Decentralisation of collective bargaining has been one of the key trends concerning labour market regulation of the last decades. Most of European countries have developed – with different breath and scope – procedures and reforms to strengthen the company level of bargaining. 

Countries with an intermediate degree of centralisation can achieve better employment and inflation results by pursuing greater decentralisation of wage setting (through collective bargaining). Additionally, in the presence of productivity differentials across industries and regions, decentralisation can make wages responsive to these differences.

This webinar with Marc De Vos (Visiting Fellow Itinera and Dean Macquary University Sidney) and Daniel Pérez del Prado (PhD. Associate Professor at the Department of Social and International Law of Carlos III University of Madrid) focuses on the cases of four Mediterranean countries – France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal – in order to assess how decentralisation has been carried out and, most importantly, what kind of practical results have been achieved.

Or read the paper, with a Dutch and French summary: https://www.itinerainstitute.org/nl/artikel/sociaal-overleg-2/