Mapping varieties of industrial relations: Eurofound’s analytical … · 2018. 2. 1. · Eurofound project: Application of the conceptual framework on key dimensions in industrial

RESEARCH REPORT

Mapping varieties of industrial relations:Eurofound’s analytical framework applied

Mapping varieties of industrial relations:Eurofound’s analytical framework applied

European Foundationfor the Improvement ofLiving and WorkingConditions

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When citing this report, please use the following wording

Eurofound (2017), Mapping varieties of industrial relations: Eurofound’s analytical framework applied, PublicationsOffice of the European Union, Luxembourg.

Authors: Maria Caprile and Pablo Sanz (Notus, Barcelona), Irene Riobóo (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid), andChristian Welz and Ricardo Rodríguez (Eurofound)

Research managers: Christian Welz and Ricardo Rodríguez

Eurofound project: Application of the conceptual framework on key dimensions in industrial relations to Europeansocial dialogue and national industrial relations

Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union

Print: ISBN: 978-92-897-1624-6 doi:10.2806/817140 TJ-02-18-022-EN-CPDF: ISBN: 978-92-897-1625-3 doi:10.2806/366245 TJ-02-18-022-EN-N

© European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, 2018

For rights of translation or reproduction, applications should be made to the Director, European Foundationfor the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, Wyattville Road, Loughlinstown, D18 KP65, Ireland.

The European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) is a tripartiteEuropean Union Agency, whose role is to provide knowledge in the area of social, employment and work-relatedpolicies. Eurofound was established in 1975 by Council Regulation (EEC) No. 1365/75 to contribute to the planningand design of better living and working conditions in Europe.

European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions

Telephone: (+353 1) 204 31 00 Email: [email protected] Web: www.eurofound.europa.eu

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.eurofound.europa.eu

Contents

Executive summary 1

Introduction 3

Background and objectives 3

Report structure 3

1 Concept and methodology 5

Dashboard approach 6

Quality criteria 7

Interpretation of indicators 8

Testing indicators at national level 9

Using aggregation as a tool for fine-tuning and testing 9

2 Fine-tuning and testing the indicators 11

Selecting a preliminary set of indicators 11

Findings from the national contributions 13

Building the final list of indicators 19

3 Results from the application of the conceptual framework 21

Mapping national industrial relations systems 21

Lessons from a dynamic perspective 34

4 Conclusions 39

Bibliography 41

Annex 45

iii

iv

Country codes

Abbreviations used in the report

AT Austria FI Finland NL Netherlands

BE Belgium FR France PL Poland

BG Bulgaria HR Croatia PT Portugal

CY Cyprus HU Hungary RO Romania

CZ Czech Republic IE Ireland SE Sweden

DE Germany IT Italy SI Slovenia

DK Denmark LU Luxembourg SK Slovakia

EE Estonia LT Lithuania UK United Kingdom

EL Greece LV Latvia

ES Spain MT Malta

CSO Central Statistics Office

ECS European Company Survey

ESS European Statistical System

EU-SILC European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions

EWCS European Working Conditions Survey

GCI Global Competitiveness Index

GDP gross domestic product

GNP gross national product

ICTWSS Institutional Characteristics of Trade Unions, Wage Setting, State Intervention and Social Pacts database

NEET not in education, employment or training

ILO International Labour Organization

OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

R&D research and development

SMEs small and medium-sized enterprises

WEF World Economic Forum

1

IntroductionThe 2016 Eurofound report Mapping key dimensions ofindustrial relations defines industrial relations as thecollective and individual governance of work andemployment. It identifies four key dimensions.

£ Industrial democracy, based on the direct andindirect participation rights of employers andemployees in the governance of the employmentrelationship, the autonomy of both sides of industryas collective organisations and their collectivecapacity to influence decision-making.

£ Industrial competitiveness, based on an economywith a consistently high rate of productivity growthand good performance of small and medium-sizedenterprises (SMEs). To be competitive, it isessential to promote research and innovation,information and communication technologies,entrepreneurship, competition, and education andtraining.

£ Social justice, based on the fair andnon-discriminatory distribution of opportunitiesand outcomes within a society, in order tostrengthen the ‘capabilities’ of each individual forself-determination and self-realisation.

£ Quality of work and employment, based on careerand employment security, health and well-being,the ability to reconcile working and non-workinglife, and the opportunity to develop skills over thelife course.

However, the interpretation, application andimplementation of these key dimensions depend on thestakeholders’ affiliation and their national industrialrelations system. Therefore, the report stresses theusefulness of further developing this conceptualframework, especially for cross-country comparisonsand mutual learning processes. To this end, a firstassessment of existing data sources and indicators wascarried out.

The current study is a continuation of this work, withthe aim of further fine-tuning the set of indicators. Italso assesses how and to what extent the conceptualframework of the key dimensions of industrial relationscan be applied to the national level.

Policy contextThroughout most of the 20th century, the role ofindustrial relations and its importance in the political,economic and societal context was not questioned.However, from the 1980s onwards, factors such asincreased globalisation, technological progress,declines in trade union density and the decentralisation

of collective bargaining started to exert a significantimpact on industrial relations systems. In recent years,changes in some EU Member States, as a consequenceof the economic and financial crisis, have acceleratedsome of these long-term trends and resulted in newdevelopments: the decline of collective bargainingcoverage; the destandardisation of employmentrelations; the reduction in the size of the public sectorworkforce; and changes in welfare systems in manycountries.

Key findings

Dashboard to map industrial relationssystems

To map the industrial relations systems in Europe, thisstudy compiled a database of 45 indicators, using annualdata for the period 2008–2015 from different Europeanand international data sources. The selected indicatorsmeet strict conceptual and statistical criteria, in line withboth the quality assessment and assurance framework ofthe European Statistical System and other quality criteriacommonly used in the literature. To enable comparisons,the study included only unambiguous indicators thathave a practical and intuitively clear meaning, in thesense that it is obvious what is being measured withrespect to the framework of the key dimensions of theindustrial relations system. In fine-tuning the indicators,aggregation was used as an analytical tool to select andtest the most relevant indicators. Standardised andaggregated values by dimension were calculated toprovide an insight into how each national industrialrelations system is performing.

The set of indicators was tested at national levelthrough Eurofound’s Network of EuropeanCorrespondents. These experts were asked to analysethe data produced and assess the extent to which theyprovide an accurate picture of their national industrialrelations system. The results were found to paint areasonably accurate picture in all dimensions by a largemajority of correspondents, with only two countriesindicating inaccuracy in some dimensions ormethodological problems. In this process, remarksabout conceptual aspects, problematic indicators andsuggestions for new indicators were collected.

The study has thus created a comprehensive dashboardof indicators that shows a reasonable accuracy inmapping the predominant features and trends of thenational industrial relations systems in accordance withthe conceptual framework developed by Eurofound.Nonetheless, this must be considered as a provisionalexercise, one that needs further discussion andfine-tuning.

Executive summary

2

Mapping and analysing the nationalindustrial relations systems

The application of this set of indicators to nationalindustrial relations systems has shown, as expected,substantial differences across countries. The results arerelatively consistent with the typology of industrialrelations regimes developed by Jelle Visser for theEuropean Commission: ‘organised corporatism’ inDenmark, Finland and Sweden; ‘social partnership’ inAustria, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, theNetherlands and Slovenia; a ‘state-centred’ model inFrance, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain; a ‘liberalpluralism’ model in Cyprus, Ireland, Malta and the UK;and ‘transition economies’ in Bulgaria, Croatia, theCzech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania,Poland, Romania and Slovakia. The results alsoillustrate, despite some limitations, how the differentnational industrial systems are evolving, showingdivergent trends across countries and, to some extent,within the different industrial relations clusters. In acontext of growing debates on the impact of the crisison industrial relations systems in Europe, furthercross-country analysis is needed.

Analysis of the insights from the nationalcorrespondents suggests a relatively consistentagreement among them regarding the relevance of theconceptual framework based on the four dimensions. Italso reveals some conceptual challenges, however,which should be considered. These are mostlyassociated with the difficulties involved in relating theindustrial relations actors and processes to theoutcomes of the dimensions, which, in the case ofindustrial competitiveness, social justice, and quality ofwork and employment, are also affected by othercomplex and varied factors.

ConclusionsThe study has shown that a dashboard of accurateindicators able to measure and summarise the complexreality of industrial relations across the EU MemberStates is a valuable tool for comparative research and auseful instrument for supporting policymakers, socialpartners and stakeholders.

Additionally, the study has collected meaningfulinsights on how to move forward, in terms of furtherdeveloping the conceptual approach, improving the setof indicators, and using the results in the most effectiveway to contribute to a better collective and individualgovernance of work and employment.

The first option would be to continue improving thecurrent dashboard. This would entail a critical review ofthe indicators, as well as their interrelation with the fourkey dimensions, in order to strengthen the conceptualapproach by trying to better relate indicators toindustrial relations actors and processes.

The second option would be to explore replacing theindicators in some of the dimensions by anotherexisting set of indicators. This option would beespecially pertinent for dimensions such as industrialcompetitiveness, quality of work and employment, andsocial justice, where several research institutions havealready developed consolidated indices in these fields.

The third option would be to develop a compositeindicator for each key dimension to comprehensivelymeasure country performance in the four dimensions.This scenario entails a revision of the set of indicators,as well as further conceptual and methodological work.

Mapping varieties of industrial relations: Eurofound’s analytical framework applied

3

Background and objectivesEurofound’s four-year work programme for 2013–2016committed the Agency to examining the dynamics ofindustrial relations and to analysing, in a comparativeway, how industrial relations systems are changing andadapting to new challenges. It aimed to facilitate thisstrand of research activity by developing an agreedcomparative framework identifying the key dimensionsof industrial relations, indicators and data sources thatcould be used to describe and assess developmentsacross the Member States. Improving the tools forassisting comparative research in this field is likely toresult in findings with higher policy relevance.

Accordingly, Eurofound launched the study ‘Mappingkey dimensions of industrial relations’ (Eurofound,2016a). Building on previous projects that explored theissue of ‘quality’ in industrial relations from 2002 to2004 and a 2012 Eurofound project that examined whatconstitutes a meaningful social dialogue, the objectiveof the 2016 study was to map, analyse and discussdimensions and indicators for building a comparativeframework of industrial relations. The study definedindustrial relations as the collective and individualgovernance of work and employment. Following anextensive literature review, it identified four keydimensions:

£ industrial democracy;

£ industrial competitiveness;

£ social justice;

£ quality of work and employment.

Eurofound’s current multiannual work programme(2017–2020) gives continuity to this strand of research,stating,

At national level, Eurofound will map the situation ofsocial dialogue and social partners in the frameworkof the key dimensions of industrial relationsdeveloped by the Agency. This will allow it to identifyareas where mutual learning or support could behelpful.

(Eurofound, 2016b, p. 9).

As a follow-up to the 2016 report on mapping keydimensions of industrial relations, Eurofound carriedout a first assessment of existing data sources andselected a draft list of indicators on the basis of fourcriteria: relevance, validity and embeddedness,availability and accessibility of data, and comparability.

The current study is a continuation of this work. Its aimsare:

£ to further fine-tune the set of indicators previouslyidentified;

£ to assess how and to what extent the conceptualframework of the key dimensions of industrialrelations can be applied to industrial relations atnational level.

The study has relied on a team of experts on industrialrelations and statistics to apply additional conceptualand technical quality criteria to fine-tune the draft set ofindicators, with a view to ensuring the highest degree ofaccuracy and reliability.

The set of indicators presented here has been tested inall EU Member States through Eurofound’s Network ofEuropean Correspondents.1 These nationalcorrespondents were asked to analyse the dataproduced by Eurofound and to assess the extent towhich the indicators provide an accurate picture of thenational industrial relations system in their country, onthe basis of their expertise and relevant literature.

Report structureThe report is structured as follows.

Chapter 1 describes the methodology used to select alist of indicators to summarise the features of nationalindustrial relations systems, explaining the choice of adashboard approach and discussing the quality criteriaapplied in selecting the indicators. Chapter 2 explainshow the list of indicators was refined and testedthrough feedback from the national correspondents.Chapter 3 presents the results of the mapping of thedashboard of indicators to national industrial relationssystems, drawing from the analysis of the national

Introduction

1 The national contribution from the Netherlands was not available. Instead, a short assessment was compiled by Eurofound, a process that involvedconsulting an expert.

4

correspondents, who assessed the results of theindicators finally selected. It also includes a radar chartfor each Member State that shows the aggregated

results obtained for each dimension. Finally, Chapter 4summarises the objectives, approach and outcomes ofthe study.


5

The Eurofound’s 2016 report Mapping key dimensions ofindustrial relations starts by acknowledging that‘scholars have attempted to define industrial relationsever since the 1920s’ (Eurofound, 2016a, p. 4). The centralconcerns of industrial relations as a field of study havebeen the collective regulation (governance) of work andemployment, as well as the actors, processes andoutcomes of the industrial relations system. The study,however, highlights that the individual governance ofwork and employment has been neglected, excludingimportant forms of regulation that seek to balance theemployment relationship that are individual in nature(such as minimum wage laws and unjust dismissalprotections). On this basis, industrial relations aredefined as the collective and individual governance ofwork and employment.

Based on an extensive literature review, the studyidentifies 4 key dimensions and 16 subdimensions in thesystem of industrial relations, as illustrated in Figure 1.

The four key dimensions can be summarised as follows.

£ Industrial democracy, based on the direct andindirect participation rights of employers andemployees in the governance of the employmentrelationship, the autonomy of both sides of industryas collective organisations and their collectivecapacity to influence decision-making. Industrialdemocracy relies on mutual trust betweenemployers and employees in terms ofrepresentation, participation, influence andautonomy.

£ Industrial competitiveness, based on an economywith a consistently high rate of productivity growthand good performance of small and medium-sizedenterprises (SMEs). To be competitive, thepromotion of research and innovation, informationand communication technologies,entrepreneurship, competition, and education andtraining is essential.

1 Concept and methodology

Figure 1: Key dimensions and subdimensions of industrial relations

Industrial relations

Industrial democracyIndustrial

competitivenessSocial justice

Quality of work and

employment

AutonomyInnovation and

entrepreneurship

Social cohesion and

non-discrimination

Career and

employment security

Skills developmentEquality of

opportunity

Growth and

productivity

Sophistication of

resourcesEquality of outcome

Reconciliation of

working and

non-working life

Workplace health

and well-beingFundamental rightsMarket stabilityRepresentation

Participation

Influence

6

£ Social justice, based on the fair andnon-discriminatory distribution of opportunitiesand outcomes within a society. By defining it interms of self-determination and self-realisation,social justice brings together four concepts:equality of opportunity, equality of outcome,non-discrimination and fundamental rights(the latter two concepts underpin the first two).

£ Quality of work and employment, based on careerand employment security, health and well-being,the ability to reconcile working and non-workinglife, and the opportunity to develop skills over thelife course.

The study tested this conceptual framework in terms ofits ability to map national industrial relations systems.Overall, the findings show the relevance of the keydimensions to European governments and socialpartners; they were found, to varying degrees, to bevalid, relevant and regularly debated at national level.

The interconnectedness of the four dimensions is alsohighlighted. They are not compartmentalised ormutually exclusive; on the contrary, they work welltogether and are seen as key components of anindustrial relations framework.

The study found, nevertheless, that the interpretation,application and implementation of the key dimensionsdepend on the stakeholders’ affiliation (policymakers,employer organisations and trade unions) and theirnational industrial relations system. On this basis, thestudy stresses the usefulness of developing a

harmonised conceptual framework, especially forcross-country comparisons and mutual learning.Applying the conceptual framework of the keydimensions should aid in:

£ examining the dynamics of industrial relations andanalysing how industrial relations systems arechanging and adapting to new challenges;

£ monitoring and assessing developments inprinciples and values and their operationalapplication in the industrial relations systems inthe EU;

£ ensuring a sound balance between social justice(equity), industrial democracy and industrialcompetitiveness (efficiency).

This calls for the development of an appropriate set ofindicators to describe the predominant features of thenational industrial relations systems. Addressing thischallenge is the objective of this current follow-upstudy.

Dashboard approachThis study adopts a ‘dashboard’ approach for applyingthe conceptual framework of the key dimensions. Theaim of a dashboard is to provide a list of indicators tosummarise a complex reality (industrial relations in thisstudy).

It is extremely important to highlight that this kind oftool provides a summary, which is both an advantage


Figure 2: Eurofound’s key dimensions of industrial relations

Industrialdemocracy

Quality ofwork and

employment

IndustrialcompetitivenessSocial justice

7

and a disadvantage. A dashboard is very useful inenabling understanding of an industrial relationssystem at a glance and allowing comparisons to bemade among dimensions and countries. However, itshould not be used to carry out an exhaustive analysisof industrial relations systems.

A considerable effort has to be made to select only themost relevant indicators needed to cover the essentialaspects of industrial relations systems. Furthermore,the study aims to create a dashboard for all the EUMember States. Therefore, once the essential features(or indicators) at country level are identified, there isstill a need to agree on the common essential feature.This requires finding a good balance betweendescribing the internal reality of each country andmaking country-level comparisons feasible.

In selecting the indicators, it was also necessary toensure a degree of balance in terms of the number ofindicators across dimensions and subdimensions. Thisis in line with the framework of the key dimensions,where there is no internal hierarchy, and all thedimensions are expected to be interrelated and jointlycontribute to the overall performance of the system.

Finally, the indicators to be included in the dashboardmust meet strict quality criteria, in order to guarantee arobust analytical tool.

Quality criteriaFollowing the 2016 study, a preliminary set of indicatorswas selected on the basis of four criteria:

£ relevance;

£ validity and embeddedness;

£ availability and accessibility of data;

£ comparability.

To fine-tune this initial list of indicators, the qualityassessment and assurance framework of the EuropeanStatistical System (ESS) (Eurostat, 2014, 2015) wasapplied. This framework evaluates the quality ofexisting statistical outputs based on Principles 11–15 ofthe European Statistics Code of Practice (Eurostat,2011). The criteria for this assessment are as follows.

£ Criterion 1: Relevance, which measures whether anindicator meets the current and potential needs ofusers. Indicators must help guide decisions that keyusers will need to make.

£ Criterion 2: Accuracy and reliability, which showswhether data are regularly assessed and validated.An indicator should be accurate and reliablymeasure the phenomenon it intends to measureand should not be confounded by other factors.Indicators should be sensitive to changes, andchanges in their values should have a clear andunambiguous meaning.

£ Criterion 3: Timeliness and punctuality, whichassesses whether indicators are released inaccordance with an agreed schedule and soon afterthe period to which they refer. There should be aminimal time lag between the collection andreporting of data to ensure that indicators arereporting current rather than historical information.

£ Criterion 4: Coherence and comparability, whichshows whether concepts, definitions,methodologies and actual data are consistentinternally and across space and time.

£ Criterion 5: Accessibility and clarity, which indicateswhether data are available and accompanied byadequate explanatory information (metadata).

A further five quality criteria frequently used in theresearch literature on processes of selecting indicatorswere also applied.

£ Criterion 6: Grounded in research, which is relatedto the awareness of the key influences and factorsaffecting outcomes.

£ Criterion 7: Methodological soundness, whichshows whether an indicator is defined precisely andwhether the indicator measurement is statisticallysound, reflecting international scientific standardsand well-established literature, or at least broadconsensus among main stakeholders.

£ Criterion 8: Intelligibility and easy interpretation,which assesses whether an indicator is sufficientlysimple to be interpreted unambiguously in practiceand intuitive in the sense that it is obvious what it ismeasuring. Indicators should have a clear meaningwith respect to industrial relations, either ‘positive’or ‘negative’.

£ Criterion 9: Link to policy or emerging issues, whichassesses whether an indicator reflects importantissues as closely as possible.

£ Criterion 10: Ability to be disaggregated, whichshows whether the indicator is broken down intopopulation subgroups or areas of particularinterest.

The selected indicators relate to either processes oroutcomes. Both types of indicators were consideredpotentially relevant for mapping the system ofindustrial relations. In addition, it is worth noting thatany refinement in this sense is constrained by thesources available, which provide harmonisedinformation on relevant industrial relations processes.

No additional criteria were used as regards type ofindicators (that is, categorical, ordinal or numerical).It is common practice to include different types ofindicators within one dashboard.

Concept and methodology

8

Once the data for the 28 EU Member States werecompiled, a further set of criteria were applied with theaim of analysing missing values and outliers, as well asinterrelations among the indicators.

£ Criterion 11: Presence of missing data, which showswhether an indicator presents less than 10%missing values, by Member State and time.

£ Criterion 12: Identification and analysis of outliersin the case of quantitative indicators, which mayindicate bad data quality or the need to use robuststatistical techniques.

£ Criterion 13: Identification of double counting,which assesses through correlation analysiswhether two or more indicators are providing thesame information. Additionally, the presence ofstatistically significant differences betweenindicators were analysed through tests ofindependence. No indicator should overlap withany of the other indicators. Each one should fill anessential gap in the theoretical framework orsubstantially increase the relevance of existingindicators.

£ Criterion 14: Testing the conceptual structure,which identifies the set of indicators that, based ontheir internal relationship, work well together,verifying statistically the structure of fourdimensions identified conceptually.

The database created for this exercise compiled annualdata for the period 2008–2015 from different Europeanand international data sources: Eurofound, Eurostat,the International Labour Organization (ILO), theOrganisation for Economic Co-operation andDevelopment (OECD), the World Economic Forum(WEF), the Institutional Characteristics of Trade Unions,Wage Setting, State Intervention and Social Pacts(ICTWSS) database and Transparency International.Nevertheless, due to the lack of data for severalindicators and for several countries, it was decided towork with time intervals (2008–2011 and 2012–2015),rather than individual years. In order to compute theaverage values for each indicator in those two timeintervals, the arithmetic or geometric mean of thevalues available was applied (geometric mean for index,rate and percentage; arithmetic mean for others).Growth in these two time intervals was calculated bythe difference or the rate (difference for index, rate andpercentage; arithmetic mean for others). Yet, data forthese two different points are not always available forall the indicators or for all countries, which severelyconstrains a dynamic analysis.

Interpretation of indicatorsIn this study, the methodological decision was made toinclude only those indicators in the dashboard that canbe interpreted unambiguously and that have a clearmeaning with respect to the framework of the keydimensions of industrial relations, either ‘positive’ or‘negative’ (Criterion 8). This was seen as the moreeffective approach, considering Eurofound’s focus onallowing comparisons and supporting mutual learningprocesses for policymakers and social partners. Besides,indicators that provide contextual information tosupport the interpretation of data may be included at alater stage.

It should be stressed that this is by no means astraightforward exercise. Indicators may be consideredrelevant, coming from a reliable source and technicallyvalid for the purposes of the study, and yet raisereasonable doubts over their interpretation as regardsthe framework of the key dimensions. To illustrate thispoint, it is worth discussing some examples ofindicators belonging to the dimension of industrialdemocracy. For instance, the indicator ‘employeerepresentation in the workplace’ clearly meets thiscriterion. The indicator is defined as the number ofworkplaces with some form of employee representationas a percentage of the total number of workplaces. It isa simple and unambiguous indicator: higher values areinterpreted as positive for industrial democracy.

Other indicators may be fully relevant for providingcontextual information but cannot be interpreted aspositive or negative for industrial democracy. Oneexample is collectively agreed pay changes.

Other indicators again may be controversial, such as thenumber of days lost to industrial action. This indicatortells something about conflict, but its meaning is notcompletely clear with respect to industrial democracy.Among other things, the absence of conflict may be theresult of poor working conditions, lack of workers’capacity for collective organisation and increasingworker vulnerability.

Many indicators were discarded in the initial stage of thestudy because their meaning was not unambiguous.Yet, it seems pertinent to highlight that even well-grounded indicators may present unexpected problemsdue to recent developments or certain nationalcontexts. This and other reasons point to the relevanceof testing the set of indicators at national level.


9

Testing indicators at nationallevelTesting the set of selected indicators through theapplication of quality criteria was a central task of thestudy. The aim of this exercise was to respond to thefollowing research question:

How and to what extent can the conceptual

framework of the key dimensions of industrial

relations (industrial democracy, industrial

competitiveness, social justice, and quality of work

and employment) be applied to the national level of

industrial relations?

For this purpose, the dataset with the compiled datawas distributed to the Network of EuropeanCorrespondents, along with a questionnaire. The maintask of the correspondents was to use the data providedto assess the application of the conceptual frameworkof the key dimensions to their national industrialrelations system. This included mapping the mostrelevant features of the industrial relations system tothe four key dimensions, describing the relevantchanges that had occurred since 2008, and assessingthe extent to which these trends are in line with thescientific literature, as well as relevant policydocuments reflecting the views of the social partners.

In addition, the questionnaire was designed to gatheradditional insights in order to further refine the set ofindicators. To this end, the correspondents were askedto identify specific features of their national industrialrelations system that were not covered and to suggestadditional indicators in order to properly map thenational industrial relations system in question againstthe four key dimensions.

The methodology to be followed in order to respond tothe questionnaire consisted of: desk research of anyrelevant scientific literature on the national industrialrelations system and social partners’ policy documents;and assessment of the data provided against theoutcomes of the desk research.

Using aggregation as a tool forfine-tuning and testingThe main objective of this study was to create a testeddashboard of indicators that could enable theapplication of the conceptual framework of the keydimensions of industrial relations to national industrialrelations systems. This means that the study did not aimto create a composite index on industrial relations thatwould provide aggregated values for measuring andcomparing dimensions and countries – this would be afar more sensitive and ambitious approach, one thatwould require further discussion within Eurofound, aswell as a different methodology to ensure robustresults. However, aggregation has been used as an

analytical tool to select and test the most relevantindicators for mapping and analysing the nationalindustrial relations systems. This has been facilitated bythe fact that all the selected indicators can beunambiguously interpreted regarding the framework ofthe key dimensions, because this is a precondition foraggregation.

Aggregated values by dimension have been calculatedto provide an insight into how each national industrialrelations system is performing. Aggregation has beendone according to the following steps.

1. Imputation of missing values: Due to the need towork with a complete database, any missing valuesof a variable were replaced by the mean of thevariable.

2. Reversion of the indicators, if needed: In order toaggregate the indicators into dimensions, thedirection of all indicators needs to stayhomogenous. In this exercise, the positive sign waschosen because the majority of the indicators in thedataset already had a positive interpretation,meaning that higher values are interpretedpositively. Those indicators that originally had anegative sign had to be transformed and reversedinto positive-sign indicators. A number oftechniques can be used to reverse a variable,depending on the nature of the variable.Considering that in this exercise the indicators thatneeded to be reversed were percentages, they werereversed by calculating their complementary value.

3. Normalisation of the indicators: This eliminates theeffect of different scales and measurement unitsand making them comparable. From the severalexisting methods of data normalisation, the oneapplied in this exercise was the ‘min–max method’.

4. Weighting: All indicators were weighted with equalweights.

5. Aggregation: All indicators in each dimension wereaggregated by applying the arithmetic mean,providing a score for each of the four dimensionsidentified conceptually. These four scores werethen aggregated with an arithmetic mean,providing a global score for industrial relations.

These aggregated values were used to prepare a radarchart for each EU Member State. Each chart shows theresults obtained for each dimension, including the EUaverage as a reference. The radar charts weredistributed to the national correspondents, along withthe database, as an additional input for responding tothe questionnaire. They have proven to be a useful toolfor detecting inconsistencies and testing the overallaccuracy of the set of indicators at national level. Theyalso provide a visual input for mapping a nationalindustrial system against the four dimensions,illustrating the extent to which the industrial systemencompasses the dimensions in a balanced way. For

Concept and methodology

10

this reason, they are included in this report (seeChapter 3).

Analysis of the correlations between the indicators andthe scores of the subdimensions and dimensions,calculated with the Pearson’s correlation coefficient,was a useful tool to fine-tune the dashboard. Thisanalysis enabled identification of those indicators thatwere not significant in measuring the dimension towhich they were assigned, as well as any two indicatorswith a very high correlation, providing almost the sameinformation to the dataset. Those indicators could thenbe dropped from the list.

However, it is worth stressing that aggregation has beenonly a tool. The results obtained are far from final in theprocess of computing a composite indicator onindustrial relations due to several reasons:

£ only one imputation method, one aggregationmethod and one weighting method has beentested;

£ working with a balanced number of indicatorsunder each dimension is not taken intoconsideration;

£ sensitivity and uncertainty analysis were not carriedout.


11

Selecting a preliminary set ofindicators The initial list of indicators selected for the keydimensions of industrial relations was thoroughlyrevised on the basis of the methodology explained inthe previous chapter. The initial discussion around theset of quality criteria – relevance (1) and intelligibilityand easy interpretation (8) – proved to be useful inreaching a more nuanced understanding of the four keydimensions and in extending the analysis to newindicators for the dashboard.

It is worth noting that different approaches wereconsidered at this stage. Industrial democracy is at thecore of Eurofound expertise, but there is little researchon dashboards and composite indexes. In comparison,these tools seem to be quite well-researched in relationto social justice and quality of work and employment,

with several institutions producing their owndashboards and indexes on these themes. In the case ofindustrial competitiveness, Eurofound’s approach isinnovative although still not fully developed, whileseveral other institutions are working oncompetitiveness from different perspectives.

One option was to focus on selecting the indicators forindustrial democracy and to use the best indicators andcomposite indexes available in the literature for theother three dimensions (for example, the BertelsmannEU Social Justice Index). However, it was decided that itmade more sense to select indicators for all thedimensions, trying to reflect as accurately as possibleEurofound’s understanding of the 4 dimensions and 16subdimensions of industrial relations. This option couldprovide more straightforward findings and contributemore effectively to the development of the frameworkapproach. Table 1 shows the list of indicators tested bythe national correspondents.

2 Fine-tuning and testing theindicators

Table 1: List of indicators tested by the national correspondents

Dimension Subdimension Indicator Source Unit

Industrial

democracy

Autonomy Time resources for employee representatives Eurofound, ECS Hours

Representation Trade union density ICTWSS, ILO Percentage

Employer organisation density ICTWSS Percentage

Collective wage agreements Eurofound, ECS Percentage

Collective bargaining coverage ICTWSS, ILO Percentage

Participation Employee representation in the workplace Eurofound, ECS Percentage

Direct employee participation in the workplace(management evaluation)

Eurofound, ECS Points

Direct employee participation in the workplace(employee representative evaluation)


Participation of the employee representation body in theworkplace (management evaluation)


Participation of the employee representation body in theworkplace (employee representative evaluation)


Influence Direct employee influence in decision-making in theworkplace


Influence of the employee representation body indecision-making in the workplace


Trust Trust in employee representation Eurofound, ECS Points

Trust in management regarding the involvement ofemployees and of the employee representation body indecision-making


12


Dimension Subdimension Indicator Source Unit

Industrial

competitiveness

Productivity andgrowth

GDP growth per capita Eurostat Percentage

Labour productivity Eurostat Points

Employment rate Eurostat Percentage

Market stabilityand efficiency

Incidence of corruption TransparencyInternational

Points

Sophistication ofresources

Infrastructure ranking World Economic Forum Points

Percentage of individuals with high-level education Eurostat Percentage

Percentage of individuals with at least medium-levelcomputer skills

Eurostat Percentage

Percentage of individuals with at least medium-levelinternet skills

Eurostat Percentage

Innovation andentrepreneurship

Percentage of R&D personnel Eurostat Percentage

R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP Eurostat Percentage

Percentage of enterprises newly born in t-2 havingsurvived to t

Eurostat Percentage

Social justice Social cohesionand non-discrimination

At-risk-of-poverty or social exclusion rate Eurostat Percentage

In-work poverty rate Eurostat Percentage

Ratio of women to men employment rate Eurostat Percentage

Gender pay gap Eurostat Percentage

Ratio of older to non-older people employment rate Eurostat Percentage

Ratio of young to non-young people employment rate Eurostat Percentage

Ratio of foreign-born to native-born people employmentrate

Eurostat Percentage

Employment rate of people with disabilities Eurostat Percentage

Equality ofopportunity

Early leavers from education and training Eurostat Percentage

Old-age dependency ratio Eurostat Percentage

Equality ofoutcome

Long-term unemployment rate Eurostat Percentage

Youth unemployment ratio Eurostat Percentage

Gini coefficient Eurostat Points

Quality of work

and employment

Career andemploymentsecurity

Minimum wage ICTWSS Points

Unemployment protection coverage Eurostat Percentage

Low-pay incidence Eurostat Percentage

Involuntary temporary employment Eurostat Percentage

Job security Eurofound, EWCS Percentage

Income development Eurofound, EWCS Percentage

Career prospects Eurofound, EWCS Percentage

Health andwell-being

Adverse social behaviour Eurofound, EWCS Percentage

Subjective workplace well-being Eurofound, EWCS Percentage

Depression or anxiety Eurofound, EWCS Percentage

Musculoskeletal disorder Eurofound, EWCS Percentage

Reconciliation ofworking andnon-working life

Excessive working time ILO Percentage

Unsocial working time Eurostat Percentage

Ratio of women to men, usual working time Eurostat Percentage

Ratio of women to men, hours spent on unpaid work Eurofound, EWCS Percentage

Skills development Life-long learning Eurostat Percentage

Unemployed persons up-skilling Eurostat Percentage

Notes: ECS = European Company Survey; EWCS = European Working Conditions Survey; ICTWSS = Institutional Characteristics of Trade Unions,Wage Setting, State Intervention and Social Pacts database; ILO = International Labour Organization

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Findings from the nationalcontributionsTable 2 describes the extent to which the nationalcorrespondents judged that the indicators depict apicture in line with the literature, following a staticapproach (without considering the extent to which theyaccurately depict changes and evolving trends).

As shown, there was an overall positive assessment interms of accuracy. One group of four countries foundthe results in all the dimensions to be accurate. Asecond group, of 10 countries, found the results to beaccurate in all the dimensions but suggested includingadditional indicators in order to obtain a more completepicture of the dimensions and to improve accuracy.Those suggestions include contextual indicators (thelegal framework), as well as additional indicatorsconsidered important to properly grasp somedimensions, such as indicators on social dialogue forthe industrial democracy dimension. The nationalcorrespondents for a group of 12 countries found theresults to be accurate across all the dimensions but alsopointed to the existence of problematic indicators,which they felt should be reconsidered. The UK, forinstance, found the results to be inaccurate in relationto the quality of work and employment dimension and,to some extent, to the industrial democracy dimension.Finally, only one country disagreed with themethodology used to fine-tune the indicators.

The sections that follow provide further detail onsuggestions and insights collected from the nationalcorrespondents for each key dimension.

Accuracy: An overview by dimension

Industrial democracy

The industrial democracy dimension attracted the mostattention from the national correspondents whenassessing the accuracy of the indicators. Some foundthe results accurate but proposed including additionalindicators in order to fully grasp relevant or defining

features of industrial democracy within their nationalcontext. Contributions from Finland, Luxembourg andSpain suggested including indicators aiming to measurethe level of trade union influence in policymaking, withthe intention of reflecting different outcomes in terms ofindustrial democracy as a result of divergentinstitutional settings and traditions. For instance, thenational contribution from Finland points to the need toinclude indicators that can address the high level ofsocial partner involvement and influence on legislationand other national decision-making processes in allsocial policy areas, as this is a relevant defining featureof the strength of its system within this dimension.

The Spanish contribution highlights that a definingfeature of the Spanish system is the role played by thestate in the governance and regulation of employmentand industrial relations. Within this institutionalcontext, tripartite social pacts are key mechanismsensuring coordinated economic governance. The statecarries out a prominent function in the design andimplementation of welfare policies and the regulation ofemployment and working conditions. The state alsoplays a role in the promotion of collective bargainingthrough different provisions, such as extensionmechanisms that ensure the general efficiency ofcollective agreements and provisions that ensure thecontinuation of collective agreements beyond theirexpiry date (the so-called ‘ultra-activity principle’, whichhas recently been modified). Some authors argue thatthose institutional features have made the socialpartners dependent on the willingness of the state,consolidating an episodic social dialogue (Molina, 2014).As a result, their actual autonomy is, to some extent,limited and their influence in relevant regulatorydecisions on issues such as labour regulation orpensions is irregular and politicised, as Visser (2009)argues regarding the southern European industrialrelations cluster. The importance of these featureswithin the Spanish context is not properly captured,because the indicators provide information only onsocial partners or employee representatives at company

Fine-tuning and testing the indicators

Table 2: National correspondents’ assessment of accuracy of results

* The national contribution from the Netherlands was not available. A short assessment was compiled by Eurofound, involving consultation withan expert on industrial relations in the Netherlands.

Assessment Countries Examples

Accurate results in all dimensions Bulgaria, Croatia, Malta, Poland

Accurate results in all dimensions;

however, including additional indicators

would improve accuracy

Belgium, Cyprus, France, Italy, Luxembourg,the Netherlands*, Romania, Slovakia,Slovenia, Spain

Indicators on social dialogue; indicator onthe legal framework of industrial relations;indicators measuring social mobility

Accurate results in all dimensions;

however, there are problematic indicators

that should be reconsidered

Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark,Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary,Ireland, Lithuania, Portugal, Sweden

National minimum wage; GDP

Accurate results for some dimensions;

inaccurate results for others

United Kingdom Quality of work and employment dimension

Disagreement with the methodology Latvia

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level and information on collective bargaining and donot address the role of the state at the macro level.

In countries where the representativeness of tradeunions depends on electoral outcomes, it wassuggested to include specific indicators used formeasuring representativeness, such as the results ofworkplace elections (Spain) or the results of theelections for the Chamber of Employees (Luxembourg).It is worth noting that in these countries, trade uniondensity is becoming less significant.

Furthermore, several national contributions pointed tothe need to include contextual indicators describingaspects of the industrial relations legal framework thathave implications for industrial democracy. Forexample, the national contribution from Germanysuggests including indicators describing the regulationor legislation of worker participation. As noted, afundamental feature of the German industrial relationssystem ensuring industrial democracy is a legalframework that enhances worker representation andparticipation rights in a firm’s corporate governancethrough co-determination rights. Thus, from theGerman perspective, the industrial democracydimension may need additional indicators with regardto the regulation of representation in order to properlyreflect the strength of the system. The nationalcontributions from Hungary and Spain note that thelack of contextual indicators on legislation hamper theobservation of negative effects on industrial democracystemming from their government’s unilateralintervention in industrial relations in recent years.Interestingly, the national contribution from the CzechRepublic suggests including contextual indicatorsaiming to describe the legal framework for industrialrelations because, based on it, the social partners in theCzech Republic are widely autonomous, can participatein the governance of employment relationships and areable to influence decision-making. However, the extentof the use of such rights is low, which is reflected in theindicators included in industrial democracy. Thus, thiscontribution suggests that the indicators selectedenable observation of actual results achieved, instead ofthe potential for democracy within the legal framework.Another suggested contextual indicator that can berelated to the legal framework is the predominant levelof bargaining (Portugal).

Some countries provide a more nuanced interpretationof some indicators, which, since they are defined atnational cross-sectoral level, may overshadow the widerange of situations existing in reality. In this sense, thenational contribution from Cyprus notes that in sectorswhere the workforce is primarily composed ofimmigrants, employee representation bodies face moredifficulties in becoming recognised and, as a result,employers’ decisions tend to be taken unilaterally.

Some comments made by the national correspondentsraised doubts about the accuracy of some results, due

to the existence of problematic indicators. The Danishcontribution noted that the indicator on time resourcesallocated to employee representatives, defined inEurofound’s European Company Survey (ECS) as theworking time to which they are entitled to carry outtheir representation duties, may underestimate theactual strength of its system. According to the nationalcorrespondent’s own assessment, Danish employeerepresentatives spend more than one hour per week ontheir representation duties within their working time, asreflected in the ECS survey findings. Similarly, thenational contribution from Greece notes that, althoughminimum leave for trade union purposes is set by law(Law 1264/82 and Law 2224/94), the time provided fortrade union leave may be more than the minimum if acollective agreement is signed at company level, orsectoral level in the private sector.

Another indicator that was questioned is that relating toemployer organisation density (raised in Bulgaria,Greece and Hungary). According to the nationalcontribution from Greece, the value of this indicator isoverestimated. Although there is no study on thesubject, the national correspondent noted that recentlegislative changes to the system of collectivebargaining, which abolished the universally bindingcharacter of collective agreements, may disincentivisecompanies to affiliate. On the basis of the currentlegislation, sectoral collective agreements apply only tomembers of employer and employee organisations,with the result that companies do not join employerorganisations, fearing the imposition of a collectiveagreement. The national contribution from Hungaryalso finds that the figure on density of employerorganisations may be overestimated, bearing in mindthat in this country, several organisations could bedefined as trade associations rather than employerorganisations interested in being involved in collectivebargaining.

Finally, it is worth noting that several nationalcontributions raise doubts about the accuracy of someof the indicators taken from the ECS to measureemployee participation and influence in the workplace.The national contribution from the UK notes that thedata presented point to perceptions that employeeparticipation provides mechanisms for consultationrather than mere provision of information. Conversely, awide range of academic studies have found that, withinthe UK, there has been an ongoing trend in the erosionof more collective forms of representation (often basedon trade union representation and which provide fornegotiation rights and/or meaningful consultation) andsubstitution of these with ‘direct’ and moreindividualised forms of involvement, such asmanagement provision of information, direct task-based participation and a concomitant exposure ofemployees to a plethora of communication techniques(see Markey and Townsend, 2013; Wilkson et al, 2010;Wilkinson and Fay, 2011). This may have implications for


15

the level of decision-making that employees areactually involved in and the extent to which they canexert influence over organisational decision-making(Strauss, 2006). Direct forms of involvement, typicallyconfined to the level of immediate tasks and thecascade of managerial information, tend to be weak onactual power-sharing and meaningful consultation,being aimed more at securing employee commitment tomanagerial decisions and organisational goals(Marchington and Wilkinson, 2010).

The national contribution from Lithuania finds thevalues for several indicators on participation to beoverestimated. This may be explained by the fact thatthe occupational safety and health representativebodies, which according to national legislation shouldbe elected in every company, have only a very formalposition and may be understood in the context of theECS as employee representative bodies. In the nationalcontribution from Estonia, the correspondent assessesthat figures on employee representation at theworkplace may be overestimated. It is noted that suchrepresentation is not necessarily articulated throughtrade unions; Estonia has a dual-channel employeerepresentation system in the workplace, so it can beexercised through a trade union or through anemployee representative (elected from the company’semployees). Moreover, both can be present at the sametime. According to Statistics Estonia’s Work Life Survey,in 2009, 10% of employees belonged to a trade unionand 27.4% of employees self-reported the existence ofan employee representative in their company (7.8%were not sure whether or not one existed). In 2015, 7.2%of employees were in a trade union and 20.1% reportedthe existence of an employee representative (34.8%were not sure). In terms of companies, around 6% havea trade union and 18% have an employeerepresentative (13% in 2009).

Social justice

Several points of learning emerged from the nationalcorrespondents’ assessment of the accuracy of thesocial justice indicators. Regarding comments andsuggestions for new indicators, the nationalcontribution from Finland draws attention to the lack ofindicators reflecting equality of outcome based onintergenerational social mobility. In Finland, thebarriers between socioeconomic classes have long beenrelatively low (Erola and Moisio, 2007), andopportunities for children whose parents do not have anacademic background to complete an academic degreesignificantly increased between 1970 and 2010 (Osmo etal, 2012). The national contribution from Italy notes thatthe indicators on equality of outcome do not allowobservation of the NEET phenomenon, which is morerelevant in Italy than the youth unemployment rate todescribe the social and labour market situation there.

Some countries provide a more nuanced interpretationof certain indicators that may hide relevant sectoral

differences. This applies to the gender pay gap indicatorin Ireland, which, according to the nationalcorrespondent there, masks considerable variationacross sectors. Research undertaken by the EconomicSocial and Research Institute and the Equality Authorityfound that the gender pay gap ranged from 13.3% in thehotel sector to 45.8% in education (raw gender wagegap), and from 2.7% in the transport sector to 20.1% inthe construction sector (McGuinness et al, 2009).

Some contributions raise doubts about the accuracy oftheir national data in relation to some of the indicators.The national contribution from Finland finds, forinstance, different results from national sources inrelation to the youth unemployment rate (20% and10%–11%) and the gender pay gap (17% and 19%).

Some national contributions suggest that someindicators need to be reconsidered, or at leastinterpreted in conjunction with additional indicators, inorder to obtain a more comprehensive picture.Regarding the indicator on risk of poverty or socialexclusion, the national contribution from Greece notesthat the increase in the cost of living, with additionalfiscal costs (indirect and special taxes), has beenunevenly distributed at the expense of those on lowerincomes, while at the same time there has been asignificant reduction in public spending on socialprotection, education and health (Yiannitsis andZografakis, 2016). Moreover, the threshold for thepoverty line was reduced during the crisis period(€6,897 in 2008; €5,708 in 2012; €5,023 in 2013; €4,512 in2016). For that reason, the calculation of the povertyrate based on a threshold at a particular time (namely2008) would be more representative of the changesregarding the poverty risk. At the same time, the level ofunemployment protection coverage in Greece isarguably lower than that reflected by theunemployment protection coverage indicator, given thehigh level of self-employment in that country (34%), forwhich no unemployment benefit is paid, with the resultthat this is not included in unemployment protectioncoverage. In addition, the national contribution fromPortugal notes that the indicator for in-work povertyunderestimates the real number of working poor in thecountry (Rodrigues, 2016).

The national contributions for Germany andLuxembourg note that the social justice indicators areunrelated to social partner actors and processes. Toillustrate this, the German contribution explains thatcollective bargaining may have contributed to thegender pay gap by settling high wages for male workersand low wages for female workers in female-dominatedservices (such as cleaning activities).

Finally, the German contribution raises doubts aboutthe extent to which integration into the labour marketin a context marked by the extension of atypicalcontracts can be considered indicative of a positivetrend in social justice. However, this trend can be


16

grasped, at least to some extent, using the indicatorsselected. Thus, in Germany, the indicators show adecline in youth unemployment and long-termunemployment alongside an increase in in-workpoverty.

Quality of work and employment

National correspondents assessing the accuracy of thedimension of quality of work and employmentproposed new indicators. For example, the nationalcontribution from Sweden proposes includinginvoluntary part-time employment jointly withinvoluntary temporary employment to provide abroader picture of quality of employment. The nationalcontribution from Austria suggests including contextualindicators related to institutional policies favouringreconciliation of working and non-working life (such asthose relating to parental leave and compensationrates), an area where Austria fares comparatively well(with high compensation rates and relatively longparental leave). These indicators could affect therelatively low values recorded in the indicators on thereconciliation of working and non-working life.

The national contribution from Italy points out that thereconciliation of working and non-working life could bebetter explained by observing workers’ desire to modifythe ratio between time dedicated to work and the timededicated to family. Along those lines, it notes that theNational Institute of Statistics (Istituto Nazionale diStatistica, Istat) estimates that only 3 out of 10 peoplestate they spend the desired amount of time with familymembers. It also notes that elements likely to capturethe relationship between the number of children in afamily and female participation in the labour marketcould provide a fuller picture of gender differences inthe labour market.

The contribution from Slovenia proposes addingindicators to measure or describe the regulation ofemployment protection, drawing on OECD sources.

Some comments question the accuracy of particularindicators. The national contribution from the CzechRepublic expresses concerns about the job securityindicator. It notes that that indicator, as translated inthe Czech version of the European Working ConditionsSurvey (EWCS) questionnaire, does not measure theprobability or possibility of losing one’s job. Based onthis, it is argued that the data on this indicator overstatejob security (according to which, 60% of peoplereported being secure in their jobs in 2014). On thispoint, it is relevant to note that a qualitative post-testanalysis of this indicator conducted by Eurofound in2006 found that respondents often agreed that theycould lose their jobs since ‘the unpredictable can alwayshappen (you can never tell what tomorrow will bring)’,but at the same time did not feel a sense of insecurityregarding their jobs (Eurofound, 2007).

The national contributions from Nordic countriesquestion the relevance of the indicator on the nationalminimum wage. As argued in the national contributionsfrom these countries, the fact that a legal andmandatory minimum wage does not exist does notnecessarily mean that actual wages are lower. On thecontrary, high and inclusive collective bargainingcoverage can manage to set wages at high levels.

The national contributions from Denmark and Finlandraise doubts about the indicator on the proportion ofworkers suffering musculoskeletal disorders, as valuesappear to be too high (60% and 73%, respectively).

Some national contributions question the validity ofsubjective indicators on income development in thecontext of a general deterioration of labour marketprospects and earnings (such as Germany) or low wages(cheap labour force) and trade unions campaignsdenouncing the situation (such as the Czech Republic).Nevertheless, it is worth noting that the databaseincludes several indicators addressing objectiveworking conditions and that the research literaturesupports combining objective indicators with subjectiveindicators (Muñoz de Bustillo et al, 2011).

Attention should be drawn to the concerns raised by theUK national correspondent regarding the picturedepicted by indicators for quality of work andemployment. That contribution highlights that relevantresearch suggests a worsening of employment qualityand that it does so by paying attention to alternativeindicators. Some studies, for instance, point to the factthat a large proportion of jobs created are low paid,insecure and casual work. Zero-hours contracts, forexample, increased from 600,000 in 2014 to 700,000 in2015. Moreover, 31% of the jobs created since 2010 havebeen in self-employment, where average earnings havefallen by 22% since 2008–2009 (D’Arcy and Gardiner,2014). Over the same period, employee earnings fell by6%. Furthermore, research by the Social MarketFoundation in 2016 found that around one-half (49%) ofthe UK’s self-employed are low paid, measured on anhourly basis, compared with around one-fifth ofemployees (22%) (Broughton and Richards, 2016).

Industrial competitiveness

The national contributions include proposals for newindicators regarding industrial competitiveness. Italy’scontribution, for example, notes that the only factor notdetected by the indicators is the administrative burdenon companies, which is considered to hamper growth incompetitiveness.

Some contributions question the accuracy of certainindicators. The national contribution from Austria notesthat the increase in the percentage of individuals withhigher-level (tertiary) education, of almost 10percentage points between 2013 and 2014, must beattributed to a change in the data source ormethodology used to measure this.


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The national contribution from Ireland points out thatthe gross domestic product (GDP) indicator is of littlerelevance in measuring the levels of economic activity inthe ‘real economy’. Most economists have cited thegrowth in consumer spending as a better measure ofunderlying growth in the economy, which grew inIreland by 4.5% in 2015, a figure that is considerablylower than that suggested by the GDP indicator.Moreover, it notes that different national sourcesprovide different GDP values. In contrast with the GDPfigures for 2015, the Central Statistics Office (CSO)reported that GDP actually contracted by 2.1% for thefirst quarter of 2016, while gross national product (GNP)rose by 1.3%. Bearing in mind this confusion andcontroversy over the reported data, the CSO hasdeveloped a new indicator – gross national income(GNI) – which, it is claimed, will better capture the truelevel of growth in the domestic economy by strippingout the profits associated with so-called ‘redomiciledPLCs’ (companies that establish a legal presence inIreland while investing little in the country). This newindicator will be published annually alongside thestandard, internationally agreed indicators of GDP andGNP. In addition, the Irish contribution considers theinfrastructure ranking as being too generous. Accordingto the correspondents’ own assessment, the motorwaynetwork has improved significantly in recent years, yetthe rail network is considerably behind that of otherEuropean countries, and there are also seriousdeficiencies in the provision of housing and healthcare.

The national contribution from Hungary expressesconcerns about the employment rate indicator. It pointsout that this overestimates the employment rate, due tothe existence of government-funded, large-scale publicworks programmes, which in most cases are highlyinefficient, costly and which do not lead to jobs in theprimary labour market. Moreover, attention is drawn tothe massive outward migration of young, talented andskilled people (not reflected in domestic employmentstatistics). Both trends raise a question over the validityof the usual interpretation of employment figures; theyalso undermine the long-term sustainability ofeconomic growth and the welfare system. The Finnishnational contribution also raises doubts about theaccuracy of this indicator. It notes that one of the mainobjectives of the current government (of Prime MinisterJuha Sipilä) is to raise the general employment rate to72%, from its current rate of approximately 69% (figuresfrom national sources). Thus, from the Finnishperspective, the figure of 75% presented for 2015 isinaccurate.

Finally, the German contribution notes that mostindicators within this dimension are not very clear orthat they are too broad. It also stresses that indicatorssuch as the employment rate, GDP growth ratio percapita, corruption, and research and development(R&D) personnel cannot be directly related to theindustrial relations system.

Accuracy: An overview of dynamic trends

Analysis of the accuracy of the dynamic trends (how thevalues evolve in the period considered) presents somelimitations related to the current availability of data.This applies especially to industrial democracy, forwhich only 5 of 14 indicators were available for analysis.Bearing this in mind, several national contributionsexpress concern that existing data do not show therecent deterioration in some dimensions. The nationalcontribution from Finland notes that quality of workand employment and social justice have been undersignificant strain due to austerity measures. This shift isnot fully reflected in the data, at least partly because themost significant cuts were made only in 2015–2016. Inaddition, it notes that employers have attempted tointroduce significant changes in the industrialdemocracy system, promoting local-level bargainingover centralised agreements and questioning theprinciple of general applicability of collectiveagreements. Trade unions largely believe that suchdevelopments would weaken industrial democracy. TheCroatian national correspondent states that industrialdemocracy is the dimension that has recorded the mostimportant changes since 2008, particularly in terms ofcollective bargaining coverage. However, these trendsare not well reflected in the database due to theunavailability of data for most of the years concerned.

Spain and Hungary highlight changes affectingindustrial democracy, some of which are assessed asbeing not properly reflected by the selected indicators.The contribution from Spain stresses how unilateralreforms have weakened collective bargaining and thecapacity of the social partners to regulate employmentand working conditions, thus negatively impacting onindustrial democracy. According to some authors, thisintervention has altered the balance of power betweentrade unions and employers, consolidating an‘authoritarian model of industrial relations, which exaltsunilateral employer decisions in working regulation as aprinciple of new labour law, impacting information,consultation and negotiation rights’ (Rocha, 2014, p.205). Nevertheless, the indicators selected do notproperly capture this trend. Similarly, the Hungariancontribution notes that the situation there in relation toindustrial democracy has deteriorated considerably,although this trend is barely articulated through the setof indicators selected. This trend can be attributed, to alarge extent, to the hostile policies and practices of thegovernment regarding social dialogue and collectivebargaining; all of this weakens the position of the tradeunions.

The national contribution from Denmark refers to therecorded trend of decentralisation, especially since the1990s. However, the assessment of those effects onindustrial democracy cannot be interpreted asnegatively affecting this dimension. As opposed tocountries from the southern cluster, the


18

decentralisation process has been controlled andagreed to by the parties involved and is referred to as‘centralised decentralisation’.

The Estonian national contribution points out thatadditional indicators could enable the observation of adeterioration of social justice. Along these lines, it notesthat the European Committee of Social Rights, whichevaluates compliance with the European Social Charter,has repeatedly highlighted that the unemploymentallowance and the minimum rate of the unemploymentinsurance benefit do not meet the minimumrequirements of the Charter as they are below theminimum subsistence level. Hence, unemploymentrates are considered a relevant indicator for Estoniawithin the social justice dimension.

The national contribution from Luxembourg notes howthe lack of indicators on social dialogue hampers theobservation of relevant changes that have occurredsince 2010. These changes are related to the breach intripartite social dialogue, which, within the Luxembourgsystem, could mean a deterioration of industrialdemocracy. Conversely, the national contribution fromthe Czech Republic notes that the lack of social dialogueindicators impedes the articulation of relevant andpositive effects on industrial democracy related to therevitalisation of social dialogue and tripartitenegotiations following the general elections held inautumn 2013.

The Slovenian correspondent notes that thederegulation of employment protection due to pressurefrom international institutions during the economiccrisis, which has negatively affected quality of work andemployment, is not captured by the indicators.

Some countries, notably the UK, provide a morenuanced interpretation of some trends by addingalternative indicators. The UK national contributionchallenges the positive trend in the number of peoplewith a higher education (up by 16.7% over the 2008–2015 period). According to the national correspondent,the UK has a highly bifurcated skill structure, with largenumbers of people with no or low skills (Bosch, 2017).A focus on the number with a high level of educationmay overshadow this fact.

Some countries raise doubts about the accuracy of thevalues of some indicators for certain years. Oneindicator identified as particularly problematic inseveral national contributions is that of employeerepresentation in the workplace. These contributionsconsider the sharp change in the value of this indicatorfrom 2009 to 2013 to be inaccurate. For instance, theAustrian contribution compares data with othernational sources and finds the 2009 figure to beinaccurate. The German contribution notes that thehuge fall (from 84.3% to 33.8%) cannot be explained byany national data or evidence. The Swedishcontribution also questions the sharp decreaserecorded, as it is not shown in any other studies or in

national data, raising the issue of whether the questionwas phrased differently in 2009 and 2013, which madethe data unsuitable for comparison. Some concernswere also expressed regarding the results from thecollective bargaining coverage indicator and, to a lesserextent, from the collective wage agreements indicator.The national contribution from the UK notes thatcollective agreement coverage has fallen furtheraccording to national sources, while the Austriancontribution notes that changes in the number ofcollective wage agreements cannot be explained on thebasis of national data and literature.

Concerns are also expressed in relation to the trendsrecorded in subjective indicators measuring jobsecurity. The national contribution from Sweden statesthat an increase in job security has not been reflected inthe labour policy debate over recent years. Moreover,alternative indicators showing an expansion offixed-term contracts could mean an increase in jobinsecurity. One in five blue-collar workers is employedon a fixed-term basis (as is one in four female blue-collar workers), and most fixed-term contracts are‘on-call’ jobs instead of the longer-term temporary jobsthat used to be more common. The data also show howinvoluntary temporary employment (an indicatorincluded in the database) increased from 54.3% in 2008to 59% in 2015. In this regard, several unions report thatemployment conditions have deteriorated. Thecontribution from Poland notes that trends reflected insome subjective indicators on quality of work andemployment are doubtful in light of cross-checks withother available data.

Finally, the UK national contribution states that existingindicators do not fit well with evidence in the literaturethat shows the expansion, in recent years, of insecurework, low-quality jobs and growing wealth inequality.

Improving the set of indicators: Fromconceptual to specific remarks

The indicator accuracy assessments conducted by thenational correspondents call for:

1. strengthening the conceptual approach byimproving the relevance of the indicators toindustrial relations actors and processes;

2. expanding the set of indicators to cover relevantgaps highlighted in some national contributions;

3. including contextual indicators describing factorsthat can contribute to a better understanding ofoutcomes recorded in the dimensions – forinstance, related to the legal framework ofindustrial relations;

4. discarding some conceptually problematicindicators;

5. checking the reliability of some indicators againstother sources;

6. improving statistical methods.


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Building the final list ofindicators The final list of indicators selected was built on the basisof the findings from the national contributions,consultation with other Eurofound experts and furtherstatistical analysis. In this process, several indicatorswere discarded, some indicators were replaced ormodified, and new indicators were tested.

Some indicators, such as trust in employeerepresentation, trust in management, labourproductivity and ratio of foreign-born to native-bornpeople employment rate, were discarded because ofnegative correlations, while indicators such as numberof unemployed people upskilling were omitted due todouble counting. Some of the indicators that werediscarded or discarded for particular years following thenational correspondents’ assessment were:participation of the employee representation body inthe workplace; musculoskeletal disorder; and employeerepresentation in the workplace (data from 2009).Regarding the last indicator, several nationalcontributions considered the sharp change in the valueof this indicator (2009 to 2013) to be inaccurate. Thosecomments made it necessary to check the ECSquestionnaire, observing a change in the wording of the

questionnaire (‘formal’ in 2009 versus ‘official’ in 2013),which may explain the changes recorded and make thedata across these two years non-comparable. In spite ofthese changes, the final results did not differsignificantly from the results tested at national level.

The inclusion of indicators on social dialogue was foundto be problematic. Two indicators of this subdimensionwere tested as it was considered relevant to explore thisangle of industrial democracy. One concerned thenumber of social pacts between the government andtrade unions, and the other concerned the existence ofa nationwide agreement between the social partners.Including these indicators produced results that wereclearly contrary to those found in the scientificliterature. This suggests that traditions of socialdialogue vary widely across different clusters ofcountries; this does not necessarily mean that a highernumber of pacts is related to higher levels of industrialdemocracy. As reported in some countries during thecrisis, under certain circumstances and contexts, socialpacts provide only an ‘expressive’ function, acting as asymbolic legitimation of government-led reform,instead of a real democratic function (Regan, 2013).

Table 3 shows the changes made in the list of indicatorsfollowing the assessment of the original list carried outby the national correspondents.


Table 3: Changes to the list of indicators following national correspondent assessment

Dimension Subdimension Indicator Source Changes

Industrial

democracy

Autonomy Time resources for employeerepresentatives

Eurofound, ECS Refined – more accurate definition

Participation Employee representation in theworkplace

Eurofound, ECS Refined – 2009 and 2013 data arenot comparable; only 2013 dataincluded

Participation of the employeerepresentation body in the workplace(employee representative evaluation)

Eurofound, ECS Discarded – inconsistent results

Trust Trust in employee representation Eurofound, ECS Discarded – negative correlations

Trust in management regarding theinvolvement of employees and of theemployee representation body indecision-making

Eurofound, ECS Discarded – not statisticallysignificant

Social dialogue Existence of social pacts between thegovernment and the unions (with orwithout the employers)

ICTWSS, ILO New indicator tested and discarded– inconsistent results

Existence of agreements between thecentral organisations of the tradeunions and the employers

ICTWSS, ILO New indicator tested and discarded– inconsistent results

Industrial

competitiveness

Productivity andgrowth

Labour productivity Eurostat Discarded – negative correlations

Social justice Social cohesionand non-discrimination

Ratio of foreign-born to native-bornpeople, employment rate

Eurostat Discarded – negative correlations

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Dimension Subdimension Indicator Source Changes

Quality of work

and employment

Career andemploymentsecurity

Minimum wage ICTWSS Discarded – negative correlations

Health andwell-being

Adverse social behaviour Eurofound, EWCS Discarded – negative correlations

Musculoskeletal disorder Eurofound, EWCS Discarded – not statisticallysignificant

Reconciliation ofworking andnon-working life

Ratio of women to men, usual workingtime

Eurostat Discarded – negative correlations

Skillsdevelopment

Unemployed persons up-skilling Eurostat Discarded – double counting

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Mapping national industrialrelations systems The final dashboard includes 45 indicators that wereselected at the end of the process described in Chapters1 and 2, using a combination of different methods andapproaches. The complete list of indicators, includingdefinitions and sources, is provided in the Annex. Thischapter aims to map the national industrial relationssystems based on the findings obtained with this finallist of indicators. It also draws from the analysis of thenational contributions, which compared the results ofmost of the indicators finally selected with the nationalcorrespondents’ expert assessment, alongside findingsfrom relevant research and literature on industrialrelations.

In mapping national industrial relations systems, thischapter follows the classification of industrial relationsregimes prepared by Visser for the EuropeanCommission in 2009, which was also used in theprevious Eurofound report (2016a) that mapped andtested the four key dimensions (see Table 4). Althoughthe homogeneity of these ideal typologies has beenseriously challenged due to the impact of the GreatRecession in some of the countries (Eurofound, 2014),and although its simplification of national contexts canbe problematic, it allows national industrial relations

systems to be mapped within the framework of a clusterof industrial relations systems, which, despite recentchanges, remains relevant. This typology identifies fivedifferent models of industrial relations, each with aclear geographic concentration:

£ ‘organised corporatism’ in the Nordic cluster(Denmark, Finland and Sweden);

£ ‘social partnership’ in the Centre-west cluster(Austria, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, theNetherlands and Slovenia);

£ ‘state-centred’ in the South cluster (Greece, France,Italy, Portugal and Spain);

£ ‘liberal pluralism’ in the West cluster (Cyprus,Ireland, Malta and the UK)

£ ‘transition economies’ (‘mixed model’) in theCentre-east cluster (Bulgaria, Croatia, the CzechRepublic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania,Poland, Romania and Slovakia).

Nordic cluster

The Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland and Sweden)show a high degree of internal homogeneity in relationto the four dimensions. This is even more pronounced interms of industrial competitiveness and quality of workand employment. Overall, they record higher valuesthan the EU averages in all the dimensions.

3 Results from the application ofthe conceptual framework

Table 4: Industrial relations clusters

Sources: Visser (2009), Eurofound (2016a)

Nordic Centre-west South West Centre-east

Industrial relations

regime

Organisedcorporatism

Social partnership State-centred Liberal pluralismTransitioneconomies

Role of social partners

in public policyInstitutionalised Irregular/politicised Rare/event-driven Irregular/politicised

Role of state Limited‘Shadow’ of

hierarchyFrequent

interventionNon-intervention

Organiser oftransition

Balance of power Labour-oriented Balanced Alternating Employer-oriented State

Bargaining style Integrative Distributive/conflict-oriented Acquiescent

Employee

representation

Union-based/highcoverage

Dual-channel/highcoverage

Variable/mixed Union-based/small coverage

Predominant level of

collective bargainingSector Sector/company Company

22

Regarding industrial democracy, the Nordic countries,especially Finland and Sweden, record values muchhigher than the EU average. In all three countries,indicators such as collective bargaining coverage (83%for Denmark, 87.3% for Finland and 88.5% for Sweden)and trade union density (66.9% for Denmark, 69.3% forFinland and 68.6% for Sweden) reflect the strength ofthis dimension. The same applies when analysingindicators measuring employee participation andinfluence at company level. In Denmark, 80% ofworkplaces have some form of official employeerepresentation body, compared to 70% in Finland and54% in Sweden (against the EU average of 32%).Moreover, in all three, employee participation providesmechanisms for consultation rather than mereprovision of information.

Regarding social justice, values for the Nordic countriesreflect a better situation than the EU averages in most ofthe indicators (such as the at-risk-of-poverty rate,in-work poverty rate, ratio of women to men inemployment and Gini coefficient). This situation isconfirmed by the EU Social Justice Index developed byBertelsmann Stiftung (2016): Sweden, Finland andDenmark occupy the three first positions. Thesecountries are embedded in a traditional social–democratic welfare state, with universal rights andwelfare provisions in several fields, favouring a high rateof social mobility in comparative terms. A commonfeature of these countries is therefore related to theactive and principal role that the government plays instriving for social justice. The Swedish contribution

notes how affordable childcare and an extensiveparental leave scheme have been effective in decreasingthe gender pay gap (from 17% in 2008 to 14% in 2014).However, the gender pay gap in Sweden (mean 2008–2015), as well as in Denmark and Finland, remainsabove the EU average as a result of the high femaleemployment rates, combined with intense and markedgender segregation in the labour market. The Swedishcontribution also notes that, as reflected in theindicators, the system has been less successful when itcomes to fostering the labour market integration ofyoung people (the youth unemployment rate is 12.2%,compared to an EU average of 8%).

Sweden records lower scores than Denmark and Finlandin some of the quality of work and employmentindicators. Indeed, this is the dimension where many ofthe indicators for Sweden record values that are veryclose to the EU averages (examples include involuntarytemporary employment and excessive working time),findings that are assessed to be accurate. The Finnishcontribution stresses the high rates of involuntarytemporary employment there (66.9%, as compared to59% in the EU). According to the nationalcorrespondent, the figure in Finland is higher than thatin France, the Netherlands and Sweden, all of whichhave a higher share of temporary contracts, accordingto Eurostat. This disparity is probably explained bypermanent full-time employment being the standard inthe Finnish labour market, and social security being tosome extent tied to this standard (Hiilamo et al, 2012).As far as Denmark is concerned, the indicators reflect


The EU Social Justice Index developed by Bertelsmann Stiftung (2016) understands social justice to be a guidingprinciple for a participatory society. This definition presupposes that the state must take an active role, with aview to promoting a sustainable social market economy, able to combine the principles of market efficiency withthose of social justice. Bearing this in mind, the index addresses those areas of policy that are particularlyimportant for developing individual capabilities and opportunities for participation in society: povertyprevention; access to education; labour market inclusion; social cohesion and non-discrimination; health; andintergenerational justice. It comprises 28 quantitative and 8 qualitative indicators. The quantitative indicators arebased on data collected primarily by Eurostat and the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions(EU-SILC). The qualitative indicators reflect the evaluations provided by more than 100 experts responding to theSocial Justice Index survey of the state of affairs in various policy areas throughout the OECD and the EU.Indicators are aggregated for use in the index following different statistical and technical methods. The indexenables EU Member States to be ranked.

The Social Justice Index cannot be compared directly with the Eurofound dashboard; this is due to obviousmethodological differences and the fact that the Social Justice Index takes into consideration dimensions andindicators that are not covered by the Eurofound dashboard (such as intergenerational justice). Nonetheless, itcan be useful to assess the reliability of outcomes obtained by the Eurofound dashboard by looking at howMembers States generally fare on the Social Justice Index. A comparison between index values and thestandardised and aggregated values of the social justice indicators included in the Eurofound dashboard revealsthat scores compare well in most of the Member States. Indeed, in only seven Member States are relatively strongdeviations between the Eurofound dashboard and the Social Justice Index found. These are Cyprus (highestdeviation), the Czech Republic, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Slovenia and Slovakia.

Box 1: Eurofound dashboard versus EU Social Justice Index

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good overall quality of work and employment, withmost of the indicators recording values above the EUaverages (for example, in relation to low pay incidence,involuntary temporary employment, job security andlifelong learning); this is in line with comparativeresearch findings (Muñoz de Bustillo et al, 2011).

Regarding industrial competitiveness, the highperformance of the Nordic countries, as reflected by theselected indicators, is in line with findings from therelevant literature. In the World Economic Forum’sannual country competitiveness list (2016), onlyGermany and the Netherlands, among the EU countries,rank better than the three Nordic countries. Finland’sstrengths are explained, among other aspects, by itslong-term investment in infrastructure, highereducation, computer literacy and anti-corruption.By contrast, productivity, growth, innovation andentrepreneurship deteriorated distinctly in Finland in2008–2015. Since 2015, economic policy has focusedstrongly on improving these indicators, though this hasyet to show an effect through the indicators. High scoresfor Sweden are related to the low impact of theeconomic crisis there, which started in 2008. Althoughthe recession did affect Swedish exports, the labourmarket recovered fairly quickly compared to manyother Member States. In addition, its historically highemployment rate, with one of the highest female labourforce participation rates in the world, alongsiderelatively low corruption levels and a universal andgood-quality education system, contribute to thispicture.

Figure 3 presents the radar charts for the Nordiccountries. As explained in Chapter 1, aggregated valuesby dimension were calculated as an additional tool toselect and test the indicators. The radar chart shows theresults obtained for each dimension, including the EUaverage as a reference. Each chart provides a visualinput for mapping the national industrial systemsagainst the four dimensions regarding the extent towhich the industrial system encompasses the fourdimensions in a balanced way. Although these chartshave proven useful in analysing results, it should bestressed that they have to be taken with a degree ofcaution. In this study, aggregation has been ananalytical tool. Creating a composite index withaggregated values to measure and compare dimensionsand countries requires further conceptual discussionand additional statistical techniques.

Centre-west cluster

The Centre-west countries (Austria, Belgium, Germany,Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Slovenia) are moreheterogeneous than the Nordic countries. Regardingindustrial democracy, a consolidated social partnershipin these countries leads to relatively high scores, abovethe EU averages. Performance in industrialcompetitiveness is also higher than the EU average in

Results from the application of the conceptual framework

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most of the countries concerned, and better outcomesin terms of social justice and quality of work andemployment are achieved. A hallmark of most of thesecountries is a capacity to combine a high level economiccompetitiveness with good levels of social justice andquality of work and employment.

Industrial democracy is well developed in most of theCentre-west countries. In Austria, upward deviation inthe values of most of the indicators for industrialdemocracy compared to the EU averages is explainedby the country’s well-developed system of socialpartnership, with strong corporatism (Eurofound, 2000;Pernicka and Hefler, 2014), high bargaining coverage(Bönisch, 2008) and a high degree of trust in employeerepresentation bodies (Stadler, 2017). In Belgium, theindicators for industrial democracy show, in line withnational literature and research, high andabove-average figures on the collective bargaining andorganisational dimensions. But compared to theco-determination systems of countries such asGermany, the participation of the employeerepresentation body in the workplace is somewhatlower (Van Gyes and De Spiegelaere, 2015). In Slovenia,the indicators show that, despite some changes (see thesection ‘Findings from the national contributions’ inChapter 2), unions are still quite influential, recording atrade union density close to the EU average andembedded in an inclusive collective bargaining systemthat records a coverage rate above the EU average(73.8% compared to 51%), thereby being a crucialinstrument within the regulation of the neo-corporatistinstitutional arrangement present in this country(Stanojevic and Kanjuo Mrcela, 2014). Germany andLuxembourg also show values above the EU averages inmost of the industrial democracy indicators.

As far as social justice is concerned, the Austriancontribution points out that the relatively positiveoutcomes recorded in most of the indicators are in linewith findings of comparative studies (BertelsmannStiftung, 2016). The national correspondents forBelgium assess that most indicators (such as thein-work-poverty rate, Gini coefficient and gender paygap) reflect better outcomes in terms of social cohesionand equality than the EU averages, offering a picture inline with the relevant research findings. In this regard,they note that Belgium has survived the recent financialand economic crisis rather well. The fall in economicgrowth was limited, with the welfare state and otherautomatic stabilisers acting as important buffers.Belgium is among the few OECD countries that have notseen growing income inequalities. Moreover, Belgiummaintains just about the most compressed wagedistribution in the capitalist world – including one of thesmallest gender pay gaps – and there is also littleevidence of increasing precariousness in the world ofwork (Marx and Van Cant, 2017). Interestingly, Marx and

Van Cant (2017) find that this positive picture is relatedto the strongly developed and organised system ofsocial concertation. The same applies to Slovenia,where the comparatively better scores recorded forseveral indicators is explained as the result of the‘competitive corporatism’ or ‘competitive solidarity’(Rhodes, 1998) in the past (as well as socialism in themore remote past).

Regarding quality of work and employment, theAustrian contribution notes that the situation portrayedis consistent with other studies (Eichmann, 2011), aswell as OECD data (2014), reflecting an overall positiveperformance, with the exception of indicators related tothe reconciliation of working and non-working life. Thepicture for Belgium also reflects good overall quality ofwork and employment (higher unemploymentprotection coverage, lower incidence of low pay andless unsocial working time compared to the EUaverages), and this is also assessed as being in line withrelevant research findings on the topic (Szekér et al,2017). The national contributions from Luxembourg andGermany also express overall agreement with thepicture reflected by the quality of work andemployment indicators, although the Germancontribution stresses some problematic aspects, suchas a high incidence of low pay, which is related toconcerns about atypical employment forms. Sloveniarecords values lower than the EU averages in severalindicators (excessive working time and unsocialworking time), as highlighted in the nationalcontribution. These outcomes are explained bypressures on labour, which are correlated with theconstant growth of labour productivity despite the greatdrop in GDP recently recorded.

In relation to industrial competitiveness, thecontribution from Austria highlights differencesbetween outcomes for this country and the EU averagesin several indicators, though this is not as pronouncedas it is in other dimensions, which relates to thecountry’s poorer economic performance in recent years(European Commission, 2014; BMVFW, 2016). Thecontribution from Belgium notes that this countryoccupies a middle-rank position in Europe and has inrecent years obtained stable, though moderate,improvements in this regard, as the selected indicatorsillustrate. This is also confirmed by the ranking ofBelgium in the World Economic Forum’s annual countrycompetitiveness list (2016). Finally, the nationalcontribution from Luxembourg notes that it recordsbetter values than the EU averages in most of theindicators within this dimension, which is partlyexplained by a culture of consensus aiming to combinecompetitiveness with quality of work and employmentthrough strong collective bargaining institutions andtools (both formal and informal) (Vassil and Patrick,2016).


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Figure 4: Radar charts for the Centre-west industrial relations regimes

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South cluster

The selected indicators show some diversity across thefive countries included in the South cluster (France,Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain). Overall, in thesecountries, performance across the four dimensionstends to be worse than the EU averages; this differenceappears to be more pronounced in the industrialcompetitiveness and quality of work and employmentdimensions. Some differences are found, however,across dimensions and between countries.

In relation to industrial democracy, several of thesecountries record values lower than the EU averagesacross most of the indicators (notably Portugal, but alsoGreece and Italy). At the same time, Spain and Francerecord positive values in some indicators, clearly abovethe EU averages (such as collective bargainingcoverage), and values below the EU averages in others(such as trade union density). The Spanish contributionpoints out that high collective bargaining coverage,which coexists with relatively low trade union density, isexplained by the state’s role in the governance andregulation of employment and industrial relations. InSpain, the state has a prominent function in thepromotion of collective bargaining through differentprovisions such as extension mechanisms and the ultra-activity principle, which, until a recent reform,guaranteed the continuation of collective agreementsbeyond their expiry date. Moreover, state coordinationand intervention is perceived by the social partners,especially the trade unions, as a precondition foreffective and democratic industrial relations (MartínezLucio, 2016). The set of indicators gives a reasonablyreliable picture of industrial democracy in Greece,according to the national contribution. The countryrecords a bargaining coverage above the EU average(62% compared to 51%) in a context characterised bycomparatively weaker trade unions. As with Spain, thishas been ensured by the state’s strongly interventionistrole in industrial relations, aiming, at least in the past,to foster and support collective bargaining (Molina,2014). The situation in Italy depicted by the indicators,especially with regard to employee representation inthe workplace, where the country comes below the EUaverage, is fully representative of the actual industrialrelations system, according to the nationalcontribution. It notes that in this country, employeerepresentation in the workplace is not widespread:research by Istat shows that these bodies are present in12.1% of companies, while the National Economic and

Labour Council (Consiglio Nazionale dell’Economia edel Lavoro, CNEL) found them in 11.8% of companies.The presence of employee representation increaseswith company size. In Portugal, comparatively lowvalues recorded on most of the industrial democracyindicators reflect structural conditions in some cases –specifically, low trade union density and an extremelylow proportion of workplaces with employeerepresentative structures. Others – lower collectivebargaining coverage than the EU average – areexplained by reforms to the legal framework ofcollective bargaining put in place with theMemorandum of Understanding (since 2012), which, inconjunction with the economic crisis, has provoked theerosion of sectoral collective bargaining (Campos Lima,2016).

With regard to the other three dimensions (socialjustice, industrial competitiveness, and quality of workand employment), the Spanish contribution finds thatthe indicators provide an approximate picture of theindustrial relations system, roughly in line with relevantacademic literature that has analysed the Spanishsystem through similar concepts, such as theemployment model or social employment regime (Lopeet al, 2010; Prieto, 2014). Both the indicators andfindings of academic literature suggest that the Spanishsystem is not managing to achieve a reasonable level ofcompetitiveness, one that is close to the mostcompetitive European economies; for several indicatorsit falls below the EU averages. In particular, it is failingto achieve acceptable levels of social justice and goodoverall quality of work and employment, as shown byindicators such as the at-risk-of-poverty rate, the in-work poverty rate, the gender pay gap and the rate ofinvoluntary temporary employment.

The assessment for Greece with regard to industrialcompetitiveness is that the data and indicators largelyreflect the current picture, characterised by very poorcompetitive performance, as confirmed by the WorldEconomic Forum’s annual Global CompetitivenessIndex (GCI) (2016), which ranks Greece at 86 out of 138countries. Values are also much worse than the EUaverages regarding most of the social justice indicators(such as in-work poverty and the Gini coefficient); this isin line with the EU Social Justice Index (2016), in whichGreece ranks last among all the EU countries. The sameapplies to the quality of work and employmentindicators of involuntary temporary employment andunsocial working time.


27

The national contribution for Italy highlights that thiscountry, as shown by data provided on industrialcompetitiveness and confirmed by the relevantliterature, is much less competitive than the EU averageand grows at a slower pace. It also highlights the lowlevel of investment in R&D, which is exacerbated by thenegative dynamics of the economic cycle. Theindicators are judged to grasp the social justicedimension adequately, highlighting problems in termsof achieving social cohesion and equality (with a higherin-work poverty rate and Gini coefficient, for example).The situation regarding quality of work andemployment is also considered to be well representedby the indicators, which show low unemploymentprotection coverage, a relatively high incidence of lowpay, a high rate of involuntary temporary employmentand a high degree of unsocial working time, comparedto the EU averages.

The Portuguese contribution notes that the dataprovided reflects, in line with the relevant literature,that country’s low performance in industrialcompetitiveness, social justice, and quality of work and

employment. In terms of industrial competitiveness,low values on several indicators (such as GDP growthper capita and percentage of individuals with a highlevel of education) are the result of complex and diversefactors, including long-term developments, patterns ofcompetitiveness and productive specialisation inlabour-intensive industries in traditional sectors, and along-standing deficit in education provision. Regardingsocial justice and quality of work and employment,attention is drawn to an austerity policy and acorrelated approach of internal devaluation ofcompetitiveness. According to the national contributionand the literature, this approach subordinated socialjustice and quality of work and employment to fiscalconsolidation, public deficit reduction, downwardswage flexibility and unit labour cost reduction(Hespanha and Caleira, 2017). As a result, several socialjustice and quality of work and employment indicatorsshow a worse performance than the EU averages; theseinclude the in-work poverty rate, the youthunemployment ratio, and the rate of involuntarytemporary employment.


The World Economic Forum defines competitiveness as ‘the set of institutions, policies, and factors thatdetermine the level of productivity of an economy, which in turn sets the level of prosperity that the country canachieve’ (World Economic Forum, 2016, p. 4). Based on this definition, since 2005 the World Economic Forum haspublished the annual Global Competitiveness Index (GCI). The GCI combines 114 indicators, which are groupedinto 12 pillars: institutions; infrastructure; macroeconomic environment; health and primary education; highereducation and training; goods market efficiency; labour market efficiency; financial market development;technological readiness; market size; business sophistication; and innovation. These pillars are organised intothree sub-indexes: basic requirements; efficiency enhancers; and innovation and sophistication factors. The threesub-indexes are given different weights in the calculation of the overall index, depending on each economy’sstage of development, as proxied by its GDP per capita and the share of exports represented by raw materials.

The GCI cannot be compared directly with the Eurofound dashboard due to obvious methodological differencesbetween the two, and also because the GCI takes into consideration many more dimensions and indicators thanthe Eurofound dashboard. Nonetheless, it can be useful to assess the reliability of outcomes obtained by theEurofound dashboard by looking at how Members States generally fare on the GCI. A comparison of GCI valuesand the standardised and aggregated values of industrial competitiveness indicators included in the Eurofounddashboard reveals that scores compare well in most EU Member States. There are nine EU Member States whererelatively strong deviations are found: Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Latvia, Slovakia, Cyprus, Malta,Poland and Italy.

Box 2: Eurofound dashboard versus the World Economic Forum’sGlobal Competitiveness Index

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Figure 5: Radar charts for the South regimes

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West cluster

Overall, countries within the West cluster (Cyprus,Ireland, Malta and the UK) record values close to the EUaverage in terms of industrial democracy, below the EUaverage regarding industrial competitiveness and abovethe EU average in relation to quality of work andemployment and social justice. However, differencesacross countries are observed.

With regards to industrial democracy, Cyprus recordsvalues above the EU averages (in relation to trade uniondensity, employer organisation density and employeerepresentation in the workplace) or slightly below theEU averages in several indicators (collective bargainingcoverage and participation of the employeerepresentation body in the workplace). This reflects anindustrial relations system with a relativelywell-consolidated industrial democracy, althoughindicators may not capture the wide variety ofsituations that occur across sectors, a point stressed inthe national contribution. In Ireland, too, severalindicators record values that are above the EU averages(trade union density and employer organisationdensity) or close to the EU average (participation of anemployee representation body at the workplace), whileothers, notably collective bargaining coverage, fallbelow it. In Malta, several indicators record high andabove-average figures compared to the EU averages(trade union density and collective bargainingcoverage). According to the national correspondent’sassessment, lower values recorded in indicatorsmeasuring industrial democracy at the workplace level(such as employee representation in the workplace)reflect the legacy of the Anglo-Saxon model of Britishlaw in Malta. In line with this model, the shop steward,appointed or nominated by the union, acts as the soleemployee representative in the workplace, as there areno statutory institutions for worker participation at thislevel. In the UK, performance regarding industrialdemocracy is below the EU average, as reflected in mostof the indicators (for example, trade union density,collective bargaining coverage and employeerepresentation in the workplace). This reflects, to someextent, a divergence regarding the countries included inthis cluster. However, it is worth noting that in the UK,some indicators measuring employee participation inthe workplace are close to or slightly below the EUaverage (such as direct employee influence indecision-making in the workplace). This last aspect wasquestioned by the national correspondent arising fromto conflicting findings in the relevant literature, asdiscussed in the section ‘Findings from the nationalcontributions’ in Chapter 2.

With regards to the remaining three dimensions(industrial competitiveness, social justice, and quality ofwork and employment), the national contribution fromCyprus explains that this country scores lower than theEU averages in most of the industrial competitivenessindicators, reflecting that country’s relatively low

employment rate, relatively medium–low performancein corruption and infrastructure, and very lowperformance in terms of R&D personnel and funding.Regarding social justice, a mixed picture appears,showing negative elements associated with equality ofoutcomes, as reflected in the high percentage of peopleat risk of poverty and social exclusion, the high genderpay gap and the high youth unemployment rate(Ioannou and Sonan, 2016), combined with somepositive outcomes in terms of equality of opportunities(the relatively low rate of early school-leavers). Withrespect to the quality of work and employmentdimension, Cyprus ranks slightly below the EU averageson several indicators. The indicators with the mostnegative values are the high incidence of low pay andthe very high rate of involuntary temporaryemployment. These outcomes are explained by thebroader deterioration of labour market conditions,which was exacerbated during the economic crisis(Ioannou, 2014). In addition, Cyprus’s scores aresignificantly below the EU averages in relation toreconciliation of working and non-working time,particularly as regards excessive working time and thefemale-to-male ratio of time devoted to unpaid work.

In Ireland, several indicators reflect an industrialcompetitiveness performance that is better than the EUaverages; this relates to factors such as GDP growth,employment rate, percentage of individuals with a highlevel of education, and R&D expenditure as apercentage of GDP. This positive picture (even if thenational correspondent qualifies it regarding particularindicators, see the section ‘Findings from the nationalcontributions’ in Chapter 2) is to some extent in linewith that presented by the World Economic Forum’sannual country competitiveness list (2016), whichplaced Ireland in a high-ranking position (11th amongthe EU countries). Regarding social justice, a mixedpicture emerges. For instance, in terms of socialcohesion, Ireland shows a high poverty rate but acomparatively low in-work poverty rate, while in termsof equality of outcomes, it performs above the EUaverage for the Gini coefficient but below it for thelong-term unemployment rate and the youthunemployment ratio. This is to some extent in line withthe EU Social Justice Index (2016), in which Irelandranks slightly below the EU average (at 18th out of 28 EUcountries). Regarding quality of work and employment,Ireland records negative values in indicators such asincidence of low pay, which, as noted by the nationalcorrespondent, may indicate, when compared withbetter Gini coefficient outcomes, that Ireland has ahighly unequal distribution of income from the market(for example, wages, salaries and profits), which ismasked by social transfers.


30

The contribution from Malta provides an overall positiveassessment of industrial competitiveness, quality ofwork and employment, and social justice. In terms ofquality of work and employment, it scores lower thanthe EU average for incidence of low pay, while at thesame time, scores are better for career prospects.Regarding social justice, the national contributionexplains that overall positive outcomes on severalindicators compared to the EU averages are a result ofpolicy measures. For instance, following initiativestaken by Jobsplus, the national employment serviceagency, the rate of early school-leavers dropped to19.8%; over the previous four years (2012–2016), therewas of drop of 2.9% overall. There is also a persistentlow rate of long-term unemployment, which reached arecord low of 2.4% in 2015.

The UK performs slightly more positively than the EUaverages on several indicators for industrialcompetitiveness (such as employment rate, percentageof individuals with a high level of education, percentage

of R&D personnel, and R&D expenditure as a percentageof GDP). It is worth noting that the World EconomicForum’s annual country competitiveness list (2016)ranks the UK as the fourth most competitive country inthe world. A slightly better performance is also recordedon several quality of work and employment indicators,based on workers’ subjective perceptions (job securityand income development, for example). However, theUK records values lower than the EU averages onseveral of the remaining quality of work andemployment indicators (low pay incidence, excessiveworking time and unsocial working time). Regardingsocial justice, a mixed picture appears, with someindicators showing good performance (such as thefemale-to-male employment ratio and the long-termunemployment rate), while others record values lowerthan the EU averages, notably those measuring equalityof opportunities (early leavers from education andtraining) and outcomes (the Gini coefficient and theyouth unemployment ratio).


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Figure 6: Radar charts for the West regimes

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Centre-east cluster

In the Centre-east countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, theCzech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania,Poland, Romania and Slovakia), most of the indicatorsfor the four dimensions record values below the EUaverages, although some differences occur across thesecountries.

With regard to industrial democracy, most show lowperformance. The national contribution from Bulgariafinds that results showing values below the EU averagesfor trade union density, collective bargaining coverageand employee representation at the workplace are inline with academic literature, revealing that industrialdemocracy in Bulgaria is behind European standards(Delteil and Kirov, 2016). In terms of employerorganisation density and some indicators measuringindustrial democracy at workplace level, it recordsvalues close to the EU averages.

The indicators for industrial democracy from the CzechRepublic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland andSlovakia show values below the EU averages, except insome that measure industrial democracy at workplacelevel, which are at the EU average (such as directemployee participation in the workplace in the CzechRepublic) or above the EU average (such as employeerepresentation in the workplace in Estonia andLithuania). The contribution from the Czech Republicnotes that, within a national legal framework wheresocial partners are widely autonomous, they canparticipate in the governance of employmentrelationships and are able to influence decision-making,indicators show that such rights are used to a limitedextent (with collective bargaining coverage, collectivewage agreements and employee representation in theworkplace all coming in lower than the EU averages).The national contribution from Lithuania stresses thatall indicators included in the area of representation(trade union and employer organisation density,collective wage agreements and collective bargainingcoverage) are as much as five times lower in Lithuaniathan the EU averages. Industrial democracy in Lithuaniaclearly falls below EU standards.

In Hungary, all the indicators for industrial democracyrecord values below the EU averages, showing lowperformance in this dimension. They reflect theweakness of social partner organisations (especiallytrade unions), very low collective bargaining coverageand ineffective worker participation at the workplacelevel. This reveals, as noted by the nationalcorrespondent, dissatisfaction among workerrepresentatives regarding the lack of meaningfulconsultation; in reality, ‘consultation’ often means onlythe provision of information.

By contrast, Croatia and Romania show values close toor above the EU averages for several indicators. ForCroatia, several indicators measuring representation(trade union density, employer organisation density andcollective bargaining coverage) and participation at theworkplace level (direct employee participation in theworkplace and participation of the employeerepresentation body at the workplace) are slightlyabove the EU averages. The national contribution fromRomania points out that, as indicators for industrialdemocracy in that country are not available beyond2013, the available data cannot show relevant changesassociated with the effects of social dialogue and labourlegislation reform enacted in 2011 (Guga, 2016; Trif,2015). Bearing this in mind, existing data show that thiscountry records values above the EU averages in termsof trade union density and collective bargainingcoverage. With regards to the indicators onparticipation at the workplace level, they show thatRomania performs well due to a legislative frameworkthat sets a legal obligation on employers in companieswith fewer than 20 employees to consult and informemployees, and on those with more than 20 employeesto have an employee representative, although inpractice the exercise of these rights may be more formalthan substantive.

Regarding industrial competitiveness, social justice, andquality of work and employment, the Bulgarian nationalcontribution highlights that the results show lowperformance in industrial competitiveness; increasinginequality alongside reduced risk of poverty and in-work poverty (social justice); and alarming results interms of job security (quality of work and employment).

The contribution from the Czech Republic finds that theindicators for social justice and industrialcompetitiveness capture that country’s situation well.The country’s performance on several social justiceindicators is significantly better than the EU averages.This is confirmed, for instance, by the EU Social JusticeIndex, where the Czech Republic occupies the fourthhighest position among EU countries. According to thenational correspondent, a relatively small share of lowwages and few low-wage traps combined with aneffective system of social transfers (benefits and taxation)are the main reasons for the country’s low in-workpoverty rate. In addition, the Czech Republic has alwaysranked among the EU countries with the lowestearly-school-leaver rates and is well below the 10% targetset in the Europe 2020 strategy. The national target hasbeen set at a maximum 5.5% of young people leaving theeducation system early, which means maintaining thecurrent situation. Conversely, the Czech Republicperforms below the averages in several indicators forindustrial competitiveness, reflecting a comparativelyworse situation in some crucial fields such as investmentin R&D, although the World Economic Forum’s annualcountry competitiveness list (2016) ranks the CzechRepublic 13th among EU countries.


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The contribution from Estonia notes higher scores thanneighbouring countries in several indicators forindustrial competitiveness, for example employmentrate (which is above the EU average), high level ofeducation (also above the EU average) and survival ofnew enterprises. The indicators mentioned areimportant in national policy and reflect comparativelygood industrial competitiveness performance. This is inline with the World Economic Forum’s annual countrycompetitiveness list (2016), where Estonia is ranked12th among EU countries. Regarding quality of workand employment, few indicators show a lowerperformance than the EU averages. The main negativefeatures, compared to the EU averages, relate toincidence of low pay, income development, careerprospects, and the proportion of employees sufferingfrom depression or anxiety. These problems have beenacknowledged at national policy level, and somemeasures have been launched to tackle them:promoting upskilling among employees andunemployed people; promoting lifelong learning;income tax reform to increase the incomes of low-earners; and discussions on the system of occupationalhealth and safety.

The Croatian contribution mostly notes that industrialcompetitiveness, social justice, and quality of work andemployment indicators offer an accurate picture of thenational situation. Overall, this country performs belowthe EU averages in several indicators of the threedimensions.

In Hungary, most of the indicators suggest lowerperformance than the EU averages on industrialcompetitiveness, social justice, and quality of work andemployment. The social justice indicators whereHungary performs at the level of the EU averages are: in-work poverty, gender pay gap, and early school-leaving.In relation to quality of work and employment, thecountry achieves the EU averages for the involuntarytemporary employment and working time indicators.

The national contribution from Lithuania finds that thesocial justice indicators reflect a poorer situationcompared to the EU as a whole in relation to the risk ofpoverty or social exclusion, in-work poverty, long-termunemployment and the Gini coefficient. Regardingquality of work and employment, most of the indicatorsrecord values lower than the EU averages(unemployment protection coverage, low-payincidence, job security, income development, career

prospects, depression or anxiety, and lifelong learning).By contrast, several industrial competitivenessindicators show a performance close to or above the EUaverages, including GDP growth per capita,employment rate, incidence of corruption andpercentage of individuals with a high level of education.This is, to some extent, in line with the World EconomicForum’s annual country competitiveness list (2016),where Lithuania is placed in a middle-ranking position(14th within the EU countries).

For Slovakia, most of the indicators for industrialcompetitiveness, social justice, and, in particular,quality of work and employment record values lowerthan the EU averages.

The Polish national contribution states that theindicators for industrial competitiveness, social justice,and quality of work and employment provide anaccurate picture. Overall, this country shows valuesindicating a poorer performance in industrialcompetitiveness and quality of work and employmentthan in social justice, where several indicators reflectpositive outcomes compared to the EU averages. Theseinclude the female-to-male employment ratio, thegender pay gap, the ratio of older to non-older peopleemployment rate, the rate of early leavers fromeducation and training, and the long-termunemployment rate. This is consistent with the EUSocial Justice Index (2016), where Poland is ranked14th.

The national contribution from Romania points out thatthe industrial competitiveness indicators and valuescorrectly reflect the competitiveness approach followedin the last 25 years; this consists of a mix of policiesaiming to attract foreign investors and combining thepolicy of a low-wage labour force with fiscal incentivesto attract foreign investments (ICCV, 2017). Othercomponents, such as investments in education, R&Dand infrastructure were largely neglected, leading tothis country’s very low ranking of 22nd within the EUcountries in the World Economic Forum’s annualcountry competitiveness list (2016). In terms of qualityof work and employment and social justice, mostindicators reflect poor performance compared to the EUaverages.

For Slovakia, most of the industrial competitiveness,social justice, and quality of work and employmentindicators record values lower than the EU averages.


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Lessons from a dynamicperspectiveApplication of a dynamic perspective (how the valuesevolve in the period considered) had limitations, asseveral indicators were not available for the time series.This is especially the case for industrial democracy,where only 4 out of the 11 indicators are available: thosepertaining to the subdimension of representation (tradeunion density, employer organisation density, collectivewage agreements and collective bargaining coverage).Notwithstanding these limitations, some interestingtrends are discussed and contrasted with the relevantliterature.

Dynamic perspective on the Nordic cluster

Analysis of the indicators (mostly by the nationalcorrespondents) shows that in the Nordic countries,industrial democracy has remained stable in recentyears, with even a slight improvement in someindicators, such as collective bargaining coverage,which is relatively pronounced in Finland (rising by 8%between 2008 and 2015).

Some indicators of quality of work and employment andsocial justice capture the changes. In Sweden, the datashow a substantial increase in job security, which mayreflect the gradual recovery from the recession, but is tosome extent contradictory in light of the evolution inalternative indicators such as involuntary temporaryemployment, which rose from 2011 to 2014. In addition,a decrease in unemployment protection coverage isrecorded in Sweden. This last indicator shows a sharpdrop in Denmark, where it fell from 63% in 2008 to 40%in 2015. This trend is highlighted by Knudsen and Lind(2014), who note that it can be attributed to aweakening of trade unions, given the close connectionbetween trade unions and unemployment benefit fundsunder the Danish system, governed according to theso-called ‘Ghent system’. Regarding social justice inDemark, there was a relatively significant decrease inthe ratio of young to non-young people employmentrate, alongside a rise in the ratio of older to non-olderpeople employment rate.

In Finland, quality of work and employment and socialjustice have been under significant strain due toausterity measures. This shift is not fully reflected by the


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data, because the most significant cutbacks were madein 2015–2016. As a result, the indicators from 2008 to2015 reflect stability.

Overall, the analysis of the Nordic countries from adynamic perspective suggests that some dimensionssuch as industrial democracy are likely to be more staticthan others. It seems that industrial democracy in thesecountries, where the social partners have a high level ofautonomy, is more path-dependent and less subject tochange than social justice and quality of work andemployment, which may be modified to a greater extentby policy reforms that can be more easily implementedunilaterally. However, the results also call for furtherexploration of the relationship between thedeterioration recorded in some social justice indicatorsand trends in industrial democracy, as shown in theDanish case regarding unemployment protectioncoverage.

Dynamic perspective on the Centre-westcluster

As with the Nordic countries, the industrial democracykey dimension in the Centre-west regimes stayed muchmore stable than the other dimensions in most of thesecountries. Only Slovenia reported long-term trends thatcan have an effect on industrial democracy, related, tosome extent, to the decline of the ‘competitivecorporatism’ system (Stanojević and Kanjuo Mrcela,2014). This is reflected in a fall in trade union density(from 26% in 2008 to 21% in 2013) and, especially,employer organisation density and collective bargainingcoverage (from 92% in 2008 to 65% in 2013). The drop incollective bargaining coverage is explained by the factthat collective agreements are now concluded for fixedterms, while in the past they were in force for anindefinite period. Regarding employer organisationdensity, the drop is a result of deregulation. In 2006, anew law transformed the Chamber of Commerce andIndustry from a compulsory organisation into avoluntary interest organisation. In 2013, the Chamber ofCraft and Small Business was also transformed into avoluntary organisation. These changes resulted in thecreation of many new employer organisations and in adecline in membership, as explained by the nationalcorrespondent. In other countries, such as Luxembourg,tripartite social dialogue collapsed after 2010, whichcan have direct negative effects on industrialdemocracy, although this is not articulated due to thelack of indicators on this issue.

In terms of social justice, some countries report that theindicators enable the observation of a deterioration.This is especially the case for Germany, where thebiggest changes took place in this dimension. Positivetrends, such as a decline in youth unemployment and,in particular, a rise in the ratio of older to non-olderpeople employment rate, occurred alongside negative

trends, mainly associated with an increase in in-workpoverty. Such trends are, according to the nationalcorrespondent, accurately captured by these indicators.Slovenia has performed better on the social justiceindicators than the EU averages, though itsperformance deteriorated during the economic crisis,and, as other researchers have pointed out, economicrecovery did not bring expected improvements (Dragošand Leskošek, 2016). Perturbingly, research findingsdraw attention to rising rates of in-work poverty andlong-term unemployment (Dragoš and Leskošek, 2016).The most pronounced negative change, however, isrecorded in the young to non-young peopleemployment ratio, which shows a significant decrease.In Austria, performance has improved regarding severalindicators (such as ratio of women to men employmentrate and the gender pay gap), partly as a result ofmeasures that have been implemented in recent years,while it has worsened regarding others (for example,long-term and youth unemployment).

Regarding quality of work and employment, theAustrian contribution notes that a mixed pictureemerges from the data, with performance improving forsome indicators (such as involuntary temporaryemployment, income development, career prospects,excessive working hours, unsocial working time andupskilling) and deteriorating for others (such asunemployment protection coverage and depression oranxiety). The contribution for Belgium points out that,based on the data, limited changes occurred over timein relation to job quality. Exceptions were somenegative trends regarding unemployment protectioncoverage and the percentage of employees sufferingfrom depression or anxiety, and positive trends forworkers’ perception of income development.

Some national contributions (Austria, Belgium andSlovenia) stress that, based on the indicators provided,some positive developments occurred regardingindustrial competitiveness, in line with the nationalanalysis. In particular, substantial improvements wererecorded regarding the percentage of individuals with ahigh level of education in Luxembourg and thepercentage of individuals with at least a medium level ofinternet skills in Belgium.

Dynamic perspective on the South cluster

In contrast to the Centre-west and Nordic countries,Member States in the South cluster highlight changesrelated to industrial democracy, some of which areconsidered to be insufficiently captured by theindicators (see the section ‘Findings from the nationalcontributions’ in Chapter 2). In Greece, the maindevelopments in industrial democracy have been asignificant reduction in the number of collectiveagreements and a decrease in the collective bargainingcoverage rate (which fell by 25% between 2008 and


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2015). In Portugal, industrial democracy was alsonegatively affected in terms of collective bargainingcoverage and trade union density. By contrast, theindicators in this dimension for Spain, France and Italyshow a greater level of stability.

With regard to social justice, all the South clustercountries agree with the picture painted by theindicators, which shows a deterioration in thisdimension. The Spanish contribution observes, basedon the indicators, a deterioration of social cohesion andnon-discrimination, alongside an increase in the risk ofpoverty and social exclusion, in-work poverty and thegender pay gap. In terms of labour market inclusion, theindicators suggest a slight improvement for women andolder people and a worsening situation for non-nativesand, especially, young people. As far as equality isconcerned, the indicators portray a relativeimprovement in terms of opportunities, with a decreasein the proportion of early leavers from education andtraining (-23%), but a clear decline in terms of outcomes(increases in unemployment and the Gini coefficient).In Greece, there has been a significant increase in therisk of poverty and social exclusion, as well as a largeincrease in youth unemployment and long-termunemployment. In Portugal, the worst developmentsare recorded in the social justice dimension, with anincrease in the risk of poverty and social exclusion,in-work poverty, the gender pay gap, long-termunemployment and youth unemployment. Italy also hasnegative developments on this dimension; the nationalcontribution finds that the data paint an alarmingpicture regarding poverty and social exclusion, thoughslight improvements are recorded in 2015 in terms ofthe youth unemployment ratio and the long-termunemployment rate.

With regard to quality of work and employment, thedata suggest an overall negative evolution, which is inline with the national analyses. In Spain, in relation tocareer and employment security, the data indicate thatunemployment benefit coverage has decreased and jobsecurity has weakened (with an increase in bothinvoluntary temporary employment and the percentageof people who think they might lose their job in the nextsix months). A negative evolution is also suggestedregarding health and well-being, as well as with skillsdevelopments and, to a lesser extent, reconciliation ofworking and non-working life. The contribution fromGreece highlights that the most important issue thereconcerns decreasing unemployment protectioncoverage. In Portugal, conditions regardingemployment security and career deteriorated in termsof unemployment protection coverage, involuntarytemporary employment (which reached 85.1%), andexcessive and unsocial working time.

A mixed picture emerges regarding industrialcompetitiveness. The national contributions from Italy,Portugal and Spain explain that the data show apositive evolution since 2012–2013 in relation to several

indicators. Nevertheless, from 2008 to 2015, all theSouth cluster countries except France recordednegative GDP growth per capita. Moreover, employmentrates decreased in this period in all these countries.In Portugal and Spain, there was also a decrease in R&Dexpenditure as a percentage of GDP. Greece highlights avery significant decrease in GDP growth per capita andthe employment rate, despite policies beingimplemented that aimed to improve competitivenessand foster employment through reducing labour costsand making the labour market more flexible.

Dynamic perspective on the West cluster

Different trends are observed across the countries in theWest cluster. A negative evolution in industrialdemocracy is found in Cyprus and the UK in terms ofcollective bargaining coverage and trade union density.The UK national contribution notes that collective wageagreements have fallen even further, according tonational sources. In Ireland, a substantial reduction wasalso recorded in the percentage of workplaces withcollective wage agreements, though the data also showa slight increase in trade union density. Malta recordspositive trends in industrial democracy with regards totrade union density and collective bargaining coverage.The Maltese national contribution notes that this trendhas been confirmed by empirical national studies(Centre for Labour Studies, 2015).

With regard to social justice, the most negative changesrecorded in Cyprus are: an increasing proportion ofpeople at risk of poverty and social exclusion and in-work poverty; an expansion of long-termunemployment; and an increase in the Gini coefficient.These trends are directly attributed to the economicdepression and the austerity policies that wereimplemented. The national contribution from Irelandhighlights negative trends in relation to the at-risk-of-poverty indicator, a problem that was discussedextensively in national debates. Figures provided showa consistent deterioration up to 2012, followed by agradual, if uneven, improvement. Malta’s nationalcontribution notes that the repercussions of the 2008financial and economic crisis were mild there incomparison to other European countries. Nevertheless,negative outcomes are observed in several indicators,such as the increasing proportion of people at risk ofpoverty and the decrease in the ratio of young to non-young people employment rates. In the UK, negativetrends include an increase in the at-risk-of-poverty andthe in-work poverty rates, a decrease in the ratio ofyoung to non-young people employment rate, anincrease in the old-age dependency ratio, and anincrease in the Gini coefficient.

Cyprus experienced some negative developmentsregarding quality of work and employment, specifically,decreases in unemployment protection coverage, jobsecurity and income development. These changes areattributed to the deterioration of labour market


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conditions during the crisis and the austerity measuresthat followed. In Ireland, many of the indicators showan improvement on the values recorded in previousyears; according to the national correspondent, theypoint to an improving economy. In Malta, the overallpositive trend is attributed to the more productive andhigher-skilled jobs created in the service sector.By contrast, the national contribution from the UK notesthat the relatively good picture that emerges regardingthe quality of work and employment indicators (thedecrease in low pay incidence, the improvedassessment of income developments and careerprospects, and the decrease in unsocial working time)does not correspond well with evidence in the literatureof an expansion of insecure work, low-quality jobs andgrowing wealth inequality (see the section ‘Selecting apreliminary set of indicators’ in Chapter 2).

In relation to industrial competitiveness, the nationalcontribution from Cyprus identifies a drop in theemployment rate as the most important change to haveoccurred in this dimension. It is also worth noting thesharp overall decrease in the GDP growth per capita inthe period analysed. Moreover, it points out that theausterity framework has resulted in a freeze ininfrastructural improvements, resulting in the decliningcompetitiveness of Cyprus’s infrastructure. In Malta,there has been a noticeable improvement in manyindicators, such as GDP growth per capita, theemployment rate and the proportion of those with ahigher level of education. The employment rate, in spiteof consistent increases, has still not reached the EUaverage. In the UK, the positive trend associated withthe increase in the numbers of people with a higherlevel of education (up by 16.7% over 2008–2015) isnuanced. According to the national correspondent, theUK has a highly bifurcated skill structure, where asubstantial number of people have no or low-level skills(Bosch, 2017). Focusing on the numbers with a highlevel of education overshadows this.

Dynamic perspective on the Centre-eastcluster

Converging and diverging trends are observed acrossMember States in the Centre-east cluster. All of thesecountries record trends that negatively affect industrialdemocracy. With the exception of the Czech Republic,all record a drop in collective bargaining coverage, allbut Bulgaria record a decrease in trade union density,and all but Poland record a drop in the percentage ofworkplaces with collective wage agreements. Finally,three countries (Bulgaria, Croatia and Slovakia) record adecrease in the employer organisation density. Somecountries (notably Hungary) report that the actual levelof deterioration may have been more pronounced thansuggested by the indicators (see the section ‘Findingsfrom the national contributions’ in Chapter 2).

With regard to social justice, the national contributionfrom Estonia stresses that there have been no realdevelopments here; for some indicators (like the genderpay gap), the lack of improvement is an issue of realsocial concern, as has been acknowledged, to someextent, in national policy debates.

In Croatia, the data show both positive trends in socialjustice (regarding the at-risk-of-poverty and the in-workpoverty rates), as well as negative trends (regarding thelong-term unemployment rate and the youthunemployment ratio). In Lithuania, the indicators give amixed account of changes in social justice. However, alldevelopments related to the labour market werepositive when comparing the crisis period with the post-crisis period. Relevant indicators here are: the youthunemployment ratio, ratio of young to non-youngpeople employment rate, the in-work poverty rate, thegender pay gap, and rate of early leavers fromeducation and training. These positive developments,however, related more to positive economicdevelopments than to developments in the industrialrelations field. In Poland, positive developments insome of the social justice indicators (a shrinking of theat-risk-of-poverty rate and an improvement in theemployment rate among older people) occurredalongside a rise in long-term and youth unemployment,an issue often addressed in national policy debates.

The national contribution from Lithuania notes that themost significant changes during the period ofobservation were recorded in the quality of work andemployment dimension. Positive changes wererecorded across the majority of indicators:unemployment protection coverage, low-pay incidence,involuntary temporary employment, job security andexcessive working time. This trend is explained as aresult of improvements in the labour market and itsrecovery from the economic crisis.

In Poland, the quality of work and employmentdimension captures an improvement in indicatorsrelated to workers’ subjective perceptions: perceived‘good pay’ and prospects for career advancement. Dataon the more objective indicators, however, suggest thesituation is deteriorating (apart from the share ofemployees who usually work more than 48 hours perweek).

Finally, several countries assess changes in industrialcompetitiveness. According to the national contributionfor the Czech Republic, the most significant changesoccurred in this dimension. In 2014, there was a returnto economic growth, which led to an increase inemployment, new support for SMEs, increased spendingon R&D, and increases in the number ofnewly-established firms and overall investment activity.Estonia has also seen significant changes in thisdimension, associated with developments related to


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economic cycles during the period; for example, GDPreached pre-crisis levels. The national contributionsfrom Hungary, Lithuania and Poland acknowledge anoverall improvement in industrial competitiveness inline with the picture depicted by the indicators.The national contribution for Romania also recordedpositive developments here. In Slovakia, the most

important development concerned the resumption ofGDP growth following the crisis (since 2010); theincrease in R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP isalso significant. These represent, according to thenational correspondent, positive developments whichimprove the country’s competitiveness.


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This study has shown that a dashboard with indicatorsthat can accurately measure and summarise thecomplex reality of industrial relations across the EUMember States is a valuable tool for comparativeresearch and a useful instrument for supportingpolicymakers and social partners.

The study has provided a fine-tuned set of 45 indicatorsfor the four key dimensions of industrial relations withinthe conceptual framework developed by Eurofound:industrial democracy, industrial competitiveness, socialjustice, and quality of work and employment. Theindicators have been tested at national level and showreasonable accuracy when used to map thepredominant features and trends of the nationalindustrial relations systems. The database created forthis exercise compiles annual data for the period 2008–2015 from different European and international datasources (Eurofound, Eurostat, the ILO, the OECD, theWEF, the ETUI, the ICTWSS and TransparencyInternational).

This set of indicators and its application to the MemberStates has revealed substantial cross-countrydifferences – an issue of great interest for mutuallearning and comparison. The results are relativelyconsistent with the typology of industrial relationsregimes developed by Visser (2009): ‘organisedcorporatism’ in the Nordic countries; ‘socialpartnership’ in the Centre-west cluster; ‘state-centred’in the South cluster; a ‘liberal pluralism’ model in theWest cluster; and ‘transition economies’ (a ‘mixedmodel’) in the Centre-east cluster. As Visser (2009)recognises and the application of the set of indicatorsshows, the typology, as well as all the classifications, isonly an approximation to the reality of the countriesthat share common features. For instance, the UK doesnot share the same features in terms of industrialdemocracy as the other countries in the West cluster(Cyprus, Ireland and Malta); as reflected in most of theindicators of this dimension (including trade uniondensity, collective bargaining coverage and employeerepresentation at the workplace), the UK’s performanceis below the EU averages. In the South cluster, Italy’shigher trade union density rate distinguishes it fromFrance and Spain. And in the Centre-east cluster,Croatia and Romania differ from their neighboursinsofar as their trade union density rates and collectivebargaining coverage rates are above the EU averages.

The results illustrate how different Member States areevolving, highlighting important divergences acrosscountries and, to some extent, within the differentindustrial relations regimes. (This is despite somelimitations to the data; for instance, in terms ofindustrial democracy, only 4 of 14 indicators are

available for analysis over time.) In a context of growingdebate on the impact of the crisis on the industrialrelations systems of Europe, the consolidation of thistool could shed some light on such developments. It canbe used to systematically monitor and analyse theevolution of industrial relations systems in the yearsahead, helping to further explore how these systemsadapt to post-crisis times, as well as refreshing andimproving existing industrial relations typologies on thebasis of the Eurofound conceptual framework.

The study findings also provide a more nuancedunderstanding of the conceptual framework and itsdimensions. In the initial study, the framework wastested conceptually and politically among relevantstakeholders (Eurofound, 2016a). In the currentexercise, its application to analysis has been tested.Insights from Eurofound’s Network of EuropeanCorrespondents prove the consistency of and therelatively common agreement among experts on thevalidity of the conceptual framework based on the fourdimensions. It also reveals conceptual challenges thatshould be considered. These challenges are mostlyassociated with the complexity of constructing acomprehensive representation of an industrial relationssystem through the four dimensions. This partly relatesto the difficulties involved in relating the industrialrelations actors and processes to the outcomes of thedimensions, which, as in the case of industrialcompetitiveness, social justice, and quality of work andemployment, are also affected by other complex andvaried factors.

On a more specific level, the exercise has gathereduseful insights for improving the set of indicators,checking its accuracy and reliability, and consideringpotential alternative indicators. Regarding the lastissue, the study tested some alternative indicators,which, although grounded in research and consideredrelevant to understanding features of national industrialrelations systems, were found to generate results thatclearly conflicted with those from the scientificliterature and were therefore discarded. These findingsconfirm, to some extent, the soundness of thedashboard approach in applying the conceptualframework – the focus on selecting relevant indicatorsthat can depict the essential aspects of the industrialrelations systems, rather than collecting a great range ofindicators able to measure and articulate particularitiesof each system.

Additionally, the exercise has collected meaningfulinsights on how to move forward, in terms of furtherdeveloping the conceptual approach, improving the setof indicators, and using the results in the most effectiveway to contribute to a better collective and individual

4 Conclusions

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governance of work and employment. Based on thefindings of this study, several potential options toimprove the analysis and application of the Eurofoundconceptual framework based on the four dimensionscan be explored.

The first option would be to continue improving thecurrent dashboard. This would entail a critical review ofthe set of indicators, as well as their interrelation withthe four key dimensions, in order to strengthen theconceptual approach by trying to better relateindicators to industrial relations actors and processes.This further fine-tuning process should consider newindicators to cover gaps and discard conceptuallyproblematic indicators, which appear to contradictsome national analyses and research findings.Additionally, contextual indicators could be included,aimed at describing aspects that can contribute to thebetter understanding of the outcomes recorded in thedimensions – for instance, indicators relating to thelegal framework of industrial relations. Finally, thereliability of some indicators should be checked againstother sources.

The second option would be to explore replacing theindicators in some of the dimensions or subdimensionswith another set of indicators or index already built.This option would be especially pertinent for theindustrial competitiveness, quality of work andemployment, and social justice dimensions, whereseveral research institutions have already developedconsolidated indices in these fields. This would entailtesting the application of the conceptual framework tothe national industrial relations systems in Europeancountries using a set of indicators or indexes fromanother institution. The test should be aimed atassessing the consistency of the comparative resultsobtained and the coherence of the conceptualframework.

The third option would be to develop a compositeindicator for each key dimension to comprehensivelymeasure country performance across the fourdimensions. This would entail a revision of the set ofindicators as outlined above, as well as furtherconceptual and methodological work to ensureconceptual coherence and statistical consistency of thecomparative results.


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Boliver, V. and Byrne, D. (2013), ‘Social mobility: Thepolitics, the reality, the alternative’, Soundings: AJournal of Politics and Culture, Vol. 55, Winter 2013,pp. 50–59.

Bönisch, M. (2008), ‘Kollektivvertragliche Abdeckung inÖsterreich’, Statistische Nachrichten, No. 3, pp. 207–228.

Bosch, G. (2017), ‘Different national skills systems’, inWarhurst, C., Mayhew, K., Finegold, D. and Buchanan, J.(eds.), The Oxford handbook of skills and training, OxfordUniversity Press, Oxford.

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45

The final list of indicators for the four key dimensions ofindustrial relations is presented in Tables A1–A4. Withineach table, the indicators are grouped by dimensionand subdimension.

Sources are:

£ ECS (European Company Survey), Eurofound(https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/surveys/european-company-surveys)

£ EWCS (European Working Conditions Survey),Eurofound(https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/surveys/european-working-conditions-surveys)

£ Global Competitiveness Report(http://reports.weforum.org/global-competitiveness-report-2015-2016/)

£ ICTWSS (Database on Institutional Characteristicsof Trade Unions, Wage Setting, State Interventionand Social Pacts, 1960–2014)(http://uva-aias.net/en/ictwss)

£ Transparency International(https://www.transparency.org)

£ Eurostat and OECD: various surveys and sources.

Annex

Table A1: Industrial democracy indicators

Subdimension Indicator CodeSource (code in

source) DefinitionUnit of

measurement

Autonomy Time resources foremployeerepresentatives

TIMERES2 Eurofound, ECS(ECS-ER-2103 Q11,Q12)

Working time spent on duties ofemployee representative.

0 = I am not entitled to use myworking time.

1 = I am entitled to use adesignated number of hours/asmuch of my working time as isnecessary.

3 = I am a full-time employeerepresentative.

Points

Representation Trade union density ud ICTWSS, ILO(ICTWSS-ud)

Union density rate: net unionmembership as a proportion ofwage earners in employment(Num*100/WSEE).

WSEE: employed wage and salaryworkers.

Percentage

Employer organisationdensity

ud ICTWSS(ICTWSS-ed)

Employer organisation density, asproportion of wage earners inemployment (Num*100/WSEE).


Percentage

Collective wageagreements

COLLCOV Eurofound, ECS(ECS-MGT 2013ER12)

(ECS-MGT-2009MM450)

Percentage of workplaces withcollective wage agreements.

Percentage

Collective bargainingcoverage

Adjcov ICTWSS, ILO(ICTWSS-adjcov)

Adjusted bargaining coverage rate:proportion of all wage earnerswith right to bargaining,WCB*100/(WSEE-WSTAT), 0–100.

WCB: employees covered bycollective bargaining.


WSTAT: employees excluded fromcollective bargaining.

Percentage

http://uva-aias.net/en/ictwss

https://www.transparency.org

http://reports.weforum.org/global-competitiveness-report-2015-2016/

https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/surveys/european-company-surveys

https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/surveys/european-working-conditions-surveys

46


Subdimension Indicator CodeSource

(code in source) DefinitionUnit of

measurement

Participation Employeerepresentation at theworkplace

EMPREPR Eurofound, ECS(ECS-MGT-2013ERTYPE /ER1)

Percentage of workplaces with anyform of official employeerepresentation body.

Percentage

Direct employeeparticipation at theworkplace

EMPPART_MM Eurofound, ECS(ECS-MGT-2013EOc)

Evaluation done by management.Mean level:

No participation = 0

Information = 1

Consultation = 2

Co-determination = 3

Points

Direct employeeparticipation at theworkplace

EMPPART_ER Eurofound, ECS(ECS-ER-2013 Q34)

Evaluation done by employeerepresentative. Mean level:


Information = 1

Consultation = 2


Points

Participation of theemployeerepresentation body atthe workplace

ERPART_MM Eurofound, ECS(ECS-MGT-2013EOe)

Evaluation done by management.Mean level:


Information = 1

Consultation = 2


Points

Influence Direct employeeinfluence in decision-making at theworkplace

EMPINFLU Eurofound, ECS

(ECS-ER-2013 Q39)

Mean influence:

No influence = 1

Some influence = 2

Strong influence = 3

Points

Influence of theemployeerepresentation indecision-making at theworkplace

ERINFLU Eurofound, ECS

(ECS-ER-2013 Q38)

Mean influence:

No influence = 1

Some influence = 2

Strong influence = 3

Points

Table A2: Industrial competitiveness indicators



measurement

Productivity

and growth

GDP growth per capita nama_10_pc Eurostatnama_10_pc

Real GDP per capita, growth rate.

Percentage change on previousyear, € per inhabitant.

Percentage

Employment rate lfsa_ergan Eurostatlfsa_ergan

Ratio of 25–64-year-olds employedto the 25–64-year-old population.

Percentage

Market

stability and

efficiency

Incidence of corruption CorruptionIndex TransparencyInternational

Corruption Perceptions Index.A country’s score indicates theperceived level of public sectorcorruption on a scale of 0 (highlycorrupt) to 100 (very clean).

Points

Sophistication

of resources

Infrastructure ranking InfrastructureRank World EconomicForum (GlobalCompetitivenessReport)

Measures the competitiveness ininfrastructures from 1 (lowest) to 7(highest).

Points

Percentage ofindividuals with a highlevel of education

edat_lfse_03 Eurostatedat_lfse_03

Population aged 25–64 years withtertiary education (levels 5–8)attained as a percentage ofpopulation aged 25–64 years.

Percentage

47

Annex



measurement

Sophistication

of resources

(cont’d)

Percentage ofindividuals with at leasta medium level ofcomputer skills

isoc_sk_cskl_i Eurostatisoc_sk_cskl_i

Level of basic computer skills ismeasured using a self-assessmentapproach, where the respondentindicates whether they havecarried out specific tasks related tocomputer use, without these skillsbeing assessed, tested or actuallyobserved.

Six computer-related items wereused to group the respondentsaccording to level of computerskills in 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011 and2012: copy or move a file or folder;use copy and paste tools toduplicate or move informationwithin a document; use a basicarithmetic formula (add, subtract,multiply or divide) in aspreadsheet; compress files;connect and install new devices,e.g. a printer or a modem; write acomputer programme using aspecialised programminglanguage. Instead of the item onhaving connected and installednew devices, the 2005 surveyincluded an item on the use of amouse to launch programmessuch as an internet browser orword processor.

Medium level of basic computerskills: individuals who have carriedout three or four of the sixcomputer-related items.

Population considered: 25–64years.

Percentage

Percentage ofindividuals with at leastmedium level ofinternet skills

isoc_sk_iskl_i Eurostatisoc_sk_iskl_i

Level of internet skills aremeasured using a self-assessmentapproach, where the respondentindicates whether they havecarried out specific tasks related tointernet use, without these skillsbeing assessed, tested or actuallyobserved. Six internet-relateditems were used to group therespondents into levels of internetskills in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2011:use a search engine to findinformation; send an email withattached files; post messages tochatrooms, newsgroups or anyonline discussion forum; use theinternet to make telephone calls;use peer-to-peer file sharing forexchanging movies, music, etc.;create a web page.

Medium level of basic internetskills: individuals who have carriedout three or four of the sixinternet-related items.

Population considered: 25–64years.

Percentage

48




measurement

Innovation and

entrepreneurship

Percentage of R&Dpersonnel

rd_p_perslf Eurostatrd_p_perslf

Total R&D personnel as % of totalactive population.

Percentage

R&D expenditure as apercentage of GDP

rd_e_gerdtot Eurostatrd_e_gerdtot

Total intramural R&D expenditure(GERD) as a % of GDP.

Percentage

Percentage ofenterprises newly bornin t-2 having survivedto t

bd_9bd_sz_cl_r2 Eurostatbd_9bd_sz_cl_r2

Survival rate 2: number ofenterprises in the reference period(t) newly born in t-2 havingsurvived to t divided by thenumber of enterprise birth in t-2.

In the business demographycontext, survival occurs if anenterprise is active in terms ofemployment and/or turnover inthe year of birth and the followingyear(s). Two types of survival canbe distinguished:

1. An enterprise born in year xx isconsidered to have survived inyear xx+1 if it is active in terms ofturnover and/or employment inany part of year xx+1 (= survivalwithout changes).

2. An enterprise is also consideredto have survived if the linked legalunit(s) have ceased to be active,but their activity has been takenover by a new legal unit set upspecifically to take over the factorsof production of that enterprise(= survival by takeover).

Taken for: business economyexcept activities of holdingcompanies.

Percentage

Table A3: Social justice indicators



measurement

Social cohesion

and non-

discrimination

At risk of poverty orsocial exclusion rate

ilc_peps01 Eurostatilc_peps01

People at risk of poverty or socialexclusion as % of the totalpopulation.

Percentage

In-work poverty rate ilc_li04 Eurostatilc_li04

The share of employed personsaged 18 years or over with anequivalised disposable incomebelow the risk-of-povertythreshold, which is set at 60% ofthe national median equivaliseddisposable income (after socialtransfers). The share of employedpersons aged 18 years or over withan equivalised disposable incomebelow the risk-of-povertythreshold, which is set at 60% ofthe national median equivaliseddisposable income (after socialtransfers).

Percentage

Ratio of women to menemployment rate

lfsa_ergan_geg Eurostatlfsa_ergan

Employment rate of women as apercentage of employment rate ofmen (20–64 years).

Percentage

49

Annex



measurement

Social cohesion

and non-

discrimination

(cont’d)

Gender pay gap earn_gr_gpgr2 Eurostatearn_gr_gpgr2

The unadjusted gender pay gap(GPG) represents the differencebetween average gross hourlyearnings of male paid employeesand of female paid employees as apercentage of average grosshourly earnings of male paidemployees. The populationconsists of all paid employees inenterprises with 10 employees ormore in NACE Rev. 2 aggregate Bto S (excluding O) – beforereference year 2008: NACE Rev. 1.1aggregate C to O (excluding L). TheGPG indicator is calculated withinthe framework of the datacollected according to themethodology of the Structure ofEarnings Survey (EC Regulation:530/1999). It replaces data whichwere based on non-harmonisedsources.

Percentage

Older to non-olderpeople employmentratio

lfsa_ergan_older Eurostatlfsa_ergan

Employment rate of older people(60–64 years) as a percentage ofemployment rate of non-olderpeople (15–59 years).

Percentage

Young to non-youngpeople employmentratio

lfsa_ergan_young Eurostatlfsa_ergan

Employment rate of young people(15–24 years) as a percentage ofemployment rate of non-youngpeople (25–64 years).

Percentage

Employment rate ofpeople with disabilities

hlth_dlm010 Eurostathlth_dlm010

It considers people with limitationin work caused by a healthcondition or difficulty in a basicactivity.

Age: 15–64 years.

Percentage

Equality of

opportunity

Early leavers fromeducation and training

edat_lfse_14 Eurostatedat_lfse_14

Percentage of the population aged18–24 years with at most lowersecondary education (ISCED 0, 1, 2or 3c short) and who were not infurther education or trainingduring the four weeks precedingthe survey.

Percentage

Old-age dependencyratio

demo_pjanind Eurostatdemo_pjanind

Ratio between the number ofpersons aged 65 and over (agewhen they are generallyeconomically inactive) and thenumber of persons aged between15 and 64. The value is expressedper 100 persons of working age(15–64).

Percentage

50




measurement

Equality of

outcome

Long-termunemployment rate

une_ltu_a Eurostatune_ltu_a

Number of long-term unemployedaged 15–74 years as a percentageof the active population of thesame age. Long-term unemployed(12 months and more) comprisepersons aged at least 15 years,who are not living in collectivehouseholds, who will be withoutwork during the next two weeks,who would be available to startwork within the next two weeksand who are seeking work (haveactively sought employment atsome time during the previousfour weeks or are not seeking a jobbecause they have already found ajob to start later). The total activepopulation (labour force) is thetotal number of the employed andunemployed population. Theduration of unemployment isdefined as the duration of a searchfor a job or as the period of timesince the last job was held (if thisperiod is shorter than the durationof the search for a job).

The annual average is taken.

Percentage

Youth unemploymentratio

yth_empl_140 Eurostatyth_empl_140

It includes all young people(between the ages of 15 and 24years, inclusive) who areunemployed. The youthunemployment ratio is thepercentage of unemployed youngpeople compared to the totalpopulation of that age group (notonly the active, but also theinactive such as students).

Percentage

Gini coefficient ilc_di12 Eurostatilc_di12

It is defined as the relationship ofcumulative shares of thepopulation arranged according tothe level of equivalised disposableincome, to the cumulative share ofthe equivalised total disposableincome received by them.

Scale from 0 to 100.

Points

51

Annex

Table A4: Quality of work and employment indicators



measurement

Career and

employment

security

Unemploymentprotection coverage

lfsa_ugadra Eurostatlfsa_ugadra

Percentage of unemployed(registered) from 6 to 11 months(20–64 years) receivingunemploymentbenefits/assistance.

Percentage

Low pay incidence earn_ses_pub1s Eurostatearn_ses_pub1s

Low-wage earners as a proportionof all employees (excludingapprentices).

Low-wage earners are defined asthose employees (excludingapprentices) earning two-thirds orless of the national median grosshourly earnings in that particularcountry.

Percentage

Involuntary temporaryemployment

lfsa_etgar Eurostatlfsa_etgar

Percentage of employees aged 15–64 years who report as mainreason for being in temporaryemployment that they could notfind permanent job, as apercentage of total employment.

The indicator is based on the EULabour Force Survey.

Percentage

Job security JOBSEC Eurofound, EWCS2015_q89g2010_Q77A

Percentage of employees whothink they might lose their job inthe next six months.

Percentage

Income development WELLPAID EWCS2015_q89a2010_Q77B

Percentage of employees whothink they are well paid for the jobthey do.

Percentage

Career prospects CAREERPROSP Eurofound, EWCS2015_q89b2010_Q77C

Percentage of employees whothink their job does offer goodprospects for career advancement.

Percentage

Health and

well-being

Subjective workplacewell-being

SWB Eurofound, ECWS2015_q882010_Q76

Percentage of employees who aresatisfied or very satisfied with theirworking conditions.

Percentage

Depression or anxiety ANXIETY Eurofound, ECWS2015_q78h(modified trend)2010_Q69K(modified trend)

Percentage of employees sufferingfrom depression or anxiety.

Percentage

Reconciliation

of working and

non-working

life

Excessive working time More48h ILO Percentage of employees whousually work more than 48 hoursper week.

Percentage

Unsocial working time lfsa_esegatyp Eurostatlfsa_esegatyp

Employment at atypical workingtime (such as nights, weekends) asa percentage of the totalemployment.

Percentage

Ratio of women to menhours spent on unpaidwork

UNPAIDWORK Eurofound, EWCS2015_Q96C,D,E

Time (minutes) per day thatwomen (15–64 years) spend onunpaid work (care and cookingactivities) as a percentage of timespent by men.

Percentage

52




measurement

Skills

development

Skills development trng_lfse_01 Eurostattrng_lfse_01

Lifelong learning refers to personsaged 25–64 years who stated thatthey received education ortraining in the four weekspreceding the survey (numerator).The denominator consists of thetotal population of the same agegroup, excluding those who didnot answer to the question onparticipation.

Percentage

EF/17/55

TJ-0

2-1

8-0

22-E

N-N

ISBN: 978-92-897-1625-3

doi:10.2806/366245

Eurofound’s 2016 report Mapping key dimensions ofindustrial relations identified four key dimensions

of industrial relations: industrial democracy,

industrial competitiveness, social justice, and

quality of work and employment. This report builds

upon that earlier study, developing a dashboard of

45 indicators to assess how and to what extent the

conceptual framework of these key dimensions can

be applied at national level. The indicators were

tested across the Member States by Eurofound’s

Network of European Correspondents and show

reasonable accuracy when used to map the

predominant features and trends of the national

industrial relations systems. The study confirms

that a dashboard of indicators that can accurately

measure and summarise the complex reality of

industrial relations across the EU is a valuable tool

for comparative research and a useful instrument

for supporting policymakers, social partners and

stakeholders. The report sets out a range of

options for further developing this conceptual

approach.

The European Foundation for the Improvement of

Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) is a

tripartite European Union Agency, whose role is

to provide knowledge in the area of social,

employment and work-related policies.

Eurofound was established in 1975 by Council

Regulation (EEC) No. 1365/75, to contribute to the

planning and design of better living and working

conditions in Europe.

Documents

Mapping varieties of industrial relations: Eurofound’s analytical … · 2018. 2. 1. · Eurofound project: Application of the conceptual framework on key dimensions in industrial