Within sociological and economic analyses of working time, important questions remain regarding women’s ability to combine paid and domestic work. While there is a growing body of research in this area, our knowledge and understanding of the relationship between working, social and private...

In this article the direct role of the state in industrial relations is scrutinized by focusing on the political basis of decisions regarding the minimum wage. We argue that in order to ensure stability and growth, any state must balance the interests of capital and labour when taking this kind...

The result of a four-year long comparative research study centered at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, and financed by the European Commission's Sixth Framework Programme, Social Pacts in Europe presents the first full-length theoretical and comparative empirical study of...

Economists have largely neglected the analysis of the relevant factors that induce policymakers and trade unions to sign social pacts, despite their clear implications for economic policies and the functioning of labour markets. In this paper we fill this gap. We build a simple theoretical...

La necessità di comprendere nella storia dell’impresa il tema del welfare rappresenta una finalità alquanto ambiziosa. Essa nasce da una molteplicità di suggestioni. A cominciare dalla sorprendente e duratura offerta di opere di sociali e di assistenza a favore dei propri addetti, oltre che...

Using surveys from the International Social Survey Programme covering the period 1985-2002 for seven European countries (West and East Germany, Sweden, Norway, Italy, the Netherlands and Great Britain), we examine the effect of relative earnings on union membership and show that union density is...

In recent years, parallel trends of organizational restructuring have become manifest among trade unions. Sharing similar experiences of stagnant membership and falling density rates, coupled with structural shifts in employment from industry to services and a growing pressure to attend to the...

The chapter restates Tarantelli’s approach to macroeconomic stabilisation and the role of wage bargaining institutions. It also discusses the patterns and variation in the institutional make-up of wage bargaining since 1980, documenting the evolution of the social pacts stipulated in Europe...