View
277
Download
0
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
TURI-seminar IRES, Paris
28 September 2015
Output of CAWIE II ProjectCollectively Agreed Wages in Europe
28.09.2015Guy Van Gyes & Thorsten Schulten
Grant: European Commission (DG Employment)Coordination KULeuven-HIVA (Belgium) and WSI (Germany)
Research group:14 Institutes from the TURI-Network
AIAS (Netherlands) FAFO (Norway)AK (Austria) FAOS (Denmark)Associazione Bruno Trentin (Italy) IRES (France) Fundacion 1 de Mayo (Spain ESRITU (Hungary)Instituto Ruben Rolo (Portugal) ETUI (EU)Labour Institute for LRD (UK)Economic Research (Finland)
Main argument built-up in the book
1. Critique of the dominating view on wages and its policy implications
2. Negative implications of this dominating view
3. Building an alternative strategy: coordinating inclusive growth
28.09.2015Guy Van Gyes & Thorsten Schulten
Wages in the crisis – Dominating European policy view
■ Crisis is essentially seen as a crisis of cost competitiveness
■ Imbalances are the result of divergent unit labour costs development
■ Asymmetric view: Wage developments in the deficit countries were “too high” so that they lost competitiveness
■ Symmetric view: Wage developments in the surplus countries were “too low” (wage-dumping hypothesis)
28.09.2015Guy Van Gyes & Thorsten Schulten
Wages and the crisis – Empirical critique of the dominating view
■ TURI database of 10 countries with statistics on collectively-agreed wages
■ Dominant story based on evolutions of nominal unit labour costs
■ (Real) wage trends different (certainly when making abstraction of Germany)■ Wages (agreed and actual) grew in line with price increases
■ Prior to the crisis: almost all countries modest wage growth since the early 2000s when also taking productivity increases into account
■ Thus: Forgetting the demand-side: diminishing labour share in national income
■ Plus: Need to take better into account the composition effect of a crisis period (cf. Spanish wage development in the first crisis period => rise in unemployment is not evenly distributed over the wage curve)
28.09.2015Guy Van Gyes & Thorsten Schulten
Noélie Delahaie, Sem Vandekerckhove and Catherine VincentChapter 2 Wages and collective bargaining systems in Europe during the crisis
Wages and the crisis – Conceptual critique of the dominating viewTorsten Müller, Thorsten Schulten and Sepp ZuckerstätterChapter 7 Wages and economic performance in Europe
Narrow concept of competitiveness: • exclusive focus on labour costs
• regardless of the structure of real economy
• regardless of non-price factors
• loose relation between wages and export performance
Narrow treatment of wages as cost factor:
• Ignorance of the role of wages for domestic demand – wage-led demand growth model = Eurozone
Overestimation of the export sector for the overall economic development
28.09.2015Guy Van Gyes & Thorsten Schulten
Policy implications of dominating view on wages
New European Interventionism:Economic Governance:• European Semester/European
Imbalances procedure– Half of the EU Member States got already recommendations
since 2011• Troika /Memorandum of Understanding
Policy measures:• Direct intervention into wage developments by cutting and
freezing public sector and minimum wages• Structural reforms of wage setting institutions
to increase downward flexibility of wages28.09.2015Guy Van Gyes & Thorsten Schulten
Main argument built-up in the book
1. Critique of the dominating view on wages and its policy implications
2. Negative implications of this dominating view
3. Building an alternative strategy: coordinating inclusive growth
28.09.2015Guy Van Gyes & Thorsten Schulten
Implications of current wage policy
Radical decentralisation and deconstruction of collective bargaining:• Many countries of Southern
and Eastern Europe
Decrease of real wages in a majority of European countries:• Internal devaluation in the South• German shadow in the North• (Social) Cost(ly) strategy in the East
28.09.2015Guy Van Gyes & Thorsten Schulten
Changes in collective bargaining systems in EU countries under EU, ECB and/or IMF surveillanceAbolition/termination of national collective agreements
Ireland, Romania
Facilitating derogation of firm-level agreements from sectoral agreements or legislative (minimum) provisions
Greece, Portugal, Hungary, Italy, Spain
General priority of company agreements/ abolition of the favourability principle
Greece, Spain
More restrictive criteria for extension of collective agreements
Greece, Portugal, Romania
Reduction of the ‘after-effect’ of expired collective agreements
Greece, Spain
Possibilities to conclude company agreements by non-union employees
Greece, Hungary, Portugal, Romania, Spain
28.09.2015Guy Van Gyes & Thorsten Schulten
Deconstruction/decentralisation
Portugal Spain2008 2013 2008 2013
Agreements 295 94 5987 3161
Of which company
95 48 4539 2274
Extension 137 9
Workers covered
1,8 million 242 thousand 12 million 8.5 million
28.09.2015Guy Van Gyes & Thorsten Schulten
Jesús Cruces, Ignacio Álvarez, Francisco Trillo and Salvo LeonardiChapter 3 Impact of the euro crisis on wages and collective bargaining in southern Europe – a comparison of Italy, Portugal and Spain
Real compensation in the EU 2010-2014
28.09.2015Guy Van Gyes & Thorsten Schulten
Low-cost strategy in the East – Non-developing wage bargaining
• Low-wage countries• Wage and social harmonisation with rest of Europe
fading• Income policy = government prerogative
• Taxes, minimum wage, social transfer• Tripartite dialogue but political domination of agenda• Mainly decentralised collective bargaining
• Decreasing organisational strength unions and employers’ organisations
• Key example = Hungary28.09.2015Guy Van Gyes & Thorsten Schulten
Szilvia Borbély and László NeumannChapter 5 Similarities and diversity in the development of wages and collective bargaining in central and eastern European countries – a comparison of Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic
Shadow of Germany in the North
Coverage of collective agreements in the private sector*
Extension of collective agreements
Regime
Denmark 74% No Autonomous Collective bargaining modelSweden 85% No
Norway 50% Yes, some since 2004
Mixed model
Finland 85% Yes, widespread
Statutory regulations (and strong unions
Iceland 95% Yes, widespread
28.09.2015Guy Van Gyes & Thorsten Schulten
Table 1 Mechanisms for determining wages in the Nordic countries
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
-4
-3
-2
-1
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Average_wages_FICollectively_agreed_wages_FIAverage_wages_GERCollectively_agreed_wages_GER
Figure 1. Developments of average wages and collectively agreed wages in Finland and in Germany 2001-2013: manufacturing (%).
+ Social dumping in the liberalising labour mobility (construction, transport, food industry)
Søren Kaj Andersen, Christian Lyhne Ibsen, Kristin Alsos, Kristine Nergaard and Pekka SauramoChapter 4 Changes in wage policy and collective bargaining in the Nordic countries –a comparison of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden
Non-convergence: internal and external imbalances/inequalities => less social inclusion
• Growing divergence in demand, inequality, poverty between countries
• Pre-crisis: see next presentation for details• Non-convergence in productivity; real wages in the
service sector, inflation• Since the crisis
• Deflation popping up around the corner; sluggish growth
• Increased ‘beggar-thy-neighbour’ => high social cost• Loss of a governance instrument
28.09.2015Guy Van Gyes & Thorsten Schulten
Maarten Keune Chapter 8 Less governance capacity and more inequality: the effects of the assault on collective bargaining in the EUOdile Chagny and Michel Husson Chapter 9 Looking for an ‘optimal wage regime’ for the euro zone
Main argument built-up in the book
1. Critique of the dominating view on wages and its policy implications
2. Negative implications of this dominating view
3. Building an alternative strategy: coordinating inclusive growth
28.09.2015Guy Van Gyes & Thorsten Schulten
What kind of wage policy for inclusive growth?
Inclusive growth strategy• Reference in new economic discourse (EU 2020, OECD etc)• Everyone should participate in economic development• Reduction of inequality• Better economic performance
What role for wage policy?• Everybody a fair share• Wage-led demand growth• Unions and organised wage bargaining as countervailing power to market/capital
forces• Coordinated wage bargaining (multi-employer, institutionally supported,
coordination by centralisation)• = Belief in the own European model of a social market economy
28.09.2015Guy Van Gyes & Thorsten Schulten
Thorsten Schulten and Guy Van GyesConcluding remarks A transnational coordinated reconstruction of collective bargainingas a precondition for inclusive growth in Europe
Towards an alternative view on wages?
Stabilising and enforcing wage developments:• counter deflationary price developments• stabilise and increase private demand• counter income inequality• Pushing ‘smart’ productivity growth
Requires …• stop of wage cuts and wage freezes• wages increase at least in line with productivity and
target inflation• more expansive wage developments in the surplus
countries
Requires … as STRUCTURAL REFORM• Strengthening/reconstruction of wage setting institutions
28.09.2015Guy Van Gyes & Thorsten Schulten
Torsten Müller, Thorsten Schulten and Sepp ZuckerstätterChapter 7 Wages and economic performance in Europe
Towards an alternative view on wages?
Reconstruction of wage-setting institutions in Europe requires as structural reform …
• No more restrictions and interventions in autonomous collective bargaining
Jesús Cruces, Ignacio Álvarez, Francisco Trillo and Salvo LeonardiChapter 3 Impact of the euro crisis on wages and collective bargaining in southern Europe – a comparison of Italy, Portugal and Spain
• Promotion of a higher bargaining coverageMaarten Keune Chapter 8 Less governance capacity and more inequality: the effects of the assault on collective bargaining in the EU
• Promotion of multi-employer bargaining“The impulse to collective industrial relations in the UK private sector has not entirely disappeared and might be re-kindled under the right circumstances”
Lewis EmeryChapter 6 Multi-employer bargaining in the UK – does it have a future?
28.09.2015Guy Van Gyes & Thorsten Schulten
DELTLVEEUK
IELUCYPLROEU ATESMTNLSI
BGHUCZGRBEDK
ITFRPTSK
FISE
0 5 10 15 20 25
2424
221919
1817
16161616
1513131313
1212
1111
101010
888
77 Chart Title
Reconstruction: European minimum Wage PolicyCurrent situation: rather lowMWs at rather low level
28.09.2015Guy Van Gyes & Thorsten Schulten
Future: 60% of the median wage 28 million workers in the EU ! (2010)FR
SLPTHULTBEDEPL
ROLVIE
NLUKSKELESLUEECZ
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
6161
5654
5250505050
4848
4747
4645
4141
3836
Chart Title
Poverty threshold50%
Low-pay thres-hold66.67%
Thorsten Schulten, Torsten Müller and Line EldringChapter 10 Prospects and obstacles of a European minimum wage policy
Institutional support: Can extension mechanisms support the reconstruction of collective bargaining ?
A high bargaining coverage usually requires some form of state support through extension or functional equivalents
Current attempts at national and European level to reduce or even to abolish extensions lead to a strong decline of the bargaining coverage
European policy to strengthen collective bargaining would require a European initative to promote extension
28.09.2015Guy Van Gyes & Thorsten Schulten
Thorsten Schulten, Line Eldring and Reinhard NaumannChapter 11 The role of extension for the strength and stability of collective bargaining in Europe
What next?
Macro-economic challenges A European Solidaristic Wage Policy:
Is there an optimal wage coördination (rule) beyond the national?
Macroeconomic Coordination:How to coordinate Wage with Monetary and Fiscal Policy?
Political challenges How to strengthen European wage coördination?
What actors? What instituions? How to bring economic democracy in
European governance
28.09.2015Guy Van Gyes & Thorsten Schulten
Thorsten Schulten Guy Van Gyes WSI HIVA
28.09.2015Guy Van Gyes & Thorsten Schulten
Thank you very much for your attention !
Free download:
http://www.etui.org/Publications2/Books/Wage-bargaining-under-the-new-European-Economic-Governance