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Many governments have tightened the link between welfare and work by attaching conditionality to out-of-work benefits, extending these requirements to new client groups, and imposing market competition and greater managerial control in service delivery -principles typically characterised as 'workfare'. Based on field research in Seine-Saint-Denis, we examine French 'insertion' schemes aimed at disadvantaged but potentially job-ready clients, characterized by weak conditionality, low marketization, strong professional autonomy, and local network control. We show that insertion systems have resisted policy attempts to expand workfarederived principles, reflecting street-level actors' belief in the key advantages of the former over the latter. In contrast with arguments stressing institutional and cultural stickiness, our explanation for this resistance thus highlights the decentralized network governance of front-line services and the limits to central government power.2

This paper looks at two related labour market policies that have persisted and even proliferated across Europe both before and after the financial crisis: wage restraint, and punitive workfare programmes. It asks why these policies, despite their weak empirical records, have been so durable. Moving beyond comparative-institutionalist explanations which emphasise institutional stickiness, it draws on Marxist and Kaleckian ideas around the concept I that under financialisation, the need for states to implement policies that discipline the working class is intensified, even if these policies do little to enable (and may even counteract) future stability. Wage restraint and punitive active labour market policies are two examples of such measures. Moreover, this disciplinary impetus has subverted and marginalised regulatory labour market institutions, rather than being embedded within them.

Purpose-This paper has two objectives, firstly to reassert the persistent association of the decline in collective bargaining with the increase in income inequality, the fall in the share of wages in national income and deterioration in macroeconomic performance in the UK. Secondly the paper presents case studies affirming concrete outcomes of organisational collective bargaining for workers, in terms of pay, job quality, working hours and work-life balance. Design/methodology/approach-The paper is based upon two methodological approaches. Firstly, econometric analyses using industry and firm-level data for advanced and emerging economies testing the relationship between declining union density, collective bargaining coverage and the fall in the share of wages in national income. Secondly it reports on 10 in-depth case studies of collective bargaining each based upon analysis of collective bargaining agreements plus in-depth interviews with the actors party to them: in total 16 trade union officers, 16 members and 11 employer representatives. Findings-There is robust evidence of the effects of different measures of union bargaining power on the labour share of national income. Collective bargaining coverage is a precondition for the effectiveness of unions from the perspective of income distribution. The case studies appear to address a legacy of deregulated industrial relations. A number demonstrate the reinvigoration of collective bargaining at organisational and sectoral level, addressing the two-tier workforce and contractual differentiation, alongside the consequences of government pay policies for equality. Research limitations/implications-The case studies represent a purposive sample and therefore findings are not generalisable; researchers are encouraged to test the suggested propositions further. Practical implications-The paper proposes that tackling income inequality requires a restructuring of the institutional framework in which bargaining takes place and a level playing field where the bargaining power of labour is more in balance with that of capital. Collective bargaining addresses a number of the issues raised by the Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices as essential for 'good work' yet is at odds with the review's assumptions and remedies. The case studies reiterate the importance of strong workplace representation, and bargaining at workplace level, that advocates for non-members and provides a basis for union recruitment, organisation and wider employee engagement. Originality/value-The paper indicates that there may be limits to employer commitment to deregulated employment relations. The emergence of new or reinvigorated collective agreements may represent a concession by employers that a 'free', individualised, deinstitutionalised, precarious approach to industrial relations, based on wage suppression and work intensification is not in their interests in the long run.