COLLECTIVE AGREEMENTS IN THE ANTI-CRISIS SHIELD

2021 ◽  
Vol specjalny (XXI) ◽  
pp. 583-595
Author(s):  
Beata Rutkowska
Keyword(s):  
Working Time ◽  
Employment Contracts ◽  
Settlement Period ◽  
Collective Agreements ◽  
Conditions Of Employment

In response to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Anti-Crisis Shield has been enacted, which provides, inter alia, for the possibility to conclude collective agreements introducing economic demurrage, reduced working time, equivalent working time combined with prolongation of the settlement period to 12 months and less favourable conditions of employment of employees than those arising from the employment contracts concluded with them. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the above agreements and to try to assess whether they have been given the correct legal shape.

scholarly journals The union and non-union wage differential in the New Zealand public service

2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Goldie Feinberg-Danieli ◽  
Zsuzsanna Lonti
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Wage Differential ◽  
Union Wage ◽  
The United States ◽  
Wage Bargaining ◽  
Non Union ◽  
Collective Agreements ◽  
Employment Conditions ◽  
Considerable Impact ◽  
Conditions Of Employment

What do unions do? The major objective of unions is to improve the terms of conditions of employment for their members. At the same time, unions have a considerable impact on the employment conditions of not only their own members but non-unionised workers as well. One of the most important employment terms unions negotiate is wages. As a result, wage bargaining has been identified as a primary function of unions, and differences in wages between union and non-union members are considered an important measure of union power. In most countries this differential is called the ‘union/non-union’ wage differential. In New Zealand, however, there are employees who are union members but are not covered by collective agreements, contrary to the more common occurrence in other countries (e.g. the United States and Canada), where non-union members are often covered by collective agreements. Therefore, in New Zealand the differential should be more precisely called the ‘collective versus individual’ wage differential. In this article we focus on the raw ‘collective’ wage differential, but due to convention we still call it the ‘union’ wage differential.

scholarly journals Health Sector Collective Bargaining and the Employment Contracts Act: A Case Study of Nurses

1970 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Oxenbridge
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Health Sector ◽  
Health Board ◽  
Employment Contracts ◽  
Employee Union ◽  
High Level ◽  
Area Health ◽  
Conditions Of Employment

This case study describes and analyses the negotiation of a collective employment contract between an area health board management and regional representatives of the New Zealand Nurses Association during the first set of negotiations conducted under the Employment Contracts Act 1991. The study found that, contrary to claims by the Act's proponents, the Act does not lead to improved co-operation and communication between employers and employees. However, a high level of communication and co-operation was evident in the employee-union relationship, and it was found that certain provisions of the Employment Contracts Act afford employees greater power to determine their conditions of employment.

The “Employment Deal” Category and the Problem of Contestation of Legal Acts that Determine Content of the Wage Labor Relations

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 0-0
Author(s):  
Vladimir Boldyryev
Keyword(s):  
Labor Relations ◽  
Social Partner ◽  
Wage Labor ◽  
Corrupt Practice ◽  
Employment Contracts ◽  
Labour Relations ◽  
The Core ◽  
Collective Agreements ◽  
Common Problems ◽  
Partner Relations

The author proves that the existence of common problems associated with the need to invalidate employment contracts, apprenticeship agreements with employers, agreements on full material liability, and the desirability of legislative assumptions to contest collective agreements (local regulations) in whole or in part, does not indicate that they should be merged under the collective name of the “employment deal”. The author justifies that the core area of focus to resolve current problems related to corrupt practice during the adoption of local regulations, as part of social-partner relations among other things, should belong to a different domain — in legislative specialization of bodies competent to adopt (coordinate, approve) them, in particular, in transfer of relevant powers by discretionary rules of legislation to supreme corporate bodies of legal entities. The author proposes to enshrine in the law the rule on subsidiary application of the civil legislation on the invalidity of transactions to labour relations.

Cost competition or innovation competition? Lessons from the case of the BMW plant location in Leipzig, Germany

2006 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ludger Pries
Keyword(s):  
Decisive Role ◽  
Working Time ◽  
Shop Floor ◽  
Production Plant ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Employment Contracts ◽  
Work Relations ◽  
Labour Costs ◽  
Innovation Competition ◽  
Soft Factors

Globalisation and increasing inter- and intra-company competition raise the question whether industrial production has any future in the European Union. This article argues that company decisions on where to locate production are based not only on ‘hard factors' (such as labour costs), but also on ‘soft factors' (such as labour flexibility and working time schemes). Whereas there is no doubt about the importance of ‘hard factors’, and indeed the argument of cost competition and the need for cost reduction is repeated in almost every management declaration, the significance of ‘soft factors' is often underestimated and less discussed. Taking the case study of BMW's decision to locate a completely new car production plant in Leipzig, Germany, this article argues that western European countries could have an advantage in ‘soft factors' like work relations on the shop floor, the nature of employment contracts and arrangements for employee participation. In the case of BMW Leipzig, work and working time flexibility, as well as a culture of ‘cooperative conflict partnership’, played a decisive role in counterbalancing the disadvantages in direct labour costs. Focusing on innovation competition and on ‘soft factors' of competition could be a sustainable alternative to a business model based exclusively on cost competition.

scholarly journals Types of employment contracts and elasticity of employment in the European Union new member states in 2000–2014

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (328) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski ◽  
Przemysław Włodarczyk
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Working Time ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Real Wages ◽  
Total Employment ◽  
Member States ◽  
Employment Contracts ◽  
New Member States ◽  
Panel Model

The article is focused on the problem of elasticity of employment in the economies of the European Union new member states in 2000–2014. Special attention is given to the role of types of employment contracts and their influence on the elasticity of employment. Theoretical arguments and empirical observations enable us to formulate hypothesis about a U‑shaped relationship between the share of fixed‑term employment in total employment and elasticity of employment in a given economy. We should also expect increases of price and working time elasticity in response to increases in the share of fixed‑term employment. Results of panel model estimations performed using the data for 13 new European Union member states in 2000–2014 confirm the hypothesis about an impact of share of fixed‑term employment in total employment on the elasticity of employment. In particular, an increase in the number of fixed‑term contracts results in the fall of elasticity of employment with respect to GDP and increase in the elasticity of employment with respect to real wages and working time. There is however no confirmation of the hypothesis concerning a U‑shaped relationship between elasticity of employment with respect to GDP and the share of fixed‑term emplyment.

scholarly journals UNION STRATEGI ES TO RE-REGULATE W O RKING TIME

Just Labour ◽  
1969 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Work Life ◽  
Working Time ◽  
Collective Agreements ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
Hours Of Work ◽  
Regulation Strategies ◽  
Time Changes ◽  
Work Life Conflict

The organization of working time is a central concern in today�s labour market, as it is connected to experiences of work-life conflict, employment insecurity, and broader patterns of gender inequality. This article examines union responses to working time changes using a case study of four large unions, as well as a larger survey of working time provisions in major collective agreements. The article contends that working time re-regulation strategies include not only efforts to reduce hours of work, but also a range of strategies to promote �employee-oriented time flexibility�. These working time strategies provide some means to address growing forms of work-life conflict and working time inequalities; however, these strategies are constrained by a number of factors, including employer resistance and the need for broader-based representational and collective bargaining structures.

scholarly journals Living hours under pressure: flexibility loopholes in the Danish IR-model

2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (6) ◽  
pp. 888-902 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Ilsøe ◽  
Trine Pernille Larsen ◽  
Jonas Felbo-Kolding
Keyword(s):  
Working Hours ◽  
Working Time ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Income Levels ◽  
Collective Agreements ◽  
Marginal Part ◽  
Time Work ◽  
Part Time ◽  
Industrial Cleaning ◽  
Part Time Work

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of part-time work on absolute wages. The empirical focus is wages and working hours in three selected sectors within private services in the Danish labour market – industrial cleaning, retail, hotels and restaurants – and their agreement-based regulation of working time and wages. Theoretically, this analysis is inspired by the concept of living hours, which addresses the interaction between working hours and living wages, but adds a new layer to the concept in that the authors also consider the importance of working time regulations for securing a living wage. Design/methodology/approach The paper builds on desk research of collective agreements and analysis of monthly administrative register data on wages and working hours of Danish employees from the period 2008-2014. Findings This analysis shows that the de facto hourly wages have increased since the global financial crisis in all three sectors. This is in accordance with increasing minimum wage levels in the sector-level agreements. The majority of workers in all three sectors work part-time. Marginal part-timers – 15 hours or less per week – make up the largest group of workers. The de facto hourly wage for part-timers, including marginal part-timers, is relatively close to the sector average. However, the yearly job-related income is much lower for part-time than for full-time workers and much lower than the poverty threshold. Whereas the collective agreement in industrial cleaning includes a minimum floor of 15 weekly working hours – this is not the case in retail, hotels and restaurants. This creates a loophole in the latter two sectors that can be exploited by employers to gain wage flexibility through part-time work. Originality/value The living wage literature usually focusses on hourly wages (including minimum wages via collective agreements or legislation). This analysis demonstrates that studies of low-wage work must include the number of working hours and working time regulations, as this aspect can have a dramatic influence on absolute wages – even in cases of hourly wages at relatively high levels. Part-time work and especially marginal part-time work can be associated with very low yearly income levels – even in cases like Denmark – if regulations do not include minimum working time floors. The authors suggest that future studies include the perspective of living hours to draw attention to the effect of low number of weekly hours on absolute income levels.

Collective Bargaining and New Zealand's Employment Contracts Act: One Year On

1993 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond Harbridge ◽  
James Moulder
Keyword(s):  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Gas Production ◽  
Working Time ◽  
First Year ◽  
Employment Contracts ◽  
Communication Industry ◽  
The Public ◽  
Food And Beverage ◽  
One Year ◽  
Act One

Thefirst year of bargaining under New Zealand's Employment Contracts Act brought some very significant changes to the nature and structure of bargaining outcomes. This paper reports a major study of collective bargaining outcomes. Collective bargaining is the preferred option for 80 per cent of employers with fifty or more staff; however, the number of workers covered by collective bargains in New Zealand dropped from 721 000 in 1989-90 to an estimated 440 000 by 1991-92. The collapse of collective bargaining did not occur evenly across industries. Significant collapses happened in agriculture, food and beverage manufacturing, the textile and clothing industry, the paper and printing industry, building and construction, retailing, restaurants and hotels and the transport industry. Collective bargaining retains a strong foothold in the electricity and gas production sector, the public sector, the finance sector, the communication industry and the basic and advanced metal manufacturing sectors. A content analysis of 471 collective employment contracts (covering nearly 130 000 workers) settled in the first year of the new legislation is reported here. The data show a wide dispersion of wage settlements as the comparative wage justice system collapses; about half of the workers in the sample, however, received either a wage decrease or no increase over the preceding settlement. Important changes to working time arrangements have been negotiated and these are reported along with other content changes to working time and leave arrangements.

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