Collective agreement coverage

Collective agreement coverage or union representation refers to the proportion of people in a country population whose terms and conditions at work are made by collective bargaining, between an employer and a trade union, rather than by individual contracts. This is invariably higher than the union membership rate, because collective agreements almost always protect non-members in a unionised workplace. This means that, rather than individuals who have weaker bargaining power representing themselves in negotiations, people organise to represent each other together when negotiating for better pay and conditions in their workplace. The number of people who are covered by collective agreements is higher than the number of union members (or the "union density" rate), and in many cases substantially higher, because when trade unions make collective agreements they aim to cover everyone at work, even those who have not necessarily joined for membership.

Causes

The causes of higher or lower collective bargaining coverage are widely debated. Common causes are often identified as including the following:

  • whether a jurisdiction encourages sectoral collective bargaining (higher coverage) or enterprise bargaining (lower coverage)
  • whether collective agreements to create a closed shop or allow automatic enrollment in union membership are lawful
  • whether laws on collective bargaining and strikes are more or less favourable
  • whether the government, for instance through a Ministry or Department of Labour, actively promotes collective agreement coverage with a power to impose terms if employers refuse to bargain with the workforce
  • whether a country enables collective agreements to be extended by government regulations to all workers when the coverage rate reaches a majority in a sector, or similar level

By country
Collective bargaining coverage in OECD countries[1]
Country Collective bargaining coverage (%) Year
 Australia 60.0 2016
 Austria 98.0 2017
 Belgium 96.0 2017
 Canada 28.1 2017
 Chile 19.6 2016
 Czech Republic 30.4 2016
 Denmark 82.0 2016
 Estonia 18.6 2015
 Finland 89.3 2015
 France 98.5 2014
 Germany 56.0 2016
 Greece 25.5 2016
 Hungary 22.8 2014
 Iceland 92.0 2016
 Ireland 32.5 2014
 Israel 26.1 2012
 Italy 80.0 2015
 Japan 16.5 2017
 Latvia 13.8 2016
 Lithuania 7.1 2015
 Luxembourg 59.0 2017
 Mexico 13.8 2012
 Netherlands 77.6 2017
 New Zealand 15.9 2016
 Norway 72.5 2014
OECD average[lower-alpha 1] 32.4 2017
 Poland 17.2 2015
 Portugal 73.9 2016
 Slovakia 25.0 2016
 Slovenia 70.9 2016
 South Korea 13.1 2016
 Spain 83.6 2016
 Sweden 90.0 2016
  Switzerland 57.9 2016
 Turkey 7.0 2016
 United Kingdom 26.0 2017
 United States 11.6 2017
  1. estimated value

Sweden

Collective agreement coverage in Sweden was in 2017 90% of all employees (in the private sector 83%, in the public sector 100%).[2] [3] In 2017 union density was 69% (64% in the private sector, 79% in the public sector).

United States

In the United States in 2015 there were 14.8m union members, and 16.4m people covered by collective bargaining or union representation. Union membership was 7.4% in private sector, but 39% in the public sector. In the five largest states, California has 15.9% union membership, Texas 4.5%, Florida 6.8%, New York 24.7% (the highest in the country), and Illinois had 15.2%.[4]


See also

Notes
  1. OECD Statistics. "Collective bargaining coverage". stats.oecd.org. Retrieved 2018-10-02.
  2. Anders Kjellberg (2019) Kollektivavtalens täckningsgrad samt organisationsgraden hos arbetsgivarförbund och fackförbund, Department of Sociology, Lund University. Studies in Social Policy, Industrial Relations, Working Life and Mobility. Research Reports 2019:1, Appendix 3 (in English) Table F
  3. Anders Kjellberg (2019) "Sweden: collective bargaining under the industry norm" Archived 2019-07-25 at the Wayback Machine, in Torsten Müller & Kurt Vandaele & Jeremy Waddington (eds.) Collective bargaining in Europe: towards an endgame, European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) Brussels 2019. Vol. III (pp. 583-604)
  4. See Bureau of Labor Statistics, ‘Union Members – 2015’ (28 January 2016)

References
  • Hamburger, 'The Extension of Collective Agreements to Cover Entire Trade and Industries' (1939) 40 International Labor Review 153
  • Methods of Collaboration between Public Authorities, Workers' Organizations, and Employers' Organizations (International Labour Conference, 1940) p. 112
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.