Labour market deregulation and the decline of labour power in North America and Western Europe

Abstract

The goal of this article is to provide a critical evaluation of what has happened to organized labour and labour markets since 1980. It examines the impacts of labour market deregulation on wage share and pay standardization. It also explores how recent economic changes have weakened organized labour and eroded wage setting and social corporatism. The argument is made that contemporary institutional and ‘Varieties of Capitalism’ perspectives on labour market reform have overstated the power of states, institutions, and organized interests in deflecting global economic pressures. Drawing on a range of recent OECD statistics and qualitative studies, it is claimed that current labour deregulation policies and labour market reforms mark a fundamental break with post-war developments, and represent a reassertion of the power of capital ownership over organized labour and labour markets across North America and Western Europe. It assesses how far this reversal in power has gone by focusing on changes in four key variables: (i) job quality, (ii) wage share, (iii) pay standardization and income equality, and (iv) the effectiveness of wage setting institutions in allowing unions to bring bargaining pressure on capital. This is the first study to report on comparative changes and qualitative reforms to these labour market variables in 13 OECD countries between 1970 and the 25-year period 1980–2005.

One discourse to rule them all? Narrating the agenda for labor market policies in France and Germany

“…Firstly, when François Hollande came into office in 2012, he made the decrease of the unemployment rate a priority and later even declared his political future as dependent on his success in this matter. Secondly, while Emmanuel Macron as minister of the economy, industry and digital affairs (2014-2016) substantially influenced the labor market policy together with ministers of employment François Rebsamen (2014)(2015) and Myriam El Khomri (2015-2017 under Hollande, he later became French president himself. The following paragraphs present a short overview of the most central reforms in the French labor market policy before turning to the narratives with which these reforms are reported in the media.…”

“…Alternatively, the governments are described as villains because their policies are too modest to have an effect. In some articles, unions (or tariff partners, which implicitly means the same) are named as villains because they are said to be blocking necessary reforms and defend a traditionalist status quo against progress, presenting a reassertion of the capitalist power (Peters, 2017). Strikingly, the narrative of an external hero that is represented by a country which previously passed legislation in labor market policy and subsequently witnessed a massive improvement of the labor market situation is particularly visible.…”

Precarity: Local Disorders or New Global Order?

“…Labor market deregulation also appears in advanced economies (Peters, 2008). However, in this case, global labor functions distribution leads to deindustrialization and the increase of service-type jobs in the Western and North American economies.…”

The diverse regional patterns of atypical employment in Greece: Production restructuring, re/deregulation and flexicurity under crisis

“…However, in the EU peripheral economies, labor market reform since the late-1980s has enforced precarious employment mainly for the young (women and immigrants), irrespective of their skills (Barbieri, 2009). Atypical employment in the core EU regions has (for the most part) been an intermediate step to permanent employment, while in the peripheral EU regions, it has instead served temporary demand (Clark et al, 2004;Barbieri and Scherer, 2009;Gialis, 2011;Peters, 2008).…”

“…The notion of 'atypical employment' became widely used in the 1980s during the transition of the advanced economies to neoliberal regimes characterized by labor market de/reregulation and social corporatism erosion (Peters, 2008). Many empirical studies have shed light on the interrelationships between industrial restructuring and the flexibilization of labor markets (Yeung, 2002).…”