In this paper we discuss three issues which the CGIL New Labour Plan (NLP) arises and are worthily to be stressed. The first issue is general, and regards the European context in which the Plan is placed, and in particular in the present European economic crisis in which austerity policy is...

"The prevalence of opening clauses in collective bargaining agreements may indicate a tendency towards more decentralised wage setting. Increasing competition on international product markets is assumed to be one reason for the decentralisation of collective bargaining. Current theoretical...

"Over the last decade, both the availability of quantitative indicators on labor market institutions and of studies trying to explain differences in national labor market performance through institutional variables have burgeoned significantly. It is now time to review these indicators and the...

"This paper examines whether differences in wage rigidity across sectors can be explained by differences in workforce composition, wage-bargaining institutions, technology and competition. We rely on a large administrative matched employer-employee dataset for Belgium over the period 1990 -...

"The financial crisis drew attention to the way in which workers in certain countries had been able to sustain consumption through housing and consumer credit despite insecure labour-market positions. This indicates a need to expand the analysis of the relationship between flexibility and...