI: 10.1177/09596801221104943
The power of the economic outlook: An ideational explanation of the
distinct pattern of Finnish wage setting within the Nordic context
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  Authors: Joel Kaitila, Ville-Pekka Sorsa, Antti Alaja
  Abstract: European Journal of Industrial Relations, Ahead of Print.
  Industrial relations scholars are paying increasing attention to the role of ideas in explaining shifts in bargaining systems and wage policies. This article contributes to this growing body of literature by conducting a meso-level analysis of the uses and impacts of ideas in wage regulation policy processes in coordinated market economies. Through our in-depth case study of the Finnish policy process leading to the Competitiveness Pact of 2016, we argue that certain ideas – which we call the ‘economic outlook’ – prescribed and legitimized exhausting institutional resources in wage regulation and enabled temporary consensus among divergent interests regarding wage policy. The economic outlook linked and enabled compromises between wage policy and wage regulation interests and effectively solidified a commitment to an uncertain policy process. The case study suggests that an ideational analysis of policy processes can offer explanations for shifts in wage policy and regulation that deviate from macro-level regime shifts. While all Nordic countries have faced similar economic and institutional reform pressures, Finland’s readoption of centralized bargaining shows that national policy ideas can drive distinct industrial relations patterns within the Nordic context.
  Citation: European Journal of Industrial Relations
  PubDate: 2022-05-09T11:00:45Z
  DOI: 10.1177/09596801221093059
Ryanair pilots: Unlikely pioneers of transnational collective action
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  Authors: Darragh Golden, Roland Erne
  Abstract: European Journal of Industrial Relations, Ahead of Print.
  In aviation, EU single market rules empowered Ryanair over three decades to defeat all pilot unions across Europe, regardless of the notionally strong power resources on which they were relying in their countries. Nonetheless, in December 2017, a transnational group of union-related pilots, the European Employee Representative Committee was critical in forcing Ryanair to finally recognize trade unions. This study shows that multinationals’ ability to circumvent national union power resources does not necessarily undermine transnational collective action. Hence, transnational union strength does not primarily depend on an aggregation of national power resources, but on union activists’ ability to exploit union-friendly peculiarities that the EU governance regime is also providing. We show that the apparently weaker institutional power resources at EU level provides more effective leverage for transnational collective action than apparently stronger power resources embedded within French, Danish, or Norwegian labour law. This requires an understanding of scale.
  Citation: European Journal of Industrial Relations
  PubDate: 2022-05-07T04:16:54Z
  DOI: 10.1177/09596801221094740
The platform effect: How Amazon changed work in logistics in Germany, the
United States and the United Kingdom
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  Authors: Anke Hassel, Felix Sieker
  Abstract: European Journal of Industrial Relations, Ahead of Print.
  While the effects of the platform economy on work are mainly studied through the lens of gig or cloud workers, many more employees are likely to be affected in non-platform firms or sectors. We discuss the mechanisms of platform economy’s impact on the employment relationships and indirect effect on employment trends. Platform firms enter the service economy with business models that put existing service providers under pressure and advance a platform model of employment relationship. However, their transformative force is limited by three factors: employment regulations, access to welfare provisions and the employment relations at legacy firms. We examine the case of Amazon logistics in the US, Germany and the UK and find that the employment contract, as a legal institution, prevents the dissemination of independent contracting as the preferred employment model. Moreover, the welfare state has a paradoxical effect on platform work: universal welfare and liberal employment law facilitate the rise of precarious work.
  Citation: European Journal of Industrial Relations
  PubDate: 2022-04-11T06:36:23Z
  DOI: 10.1177/09596801221082456
Compensation policies and comparative capitalisms
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  Authors: Fátima Suleman, Henrique Duarte, Chris Brewster, Abdul Suleman
  Abstract: European Journal of Industrial Relations, Ahead of Print.
  A widespread rhetoric suggests that market-like rules dominate employment relationships, and particularly compensation, but empirical evidence is inconclusive. This research examines organisations’ compensation policies in clusters of European capitalist economies to test such a hypothesis. Four fuzzy clusters emerged from data, namely, Standard, Internalised, Competitive and Incentive, which illustrates a division between organisation- and market-based models. Collective pay rules characterise organisation-based model, and this is the predominant model in all countries except for the liberal market economies. Firms from different models of capitalism rely on internal labour market pay rules, suggesting that the scope of the liberal market system is narrow. Differences within clusters of capitalist economies suggest a role for agency and hidden labour market specificities in each grouping. The similarities of pay policies open room to identifying capitalist economies differently.
  Citation: European Journal of Industrial Relations
  PubDate: 2022-03-01T02:20:20Z
  DOI: 10.1177/09596801211054364
Trade unions challenges in organising Polish workers: A comparative case
study of British and Swiss trade union strategies
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  Authors: Adam Rogalewski
  Abstract: European Journal of Industrial Relations, Ahead of Print.
  This article analyses challenges in organising Polish workers by Unison (UK) and Unia (Switzerland). Using case studies of projects delivered by those unions with the aim to enhancing inclusion of Polish workers, the article argues that the internal union dynamics, such as union identity and structures are instrumental for a sustainable organisation of migrant members. Furthermore, the example of Unia demonstrates that an important factor for successful organising of Polish workers was the recognition of their collective agency and their contribution to union revitalisation. Finally, the research demonstrates that previous membership in Polish trade unions was not a significant factor influencing their involvement in British and Swiss workers’ movements.
  Citation: European Journal of Industrial Relations
  PubDate: 2022-02-17T07:39:59Z
  DOI: 10.1177/09596801211063306
Slow, slow, quick, quick, slow: The ‘thick and thin’ of comparative
(statactivist) research with a European trade union federation
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  Authors: Peter Turnbull
  Abstract: European Journal of Industrial Relations, Ahead of Print.
  The greater insight and deeper understanding generated by slow comparative international research is beyond doubt. However, there are times when researchers need to ‘quicken up’, most notably when engaged in ‘real-time’ social science that is directly responsive to policy initiatives by the (supranational) state and/or new business strategies and employment practices developed by (multi-national) employers. This is a particular challenge for scholars working with European trade union federations, especially when they are drawn into political campaigns and/or European policy debates. Such engagement often calls for a (quick) step from slow (typically qualitative) to fast (predominantly quantitative) research, using statistics for activism in order to build evidence for representation that can pass the test of science as well as the test of action. The evidence is necessarily ‘thin’ but nonetheless sufficient, on occasion, to warrant collective action.
  Citation: European Journal of Industrial Relations
  PubDate: 2022-01-27T10:14:50Z
  DOI: 10.1177/09596801221075807
When accumulation pressures meet regulatory institutions: A comparison in
logistics
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  Authors: Valeria Pulignano, Paul Thompson, Nadja Doerflinger
  Abstract: European Journal of Industrial Relations, Ahead of Print.
  This comparative study explores whether and how institutions can become a source of influence on accumulation dynamics in the labor process. It examines how employer strategies for the realization of value within the warehousing, parcel, and transport business divisions of a lead logistics multinational are operationalized in Germany, Belgium, and Sweden. Findings indicate within (and across) country variation in the operationalization paths we identify: compliance, avoidance, and exit. We explain the cross-country variation of each path by pointing to the strategies and negotiation processes pertaining to the usage of flexible labor at each workplace. We also illustrate that this usage relates to the mechanisms of optimization by standardization and of relational management used by employers to contain costs within the scope of each division’s managerial regime.
  Citation: European Journal of Industrial Relations
  PubDate: 2022-01-27T10:13:42Z
  DOI: 10.1177/09596801211073599
The labour market impact of robotisation in Europe
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  Authors: José-Ignacio Antón, David Klenert, Enrique Fernández-Macías, Maria Cesira Urzì Brancati, Georgios Alaveras
  Abstract: European Journal of Industrial Relations, Ahead of Print.
  This paper explores the impact of robot adoption on European regional labour markets between 1995 and 2015. Specifically, we look at the effect of the usage of industrial robots on jobs and employment structures across European regions. Our estimates suggest that the effect of robots on employment tends to be mostly small and negative during the period 1995–2005 and positive during the period 2005–2015 for the majority of model specifications. Regarding the effects on employment structures, we find some evidence of a mildly polarising effect in the first period, but this finding depends to some extent on the model specifications. In sum, this paper shows that the impact of robots on European labour markets in the last couple of decades has been ambiguous and is not robust. The strength and even the sign of this effect are sensitive to the specifications, as well as to the countries and periods analysed.
  Citation: European Journal of Industrial Relations
  PubDate: 2022-01-27T10:11:39Z
  DOI: 10.1177/09596801211070801
Product markets and working conditions on international and regional food
delivery platforms: A study in Poland and Italy
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  Authors: Karol Muszyński, Valeria Pulignano, Claudia Marà
  Abstract: European Journal of Industrial Relations, Ahead of Print.
  Researchers search for factors explaining the disruptive impact of labour platforms on work, yet very few studies explore how platforms approach product markets and the resultant effects on platform workers’ working conditions. Looking at this question, this paper studies distinct but similar international and regional food delivery platforms in Poland and Italy, exploring which factors explain differences in their working conditions. Two findings emerge. Firstly, international and regional platforms differ substantially in terms of how they approach product markets. Secondly, these differences account for the variety within (and across) platforms’ employment outcomes.
  Citation: European Journal of Industrial Relations
  PubDate: 2022-01-27T10:05:40Z
  DOI: 10.1177/09596801211070802
The digitalisation of service work: A comparative study of restructuring
of the banking sector in the United Kingdom and Luxembourg
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  Authors: Andreas Kornelakis, Vassil Kirov, Patrick Thill
  Abstract: European Journal of Industrial Relations, Ahead of Print.
  The article compares the process of digitalisation and outcomes from work restructuring in two banks from the United Kingdom and Luxembourg. The banking sectors in both countries have been challenged by digitalisation pressures such as online and mobile banking, pressures from ‘Fintech’ banks, and the automation of back-office operations. Yet, the adjustment paths in the two countries differed. In Luxembourg, there is an adjustment via limited lay-offs, and increased training and reskilling; however, in the United Kingdom, the main outcomes revolve around branch downsizing and offshoring of employment. These outcomes are explained by differences in institutional supports for collective voice institutions, as well as the role of the state. The findings demonstrate that the embedded employment relations’ institutions and actors have shaped distinct paths of adjustment to digitalisation; and show how the impact of technology on work is neither deterministic nor unidirectional.
  Citation: European Journal of Industrial Relations
  PubDate: 2022-01-18T11:38:28Z
  DOI: 10.1177/09596801211056829
Combatting exploitation of migrant temporary agency workers through
sectoral self-regulation in the UK and the Netherlands
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  Authors: Wike Been, Paul de Beer
  First page: 175
  Abstract: European Journal of Industrial Relations, Ahead of Print.
  The recent growth of precarious work has sparked a vivid debate on whether this tendency can be reversed by the social partners through sectoral self-regulation. In this sectoral case study of the temporary work agencies sector in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, the views, approaches, power and interaction between trade unions and employers’ organizations are studied in the context of increasing labour migration in the decade following European Union enlargement. The results show that the employers’ organizations have been leading actors in self-regulation, seeking collaboration with trade unions in the Netherlands. In both countries, trade unions have taken an inclusive approach but had little power to affect the deterioration of employment conditions. It has proven difficult to the social partners to reverse the process of increasing precarious work and exploitation. Strict regulatory frameworks imposed by the government are needed to turn a vicious circle into a virtuous one.
  Citation: European Journal of Industrial Relations
  PubDate: 2022-01-04T11:20:08Z
  DOI: 10.1177/09596801211052532
The new EU Directive on Transparent and Predictable Working Conditions in
the context of new forms of employment
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  Authors: Despoina Georgiou
  First page: 193
  Abstract: European Journal of Industrial Relations, Ahead of Print.
  The article examines the reach, protective effects and limitations of the recently adopted European Union (EU) Directive on Transparent and Predictable Working Conditions. After explaining the need for a new instrument, the article analyses the Directive’s protective provisions. Cases of the European Court of Justice are presented to provide the wider context and explain how the EU social acquis impacts upon the implementation of the Directive. Finally, new developments in the EU labour and social field are discussed, making recommendations of possible avenues for providing protection to a larger category of workers.
  Citation: European Journal of Industrial Relations
  PubDate: 2022-01-04T11:22:23Z
  DOI: 10.1177/09596801211043717
Position in global value chains and wages in Central and Eastern European
countries
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  Authors: Sabina Szymczak, Aleksandra Parteka, Joanna Wolszczak-Derlacz
  First page: 211
  Abstract: European Journal of Industrial Relations, Ahead of Print.
  This paper examines the relationship between the relative position of industries in Global Value Chains (GVC) and wages in 10 Central and Eastern European countries. We combine GVC measures of global import intensity of production, upstreamness and the length of the value chain with micro-data on workers. We find that the wages of Central and Eastern European countries workers are higher when their industry is at the beginning of the chain or at the end than in the middle. Secondly, wage changes depend on the interplay between upstreamness and GVC intensity. In sectors close to final demand, greater production fragmentation is associated with lower wages.
  Citation: European Journal of Industrial Relations
  PubDate: 2022-01-04T10:21:34Z
  DOI: 10.1177/09596801211053798
Orchestrators of coordination: Towards a new role of the state in
coordinated capitalism'
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  Authors: Marius R Busemeyer, Martin B Carstensen, Patrick Emmenegger
  First page: 231
  Abstract: European Journal of Industrial Relations, Ahead of Print.
  Liberalization poses significant challenges for the continued provision of collective goods within coordinated market economies (CME). Extant scholarship suggests two dominant sets of responses. Either CMEs continue to rely on employer coordination, but only for a privileged core, leading to dualization. Or, in cases where the state enjoys high capacity, the state instead compensates for liberalization but ends up crowding out employer coordination. In both cases, the result is decreasing employer coordination. We argue that in CMEs, the state may also play the role of “orchestrator” by supporting the revitalization of employer coordination. It does so through the deployment of ideational and institutional resources that mobilize employers’ associations on a voluntary basis. Applying our framework to a core area of coordinated capitalism, vocational education and training, we show that in both Germany and Switzerland, this indirect and soft form of state intervention was instrumental for turning around their crisis-stricken vocational training systems.
  Citation: European Journal of Industrial Relations
  PubDate: 2022-01-05T02:55:18Z
  DOI: 10.1177/09596801211062556
With or without U(nions)' Understanding the diversity of gig
workers’ organizing practices in Italy and the UK
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  Authors: Lorenzo Cini, Vincenzo Maccarrone, Arianna Tassinari
  Abstract: European Journal of Industrial Relations, Ahead of Print.
  Since 2016, mobilizations of gig workers across European countries have become increasingly common within location-based services, such as food delivery. Despite remarkable similarities in workers’ mobilization dynamics, their organizational forms have varied considerably, ranging from self-organization, to work councils, to unionization through rank-and-file or longstanding unions. To start making sense of this diversity in organizing practices, we compare two cases of mobilization in the food delivery sector: in Italy, where workers have initially opted for self-organization, and in the UK, where they have organized through rank-and-file unions. Drawing on interview and observational data gathered between 2016 and 2018, we find that the diversity of organizational forms across the two cases derives from the interaction between agential and contextual factors, namely: the capabilities of rank-and-file unions and the political tradition of militant organizing of the environment within which gig workers are embedded. These findings contribute to the emerging debate on labour relations in the gig economy by showing the central role that factors external to the labour process and to the institutional context play in shaping the structuring of labour antagonism in a still lowly institutionalized sector characterized by transnationally homogenous challenges.
  Citation: European Journal of Industrial Relations
  PubDate: 2021-11-23T04:08:54Z
  DOI: 10.1177/09596801211052531
Looking for a North Star' Ideological justifications and trade
unions’ preferences for a universal basic income
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  Authors: Luca Michele Cigna
  First page: 129
  Abstract: European Journal of Industrial Relations, Ahead of Print.
  Trade unions are often said to be hostile to a universal basic income (UBI). Their judgement may be affected by factors such as their work ethic, perceptions of the unemployed and preferences for labour decommodification. Yet, most studies fail to sketch out the reasons for which unions oppose or support a UBI from a normative standpoint. To understand the impact of ideology on unions’ appreciation for a UBI, I integrate results from 62 questionnaires with 27 in-depth qualitative interviews. This study illustrates that unions’ preferences for a UBI are associated with their theoretical understanding of labour, diverging substantially across welfare regimes. Whereas unions from Bismarckian and Nordic countries are generally opposed to a UBI, organizations from Liberal and Mediterranean countries tend to see UBI as a legitimate policy option. However, in some circumstances they set aside the policy for pragmatic reasons, thus disconnecting their normative orientations from perceptions of its concrete viability.
  Citation: European Journal of Industrial Relations
  PubDate: 2021-11-17T12:43:29Z
  DOI: 10.1177/09596801211043094
Rationalizing the irrational: Making sense of (in)consistency among union
members and non-members
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  Authors: Sinisa Hadziabdic, Lorenzo Frangi
  First page: 147
  Abstract: European Journal of Industrial Relations, Ahead of Print.
  Focusing on 13 OECD countries over 25 years, we examine the factors that explain why a sizable fraction of wage-earners exhibit an inconsistency between their union membership status and their confidence in unions by being either confident non-members or non-confident members. While structural factors associated with joining constraints generate inconsistency in specific labour market categories, wage-earners who have extreme ideological orientations and are highly interested in politics are much less likely to exhibit inconsistency across time and countries. For individuals who have intermediate ideological orientations and are not very interested in politics, differences in terms of non-member and member inconsistency between countries are explainable through contextual variables such as economic conditions, the level of employment protection, and historical legacies. Implications for union membership research and union strategies are discussed.
  Citation: European Journal of Industrial Relations
  PubDate: 2021-11-23T09:45:16Z
  DOI: 10.1177/09596801211056836