Jelle Visser , Wetenschappelijk Directeur AIAS:
The mismatch between macro and micro in labour market institutions-diluting status and customizing contracts
Abstract:
There are several developments that suggest a growing mismatch between macro institutions and micro behaviour in the labour market. The growing representation gap of trade unions and formal labour and social security law; the increased tension between collective bargaining and contractual behaviour in the firm, and between macro social dialogue and human resource management indicate that the apparent stability of the major institutions (unions, labour and social security law, collective bargaining, employee representation rights) is just a surface hiding "gradual but transformative" changes in actual behaviour in markets and firms. In this paper the direction of these changes is analysed as a development in which status rights are diluted and contracts customized. Of this development we will encounter various examples, varying from the increased use of opening and choice clauses in collective agreements to recent changes in legislation on working hours and atypical employment. The direction of these changes, it is suggested, reveales a "state project" at modernisation of labour market behaviour and governance in which risks, costs and responsibilities are redefined and re-allocated, collective identities and rights are undermined, and market values and individual responsibiluty are furthered.
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