Employment Institutions under Liberalization Pressures: Analysing the Effects of Regulatory Change on Collective Bargaining in Spain

Abstract

This article discusses the effects of regulatory change in employees’ working conditions and the dynamics of collective bargaining in Spain, a model affected by a drastic regulatory change, and draws a comparison with the UK, the more deregulated and single‐employer bargaining model in Europe. The comparison is carried out using EU‐SILC panel data to identify commonalities and differences in the patterns of change in salaries and working hours. Second, national data from Spain are used to analyse the impacts of reforms on the characteristics and outputs of collective bargaining. The findings show that regulatory changes provoked a drastic adjustment in wages in Spain, following patterns similar to the British model. However, the results lead us to highlight the need to enhance knowledge about the dynamics of bargaining processes as they crucially reveal that these trends are happening in mostly unchanged institutional characteristics.

Flexibilization at the Core to Reduce Labour Market Dualism: Evidence from the Spanish Case

“…Third, we analyse whether the gap between core and peripheral workers has been reduced following these institutional changes, by studying the transitions of peripheral workers toward standard contracts. We hypothesize that the transition periods are longer and the number of contracts signed is greater (higher turnover), indicating greater hardship when transitioning to a standard contract, in keeping with specialized literature (López‐Andreu 2018).…”

“…This suggests that the instability of periphery workers has spread to core workers. Additionally, core workers are being expelled with larger seniority than they were previously, thus increasing their level of insecurity (López‐Andreu 2018). It also reinforces the idea that labour market reforms, through the cut in severance payments and the loosening of fair dismissal conditions, facilitate the layoffs of workers that had previously accumulated a greater degree of employment protection.…”

The Impact of Neoliberal Policies During the Great Recession on Youth Transition Regimes in Spain and the UK

“…In Spain, employment regulation was deeply affected by three labour market reforms in 2010, 2011 and 2012 (López-Andreu, 2019a). The reasons for fair dismissal (with lower redundancy costs) were expanded, including current or future economic losses.…”

Breaking Fragmentation through Mobilization: The Development of a Collective Identity during Movistar’s Contractors’ and Technicians’ Strike in Spain

“…In this context, the 2008 recession hit Spain especially hard. The deep economic crisis has been accompanied, since 2010, by several labour market reforms that specifically targeted collective bargaining institutions and crucially diminished the institutional capacities of unions (López-Andreu, 2019). The response from organized labour was three general strikes between 2010 and 2012, but since 2013 there has been a low degree of labour mobilization and ‘crisis corporatism’ agreements based on wage moderation have dominated (Begea and Balbona, 2014; López-Andreu, 2018).…”