Autonomous bargaining in the shadow of the law: From an enabling towards a disabling state?

In the years following the Second World War, income inequality in most developed countries was significantly reduced by strong trade unions and high rates of coverage by collective agreement. In 1957, even in the USA, where coverage in 2011 was only 13 per cent (Visser, 2016), Dunlop could still assume that ‘collective bargaining must be taken as the normal case’ (Dunlop, 1957: 125). Since the 1990s, job quality in many countries has deteriorated considerably as a result of increasing income inequality, the increase in low-wage work and the constant fear of loss of income, even among well-paid workers. Jill Rubery has investigated these processes with us in several joint research projects with various thematic focal points (see, among others, Bosch et al., 2009; Grimshaw et al., 2014; Grimshaw and Rubery, 2015; Rubery, 2005). Rubery (2015) has concluded, on the basis of her wide-ranging experience, that the standard employment relationship must be strengthened and extended if we are to draw any closer to the goal of establishing ‘inclusive labour markets’. She argues in favour of ‘re-regulation’, supported primarily by a ‘proactive state’ but combined with a strengthening of ‘opportunities for workers and citizens to exercise voice’. In what follows, we elaborate on these thoughts by examining a number of European collective bargaining systems. Earlier research has shown that structural changes, such as the decreasing demand for low-skilled workers and the growth of the service sector, and external shocks, such as the deregulation of product markets, the privatisation of public services or the freedom to provide services in other countries with a company’s own workforce, are ‘filtered’ through national wage systems, thereby