Unions and Collective Bargaining in the Wake of the Great Recession: Evidence from Portugal

Addison, J.T.; Portugal, P.; Vilares, H.

doi:10.1111/bjir.12198

Unions and Collective Bargaining in the Wake of the Great Recession: Evidence from Portugal

Addison, J.T.; Portugal, P.; Vilares, H.

Authors

Professor John Addison john.addison@durham.ac.uk
Professor

P. Portugal

H. Vilares

Abstract

Against the backdrop of its industrial relations architecture, characteristic of the ‘southern European group’ and intimately linked to the recommendations of the Troika, this paper examines four key aspects of Portuguese collective bargaining. First, it provides definitive estimates of private sector union density for that nation. Second, it models the determinants of union density at firm level. Third, it yields estimates of the union wage gap for different ranges of union density. The final issue examined is contract coverage. The received notion that the pronounced reduction in the number of industry-wide agreements and extension ordinances of late is to be equated with a fall in coverage is shown to be a chimera, the number of workers covered by new and existing agreements remaining largely unaffected by the economic crisis. The reduced frequency of new agreements and extensions is instead attributed to downward nominal wage rigidity in low-inflation regimes.

Citation

Addison, J., Portugal, P., & Vilares, H. (2017). Unions and Collective Bargaining in the Wake of the Great Recession: Evidence from Portugal. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 55(3), 551-576. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12198

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Jun 7, 2016
Online Publication Date	Aug 24, 2016
Publication Date	Sep 1, 2017
Deposit Date	Jun 30, 2016
Publicly Available Date	Aug 24, 2018
Journal	British Journal of Industrial Relations
Print ISSN	0007-1080
Electronic ISSN	1467-8543
Publisher	Wiley
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	55
Issue	3
Pages	551-576
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12198
Public URL	https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1378521

Files

Accepted Journal Article (714 Kb)
PDF

Copyright Statement
This is the accepted version of the following article: Addison, J. T., Portugal, P. and Vilares, H. (2017), Unions and Collective Bargaining in the Wake of the Great Recession: Evidence from Portugal. British Journal of Industrial Relations. 55(3): 551-576, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12198. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.