Social Class, Union Strategies, and Preference in Wage Outcomes in Norway

This article explores a potential socialization effect of unions on member preferences in wage outcomes and bargaining structures. This challenges notions of union wage policies simply reflecting the material self-interest of their constituency. In their formative role, unions can either propagate more redistribution in society, that is, increasing equality, or increasing societal inequalities, arguing instead for equity. However, equity could be measured either individually or collectively, where the latter would mean increasing societal wage inequalities while favouring intra-union equality. By putting perspectives on worker preferences and political economic theories in dialogue with the literature on the role of unions in constructing notions of equality/equity, we discuss on union strategy as it relates to their socialization effects and members’ attitudes towards income inequality and bargaining structures. Analysing survey data, we find that socioeconomic status has greater influence on preferred wage outcomes, while union membership has more influence over bargaining structure.

Internal devaluation and economic inequality in Portugal: challenges to industrial relations in times of crisis and recovery

Internal devaluation policies imposed in southern European countries since 2010 have weakened labour market institutions and intensified wage inequality and the falling wage share. The debate in the wake of the financial and economic crisis raised concerns about slow wage growth and persistent economic inequality. This article attempts to shed light on this debate, scrutinising the case of Portugal in the period 2010–2017. Mapping the broad developments at the national level, the article examines four sectors, looking in particular at the impact of minimum wages and collective bargaining on wage trends vis-à-vis wage inequality and wage share trajectories. We conclude that both minimum wage increases and the slight recovery of collective bargaining had a positive effect on wage outcomes and were important in reducing wage inequality. The extent of this reduction was limited, however, by uneven sectoral recovery dynamics and the persistent effects of precarious work, combined with critical liberalisation reforms.

Trends in Collective Bargaining, Wage Stagnation and Income Inequality under Austerity

This chapter discusses the impact of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and austerity on collective bargaining and wage outcomes internationally. It adopts a perspective that sees the GFC and austerity as providing a convenient point from which to further consolidate neoliberalism's hold on society and simultaneously undermine one of the chief forms of resistance — trade unions and collective bargaining. The chapter begins by exploring trends in collective bargaining in the EU and North America (US and Canada) in the post-GFC period. In doing so, it identifies a common trajectory in nation-state policies that encompasses a shift towards identifying the GFC as a public debt crisis; the blaming of trade unions and their members (in particular public sector workers) for the crisis; and the introduction of reforms to collective bargaining and union security designed to reinforce deflationary austerity policies. The chapter then examines trends in wage growth and equality since 2008 and considers the factors influencing them and the extent to which they can be viewed as a product of the neoliberal-informed economic policies and reforms adopted in response to the crisis.

The Contemporary Camming Market

Cam models are independent contractors, but they are not free agents in an open capitalist market. Instead, cam models work in a global network of pornographic industries, which sex entrepreneurs own and control, and moral entrepreneurs regulate. This chapter examines the relationship between sex entrepreneurs such as cam-site and studio owners, moral entrepreneurs such as politicians, legislators, and other rescue-industry agents, and cam models in structuring the camming industry. Moral entrepreneurs dictate the policies that regulate the camming industry. Sex entrepreneurs exploit cam models—all cam sites take a substantial portion of cam model’s sales and pay relatively low commissions. Various overlapping systems of oppression shape the camming industry and affect the wage outcomes and experiences of cam models. Cam models must work hard—but cam models who are thin, White, cisgender, in their 20s, from the United States, and do not work for studios are privileged by various systems of inequality that they have no control over. Far from a feminist, queer, or socialist utopia, the camming industry, while it sometimes provides decent wages to workers, operates via and reproduces the same inequities that exist in any capitalist workplace.

Unions and collective bargaining in Australia in 2018

There is a storm brewing over the roles of unions and collective bargaining in Australian employment relations. Unions, frustrated with what they see as practical and legislative restrictions on protection of workers’ rights, seek to ‘change the rules’. Employers, on the other hand, have been successful in restricting or rolling back bargaining rights, supported by their associations, the Coalition government and an assertive interpretation of the Fair Work Act. Add to this the impending federal election and the scene is set for a tempest that could bring industrial relations back to the centre of Australian politics in 2019. The review explores the various elements contributing to the coming storm, including trends in union membership, structure and strategy. It also surveys trends in the number and coverage of collective agreements, wage outcomes and industrial disputes. Two idiosyncractically Australian versions of collective agreement making are also discussed: cooperative bargaining facilitated by the Fair Work Commission and non-union collective agreement making.

Three Challenges for the Social Investment Strategy

Three challenges are highlighted in this chapter to the realization of the social investment strategy in our twenty-first-century world. The first such challenge—intertemporal politics—lies in the term ‘investment’, a willingness to forego some measure of current consumption in order to realize often uncertain gains in the future that would not occur otherwise, such as better schooling, employment, and wage outcomes for the next generation. Second, the conditions that enabled our post-war predecessors to invest heavily in future-oriented public goods—a sustained period of economic growth and historically exceptional tolerance for high levels of taxation—no longer obtain. Third, the millennial cohorts who will bear the costs of a new, post-industrial, investment strategy are more economically divided than earlier cohorts and face multiple demands raised by issues such as population aging and global warming, among others.

TRADE UNIONS AND ECONOMIC REFORM IN AUSTRALIA, 1983–2013

Many of the key reforms of the past three decades that helped to strengthen the Australian economy were implemented during the operation of the Accord that existed between Australian Labor Party governments and the union movement. In order to address structural economic problems, unions agreed to moderate wage outcomes and to facilitate the transition to workplace bargaining in return for social welfare gains for workers, which successive governments have maintained. These reforms helped to improve labor market efficiency and allowed firms to integrate successfully into international markets, without substantially compromising the interests of workers and their families, which thereby allowed economic dislocation and social unrest to be contained. In contrast to the assertions of certain Australian employer groups, research has consistently shown that union involvement in workplace bargaining has a benign impact on business productivity. However, declining membership presents a significant challenge to the capacity of Australian unions to influence economic outcomes at the national and workplace levels in the future.