Comprehensive data on unions, employer organisations and collective bargaining is crucial to inform policymakers and monitor how labour relations are developing in different countries. The OECD/AIAS ICTWSS database provides detailed and comparable information on the evolving nature and scope of collective bargaining across 56 OECD and EU countries over 60 years. In particular, it provides precise, up-to-date and carefully documented data on the collective bargaining coverage rate, a key variable for monitoring the EU Directive on adequate minimum wage.
Collective bargaining and social dialogue
Collective bargaining and social dialogue are key labour rights and have the potential to make job markets more inclusive. As major demographic and technological changes are re-shaping the labour market, collective bargaining is well placed to generate solutions to emerging collective challenges. However, its capacity to deliver is threatened by the weakening of labour relations in many countries and changing employment trends.
Key messages
The digital transformation, globalisation and demographic changes are re-shaping the world of work, offering new job opportunities but also creating challenges for many workers to navigate these deep and rapid changes. The OECD flagship report Negotiating our way up provides key insights on the effect of collective bargaining systems on employment, job quality and labour market inclusiveness, and considers their renewed role in a changing world of work.
The Global Deal is a multi-stakeholder partnership of governments, businesses and employers’ organisations, trade unions, civil society and other organisations for the promotion of social dialogue and sound industrial relations as effective means for achieving decent work and inclusive growth.
The Global Deal enables knowledge sharing, facilitates policy discussions, strengthens the capacity of partners to engage in dialogue, and produces evidence-based research. As a unique action-oriented platform, the Global Deal accelerates positive change by encouraging partners to make voluntary commitments to advance social dialogue.
Context
Trade union density has been declining across OECD countries
Declining union density has been accompanied by a reduction of the share of workers covered by a collective agreement, which has shrunk by a quarter on average in OECD countries. There is significant variation between countries, with France and Italy having 98-100% of workers covered by a collective agreement in 2018, compared to less than 20% of workers in the United States and Japan. The OECD average stands at 32.1%.
Overall, collective bargaining coverage is only high and stable in countries with multi-employer agreements (i.e. agreements negotiated at sectoral or national level) and high employer association membership, or where agreements are extended to workers in non-signatory firms. In countries where collective agreements are signed mainly at firm level, coverage correlates strongly with trade union density.
Collective bargaining coverage differences across countries
Collective agreements can help companies and workers find tailored and ad hoc solutions to fairly share the cost of inflation, for instance by limiting wage increases in exchange for lump-sums and/or non-wage benefits.
Collective bargaining and listening to workers are key labour rights and have a clear impact on job quality. As the digital transformation, globalisation and demographic changes are re-shaping the labour market, collective bargaining is more important than ever in designing solutions to emerging collective challenges.
However, trade union density has been decreasing steadily across OECD countries for the last 40 years. When combined with the weakening of labour relations in many countries, this could threaten its potential to enable an inclusive and high-quality labour market in the future.
