ABSTRACT Based on recent OECD data, this paper shows that bargaining coverage declined in most countries. It became more decentralised and less coordinated, which played a role in the fall in coverage. Unions, employers and governments struggle to reform bargaining systems in a way that improves employment outcomes while increasing enterprise flexibility.
This paper applies the efficiency, equity and voice (EEV) framework to dispute resolution mechanisms in Brazilian banking, empirically extending it in three ways: separating procedural from accessible equity; recognising collective strategic value beyond individual dispute performance; and treating efficiency-equity trade-offs as institutionally contingent, explaining mechanism proliferation as multi-actor adaptation.
Between 2005 and 2015, Poland recorded one of the highest shares of temporary employment in the European Union. Following labour market reforms introduced in 2016-2017, the incidence of temporary contracts declined markedly. This paper examines how this decline was associated with the level of dependent and permanent employment. The study covers the period 2008-2023 and uses quarterly sectoral data (NACE Rev. 2) disaggregated by gender and age group. The analysis employs second-generation panel estimators that account for cross-sectional dependence and heterogeneous dynamics, using CS-ARDL as the main specification and AMG and CCEMG as robustness checks. The results indicate no evidence of a contraction in dependent employment in the post-reform period. The association between temporary and dependent employment remains positive but becomes weaker after the reform. In contrast, the estimates do not provide consistent evidence that declines in temporary employment systematically translate into increases in permanent employment.
This qualitative study examines the formation and direction of worker unrest in Bangladesh's readymade garment (RMG) industry through the lens of McAdam's Political Process Model, investigating how workers mobilize collective action despite systemic constraints. Using data from 25 in-depth interviews and 9 focus group discussions across six RMG factories in Dhaka, Gazipur, and Narayanganj, we identify mechanisms through which workers achieve cognitive liberation, build organizational capacity, and navigate political opportunities within an oligopolistic industry characterized by extreme power asymmetries. Our findings reveal that oligopolistic industry structures create distinctive barriers to sustained collective action, challenging the traditional application of the Political Process Model. We propose that a fourth element-capacity to sustain participation costs-must be added to the model when analyzing labour movements in developing countries. Workers demonstrate cognitive liberation through lived experiences of dehumanization, verbal abuse, and unsafe working conditions, yet face structural constraints due to employer retaliation, blacklisting practices, and severely limited employment alternatives. Notably, the industry's concentrated ownership structure, coupled with weak government enforcement and workers' profound economic vulnerability, creates participation costs that far exceed those borne by traditional labour movements. This research contributes theoretically to understanding social movements in developing country contexts and provides policy implications for multi-stakeholder initiatives (Accord, Alliance) seeking to improve labour rights in global supply chains, directly addressing UN Sustainable Development Goal 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth).
This article uses theories of legitimacy to explain, first, why centre-right governments in Australia, Ireland and the United Kingdom collaborated with trade unions to develop worker-protective policy mechanisms during the COVID crisis and, second, variation in the post-COVID influence of unions over the policy agendas of these governments. Drawing on an analysis of 35 elite interviews, it argues that unions in all three countries were able to achieve policy influence during COVID because their legitimacy increased in a crisis context. However, the extent to which union influence over neoliberal governments was sustained post-COVID varied, with weak influence in the United Kingdom, moderate influence in Australia and stronger influence in Ireland. The findings highlight the importance of residual forms of legitimacy derived from previous episodes in explaining this variation and the circumstances in which actor legitimacy changes over time, thus adding a temporal dimension to industrial relations theories of legitimacy.
