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Against the backdrop of its industrial relations architecture, characteristic of the 'southern European group' and intimately linked to the recommendations of the Troika, this paper examines four key aspects of Portuguese collective bargaining. First, it provides definitive estimates of private sector union density for that nation. Second, it models the determinants of union density at firm level. Third, it yields estimates of the union wage gap for different ranges of union density. The final issue examined is contract coverage. The received notion that the pronounced reduction in the number of industry-wide agreements and extension ordinances of late is to be equated with a fall in coverage is shown to be a chimera, the number of workers covered by new and existing agreements remaining largely unaffected by the economic crisis. The reduced frequency of new agreements and extensions is instead attributed to downward nominal wage rigidity in low-inflation regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pacts for employment and competitiveness are an integral component of the ongoing process of decentralization of collective bargaining in Germany, a phenomenon that has been hailed as key to that nation's economic resurgence. Yet little is known about the effects of pacts on firm performance. The evidence largely pertains to employment and is decidedly mixed. This article investigates the association between pacts and six outcome indicators using a framework in which the controls comprise establishments that negotiated over pacts but failed to reach agreement on their implementation. An extensive set of robustness checks are run to test the sensitivity of the key findings of the model. There is no suggestion of pacts negatively impacting any of the selected measures of establishment performance. Rather, the evidence points to some positive short- and medium-run effects on firm average wages and possibly employment and innovation as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use US county-level data on employment and earnings in the restaurant-and-bar sector to evaluate the impact of minimum-wage changes in low-wage labour markets. Our estimated models are consistent with a simple competitive model in which supply-and-demand factors affect both the equilibrium outcome and the probability of the minimum wage being binding. Our evidence does not suggest that minimum wages reduce employment once controls for trends in county-level sectoral employment are incorporated. Rather, employment appears to exhibit an independent downward trend in states that have increased their minimum wages relative to states that have not, thereby predisposing estimates towards reporting negative outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to establish what we do, and do not, know about the consequences of advance notification and to identify the sources of opposition to the proposed legislation. To this end, the current bill is first discussed against the backdrop of earlier federal (and state) initiatives in this area. A review of the extent of notice in individual and collectively bargained contracts precedes discussion of the cases for and against notifying workers of their impending displacement. An examination of the extant literature charting the effects of advance notification on unemployment and earnings follows. It is concluded on the basis of these theoretical and empirical arguments that a case can be made for the experimental adoption of legislation. That said, the next task is to explain the intensity of employer opposition. This emerges as having less to do with the legislation itself than with a major reform agenda also before Congress that seeks to mandate an altogether wider array of employee benefits than prenotification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a study on job security in the U.S. A spate of plant closings during the recent recession added to growing fears of deindustialization and stimulated considerable discussion of the job security question. The broad perception is that the appropriate locus for decisions on job security and job rights is that of the exchange process of the individual or collective bargain. The major assistance available to displaced workers is that offered by the unemployment insurance system. In a fundamental sense, displaced workers have made the decision that they do not wish to purchase job security either initially or at the point of displacement.

This article examines wage adjustment processes in Great Britain. The observation of the economic and institutionalist approaches to the analysis of wage determination can become conformable once an economic theory step outside the confining assumptions of the neo-Walrasian paradigm. Thus, it lead the author of this article to formulate an alternative analysis of wage adjustment processes in terms of alternative production and employee adjustment activities in non-tâtonnement labor market. In neo-Walrasian economies, the labor market is assumed to be atomistic, with all market participants acting as wage-takers.

This article reviews certain empirical results arising from the first phase of an investigation into the manual worker industrial wages structure. The major study will in part draw upon the material presented here in attempting a detailed analysis of earnings determination at the broad industry level. The aim of the present paper is, however, of more modest dimension. It is concerned with wage composition and the principal focus of attention will relate to the 'importance' of basic pay in weekly earning, 1968-74. The study proceeds as follows: first, the wider context of the major study is introduced simply to locate the largely descriptive approach here adopted; secondly, the nature of basic rate data is considered; thirdly, the principal data input of the present study, namely New Earnings Survey (N.E.S.) material, is introduced and analyzed, and, fourthly, certain tentative 'explanations' of the observed relationships are advanced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to discuss the comparability issue within the context of the firm. Specifically, we examine the economic relevance and specification of the comparability criterion and then proceed to establish whether the pay survey practice of firms is appropriate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the comparative evidence of sexual discrimination within the labor market in Europe. With the exception of the five-country analysis conducted by the Statistical Office of the European Communities comparative evidence of sexual discrimination within the labor market is practically nonexistent. The crowding hypothesis asserts that women are concentrated within a narrow industrial/occupational range as a result of the pressure applied by male trade unions. This overcrowding results in an excess supply of females to such sectors which, if the market is to be cleared, acts to depress female marginal productivity to a relatively low level and hence to reduce female relative earnings. The relative importance of unequal payment and unequal employment distribution is discussed.