In 2010 the NZ Parliament passed an amendment to the Employment Relations Act 2000 (NZ) (ER Act) which purports to exclude a whole class of workers from the definition of ‘employee' in s 6 of the Act. The effect of the amendment in practice is to deny workers who fall within the exemption...

What can developing economies learn from the experience of developed economies about how best to regulate unionism and collective bargaining? This paper addresses this question by offering four principles that should guide economic policy on unionism and collective bargaining and then by...

We report how trade unions and employers initially reacted to the introduction of the statutory recognition procedure in the Employment Relations Act 1999 (ERA). Interview data indicate that the ERA and the drift of EU influence have acted to shift employer attitudes towards greater approval of...

This paper indicates that the extent of collective bargaining coverage in an industry may depend on the differences in firms productivity levels within the industry. Less pronounced differences in productivity levels make it easier to design collective wage contracts that are accepted by a wider...

The main aim of the article is to assess the functioning and outcomes of tripartite structures of cooperation consisting of trade union federations, employers' organizations and the state in Germany on the background of the evolution of the welfare state. In the historical description, which was...

This paper investigates the determinants of industrial conflict in companies, using a multi-country workplace inquiry for 2009 and 2013 and various measures of strike activity. The principal goal is to address the effect of formal workplace representation on strikes, distinguishing in the first...

In many countries, notably across Europe, collective bargaining coverage is enhanced by government-issued extensions that widen the reach of collective agreements beyond their signatory parties to all firms and workers in the same sector. This paper analyses the causal impact of such extensions...

A large number of articles have analysed ‘the one constant´ in the economic effects of trade unions, namely that union bargaining reduces employment growth by two to four percentage points per year. Evidence is, however, mostly related to Anglo-Saxon countries. We investigate whether a...

While trade unions have been studied in detail, there is virtually no economics research on employer associations (EAs), trade unions' counterparts in many countries. However, besides conducting collective bargaining, EAs perform several other activities that can in uence economic outcomes,...