European Research Collective Bargaining

Industrial relation，the most basic social relation in market economy，directlyaffects the harmony and stability of the entire national economy and society. The corequestion in Industrial relation is how to distribute the benefit between workers andemployers. Therefore，to distinguish the ways of wage decision becomes a naturalstarting point.In Europe，the way of wage decision mainly relies on collective bargaining inmany countries，but the developments of collective bargaining in these countries arevary：it is determined by employers alone，and workers are in a state of perfectcompetition in some countries，such as the UK；it is determined by trade unions andemployers through negotiations，where freedom and lawful trade union exist in somecountries，such as Germany；it is decided by the central government negotiations，wherethe power of the unions is very strong and the attitude of the management to labor isrelatively mild in others，such as Sweden. In order to understand the collectivebargaining better and summarize the experiences and lessons，this thesis focuses on thefollowing three contents：First of all，the thesis comprehensively investigates the historical process of thecollective bargaining in Europe，taking the commercialization and decommercializationof the labor as the clue. The thesis sums it up as “three stages and two inflectionpoints”，“three stages” means the formation，development and decline；“two inflectionpoints” means the transformation from individual to collective bargaining negotiationsduring the late19th century and early20th century，and the transformation fromcollective bargaining to individual negotiation in the late1970s. The thesis strives tosummarize the experiences and lessons of the European collective bargaining from thefacts and evidence，to improve the integrity and systematic understanding of it.Secondly，the thesis carries on a thoroughly analysis on some current situationswhich have taken place in Europe since the financial crisis in2008. By comparing thecompetitive wages，tax wedge，parties，and so on，the thesis confirms that collectivebargaining does not necessarily results in wages increase，welfare improvement and taxdecrease. On the contrary，the crisis leads to a trend of commercialization of the laborII force，including sobriety wages，reduced benefits and tax increases，etc. It is overturnedthe traditional understanding that the rise in wages and welfare necessarily goes after acollective bargaining.At last，the thesis compares the differences between China and Europe in thedevelopment of collective bargaining， then points out that the degree of laborcommercialization is the driving force to the development of collective bargaining，andcollective bargaining gradually appeared in the process of labor“decommercialization”.European labor commercialization degree gradually has declined since the beginning ofthe20th century，which would be the root cause of easing the labor disputes. While inChina，the labor commercialization degree has increased significantly since reform andopening up，we witness a rapidly increase in labor conflicts in inevitably trend. So itneeds us to pay more attention to labor protection mechanism，especially a collectivebargaining mechanism，otherwise，once the labor and social protection mechanism arenot sound，the society is likely to be thrown into chaos and instability.