Wages and the Bargaining Regime Under Multi-Level Bargaining: Belgium, Denmark and Spain

Compensation policies and comparative capitalisms

“…The potential of EU-SES dataset for studying wage differentials can be ascertained by the studies that have used it, notably to explore the wage gap between public and private sectors (Castro et al, 2013); inter-industry wage differentials (Du Caju et al, 2011; López-Andreu, 2019); the impact of minimum wages (Caliendo et al, 2017); the wage inequality and inter-firm wage differentials in nine EU countries (Simón, 2010); and the association between wages and collective bargaining regimes in three EU countries (Plasman et al, 2007). However, there has been less use of the EU-SES data for examining how compensation policies vary across organisations.…”

“…Brewster, 2004; Goergen et al, 2012), but it mostly fails to detail pay systems. Comparative research on pay systems has explored the association between pay dispersion and collective bargaining regimes (Plasman et al, 2007); changes of labour market regulation, including collective bargaining across countries (Dølvik et al, 2018); the gap between private and public wages (Castro et al, 2013); or inter-firm wage differentials (Simón, 2010). Research on patterns of compensation policies is almost always limited to single countries (Suleman et al, 2019; Sgobbi, 2013).…”

Wage Effects of Educational Mismatch According to Workers’ Origin: The Role of Demographics and Firm Characteristics

“…Lallemand and Rycx, 2006;Lallemand et al, 2007;Cornelissen and Jirahn, 2012). On the other hand, trade unions often present themselves as advocates of fair working conditions for vulnerable groups (Dell'Aringa and Lucifora, 1994;Plasman et al, 2007;OECD, 2018;Garnero et al, 2020). Following these arguments, immigrant workers could therefore benefit more from their investment in education if they work in a large firm and/or in the presence of a firm-level collective agreement.…”

“…From a theoretical perspective, some arguments suggest that differences in penalties according to workers' origin will be smaller: i) in bigger firms due to their more transparent and efficient human resource management practices, and ii) in the presence of firmlevel collective agreements, as trade unions often present themselves as advocates of fair working conditions for vulnerable groups (e.g. Dell'Aringa and Lucifora, 1994;Lallemand and Rycx, 2006;Plasman et al, 2007). However, there are also theoretical predictions pointing in the opposite direction.…”

Evolution of Union Wages and Determinants

“…Works councils often play a notable role, too (Degrauwe 2018). Whether additional firm-level bargaining confers an extra premium is a matter of dispute, and it appears to depend on the country being studied (Plasman et al 2007), but for the most part there is a minimal wage effect (Bryson 2014). Studies from Germany (Goerke and Pannenberg 2011;Guertzgen 2016) fail to find evidence of a union membership premium, while recent estimates in Norway are practically insignificant from zero (Bryson et al 2020).…”