Co-operation and negotiations during the economic crisis

Authors

  • Steen E. Navrbjerg
  • Trine P. Larsen

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7146/tfa.v17i3.108998

Abstract

This article examines how the relations between management and shop stewards have been affected by economic crises by analysing and comparing social partners’ joint actions in companies highly affected, less affected and not affected by economic crises. The article reveals that the management-employee relations – defined as the level of trust and the collaboration between management and shop stewards – generally speaking remain unaffected by economic crises. However, when digging deeper, the article reveals that the relations between management and shop stewards often become more tense when the company faces economic difficulties. The article also suggests that management-employee relations play a more significant role regarding the involvement of shop stewards in dismissals than when handling wage freezes and/ or cutbacks at company level. This difference seems to relate to how dismissals and wage bargaining are handled at company level. Wage regulations are typically negotiated through a company based bargaining system, where shop stewards have significant influence. By contrast, dismissals are typically handled by the co-operation committees, where shop stewards have no legal rights to be involved in the decisionmaking process regarding dismissals; shop stewards only have to be informed about mass redundancies. This difference appears to affect the way social partners have approached dismissals and wage freezes and cutbacks at company level, where the management-employee relations seem to play a more central role when the institutional setting entail no legal requirement for employee involvement.

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Published

2015-09-01

How to Cite

Navrbjerg, S. E., & Larsen, T. P. (2015). Co-operation and negotiations during the economic crisis. Tidsskrift for Arbejdsliv, 17(3), 29–47. https://doi.org/10.7146/tfa.v17i3.108998