Abstract
This article analyses the effects the crisis is having on collective bargaining processes, outcomes and institutions in national and sectoral negotiations in the Slovak Republic. It argues that the crisis has had no effect on the continuing demise of social partnership and on trade union marginalization at national level. At sectoral level, the crisis helped two highly organized sectors from the private and public domains of the Slovak economy – the metalworking and health care sectors – consolidate their bargaining institutions, though without bargaining outcomes improving trade union positions. Consolidation has been achieved through procedural changes to bargaining specific to each sector: intensified bargaining as a result of social partners’ common interest in anti-crisis employment measures in the metalworking sector; and the associational strength of trade unions and employer organizations despite escalating post-crisis wage disputes in the health care sector. Sector-level bargaining has thus contributed to a balanced recovery from the crisis more than national-level social dialogue.
Introduction
In the past 20 years, central and eastern European (CEE) countries have undergone major economic, political and societal changes. In Slovakia, the inflow of foreign investment brought with it economic growth and higher employment and a number of large foreign employers helped stabilize the Slovak bargaining system. However, the outbreak of the crisis in 2008 saw the established bargaining system coming under pressure as a result of the diverging interests of employers (employment flexibility), trade unions (employment security) and the government (employment stability). The aim of this article is to analyse how the crisis affected collective bargaining processes, substantive outcomes and institutions at national and sectoral levels.
The focus on national and sectoral levels is based on the contested national-level tripartism and the parallel sector-level bargaining in key economic sectors. Bohle and Greskovits (2012) argue that Slovakia has seen trade unions being gradually excluded from national-level policy-making. Other authors have characterized this pan-CEE trend as ‘illusory corporatism’ as, despite the formal existence of tripartite bodies, there has been no systematic trade union involvement in policy-making (Avdagic, 2005; Mailand and Due, 2004; Ost, 2000; ICTWSS database, 2011; Stein, 2002). However, empirical evidence from sector-level studies reveals that Slovakia has reasonably well-established bargaining coordination, with employers relatively well organized at sector level (Czíria, 2007, 2010; European Commission, 2013). 1 Sector-level bargaining is widespread in the public sector, including public health care, and in certain crucial private sectors, for instance the metalworking industry. The aim of this article is to reconcile these contrasting opinions and explore whether bargaining institutions, procedures and outcomes have evolved in a path-dependent way, or whether the crisis interrupted the gradual demise of the national-level social partnership while maintaining sector-level bargaining coordination.
The sectoral analysis focuses on two key sectors – metalworking (including electronics) and health care – representative of the private and public domains of the Slovak economy. The metalworking sector – and the automotive industry in particular – is strategically important for Slovakia’s economy and employment. With 106 automobiles per 1 000 residents, Slovakia became the world’s largest per capita producer of motor vehicles in 2007. 2 Due to its extensive ties with international markets, the sector is highly exposed to global economic downturns. Public health care has similarly been hit by the crisis, not however on account of market exposure, but instead on account of austerity measures and long-term reforms, creating divergent interests among health care employers and therefore posing a threat to coordinated bargaining. Despite differences in crisis exposure, the two sectors have in common a high rate of unionization and well-established sectoral bargaining coordination. It is therefore interesting to explore how the crisis influenced bargaining procedures, outcomes and institutions in these sectors.
Recent evidence suggests that social partnership in Slovakia played an important mediating role in the ‘balanced recovery’, helping to overcome the main effects of the crisis (Czíria, 2012). As a result, the crisis did not have any major impact on Slovak industrial relations (Czíria, 2012). However, this article argues that the ways the crisis affected bargaining are more complex, varying not only between national and sectoral levels but in particular between bargaining institutions, procedures and outcomes.
At national level, trade union dependence on political support only brought temporary improvements in bargaining outcomes (e.g. extensions of collective agreements without improved benefits, co-determination in company-level anti-crisis measures and involvement in Labour Code amendments such as the definition of ‘dependent work’). While labour’s participation in policy-making grew steadily weaker, formal tripartite institutions remained stable. Bargaining procedures improved with the introduction of the Council for Economic Crisis. However, this improvement turned out to be only temporary, with the Council being abolished just a few months later.
At sector level, the crisis did not undermine coordinated bargaining at all, instead contributing to its consolidation in both sectors. Instead of accelerated decentralization, bargaining institutions remained stable throughout the crisis, even if stability was maintained differently in each sector. In the metalworking sector, the social partners had a common interest in adopting anti-crisis employment measures and therefore remained committed to bargaining coordination instead of opting out of sectoral agreements. In health care, though the social partners lacked such common interest, bargaining remained stable due to the associational strength of unions and employer organizations. From an overall perspective, the main changes to bargaining procedures in the metalworking sector included bargaining intensification, while in the health care sector bargaining procedures remained subject to third-party mediation after the social partners failed to resolve their disputes. From an outcome perspective, trade unions were involved in adopting sector-specific anti-crisis measures especially in the metalworking sector. Although unions were in favour of these measures, they benefited employers more than employees. In sum, the crisis fuelled changes to sector-level bargaining procedures that helped consolidate bargaining institutions, but did not lead to any enhanced trade union position through improved bargaining outcomes.
The article’s findings draw on in-depth interviews and correspondence with social partners between 2009 and 2012 in the context of the GUSTO project funded by the Seventh Framework Programme of the EU and the European Commission-sponsored BARSORI project. The author conducted 19 interviews on recent changes to the contents of and procedures used in sectoral collective bargaining and national social dialogue. 3 Additional evidence originates from a written questionnaire on trade union action regarding precarious work (answered by KOZ SR’s vice-president), national/local media reports, statistical information and the ICTWSS database. 4 Czíria (2012) provided original evidence from a 2008 survey on social partners’ views on legislative changes to collective bargaining.
Industrial relations in Slovakia
Starting in the late 1990s, the Slovak economy has adopted wide-ranging reforms helping the country to achieve economic stability and employment growth. Economic growth peaked in 2007, with real GDP growing by 10.5 per cent. 5 Real wages increased on average by 3.8 per cent in 2007–2008. 6 This economic success was accompanied by radical welfare state restructuring that took place without any major opposition from the public or trade unions. Several reasons explain the lack of opposition: first, Slovak citizens were set on ‘catching up’ with their neighbours and were therefore willing to tolerate austerity (Bohle and Greskovits, 2012: 247). Secondly, citizens dissatisfied with restructuring lost interest in the already contested Slovak tripartism and opted for emigration and withdrawal from political participation, which fuelled the rise of populism (Meardi, 2012). The third reason was bargaining decentralization, accompanied by declining trade union density and weakening union power actively to engage in social dialogue concerning welfare state restructuring (see Figure 1). Since the late 1990s, the established hierarchy of social partners and bargaining institutions had been responsible for continuing sectoral bargaining in relevant sectors without regular pattern-setting and with only weak involvement of peak-level social partners (members of the Slovak tripartite committee). 7 With company-level bargaining becoming stronger, the enforceability of sector/industry agreements weakened and bargaining coverage systematically declined from 51 per cent in 2000 to 40 per cent in 2009 (see Figure 1). The reasons include the dramatic decline in net trade union density (from 67.29 per cent in 1993 to 17.7 per cent in 2008), a low level of employer organization (net employer organization density reached 29.2 per cent in 2008), and only limited use of statutory extension mechanisms to increase bargaining coverage. 8 Bargaining procedures and coverage vary across sectors, with some sectors being more widely covered by sectoral or multi-employer collective agreements (e.g. metalworking and health care), and other sectors with predominantly company/establishment-level bargaining (e.g. agriculture). Wages, employment security and working conditions are the most important bargaining issues (Czíria, 2012).
Union density and bargaining coverage trends*.
The crisis
The crisis interrupted Slovakia’s positive economic developments. After the 10.5 per cent peak in 2007, real GDP growth fell back to 5.8 per cent in 2008 and plummeted to –4.8 per cent in 2009 before recovering to 4.5 per cent in 2010. 9 Given the strong (automotive) industry orientation of the Slovak economy, the crisis hit production and the labour market most of all. Overall industrial production declined by 16 per cent between 2008 and 2009 (before fully recovering in 2010). 10
Such decline boosted company restructuring, with consequences for employment and collective bargaining. First, companies adjusted their production capacities through dismissals (external flexibility), thereby reversing the pre-2008 trend of declining unemployment. Unemployment grew from 9.5 per cent (2008) to 14.4 per cent (2010) (see Figure 2). Although reported collective dismissals increased in 2008 and 2009 (see Table 1), companies preferred piecemeal dismissals to mass redundancies. 11
Unemployment rate in Slovakia.
Collective dismissals in 2007–2010.
Source: Central Office of Labour, Social Affairs and Family (ÚPSVaR) (Czíria, 2012).
Secondly, a number of companies opted for working time adjustments and work reorganization (internal flexibility). Although the crisis prompted legislative changes to increase hiring/firing flexibility, large companies preferred training their core workforce rather than dismissing them (Czíria, 2012). Temporary agency work dropped from 55 377 (2008) to 37 074 (2009) employees and continues to decline. 12 The share of part-time employment in total employment also declined. Thirdly, the crisis slowed down wage growth – whereas real wages increased by 3.3 per cent in 2008, growth dropped to 1.4 per cent in 2009 before slightly recovering in 2010 (+2.2 per cent). 13
The government’s response to the crisis focused on stabilizing employment and stimulating consumption. The 2007 pre-crisis Labour Code amendment introduced the definition of ‘dependent employment’ and limits to extending fixed-term contracts. The government adopted over 60 anti-crisis policy measures, including state allowances to employers avoiding dismissals and temporary opt-outs from statutory social security contributions (Czíria, 2009a). The most important policy measures included temporary flextime accounts (flexikonto) and short-time working, both used predominantly in the automotive industry after 2009 (Czíria, 2012). Flextime accounts were first introduced at company level at Volkswagen Slovakia, before becoming the subject of sector-level bargaining and the 2009 Labour Code amendment. The introduction of such accounts is subject to trade union agreement. The aim of short-time working schemes was to avoid dismissals through shortening the working day or week.
The crisis and national-level collective bargaining
The pro-labour government (2006–2010) responsible for introducing the above anti-crisis measures also fostered social partner participation in policy-making, with the measures becoming subject to tripartite consultations within the Economic and Social Council (Hospodárska a sociálna rada, HSR). The social partners were also members of the Council for Economic Crisis, a new advisory body to the government (Czíria, 2010). Through their open cooperation with the leading political party, Smer, trade unions benefited in several ways, including co-determination on flextime accounts, the introduction of horizontal extensions to sectoral collective agreements and Labour Code amendments such as the definition of ‘dependent employment’.
The crisis therefore initially seemed to strengthen tripartite social dialogue in procedural terms. However, the Council for Economic Crisis was abolished in late 2009 and formal tripartite procedures reverted to their pre-crisis status. As regarded outcomes, the role of tripartism remained formal and trade union gains were temporary, dependent on the political situation and influenced by government action. With the government increasingly under the influence of the business lobby, this decline in union influence went hand-in-hand with an increase in employers’ bargaining power. Following the 2010 change of government the trade unions lost their political support and thus their influential position in national-level social dialogue. The new government abolished the erga omnes extension mechanism and introduced higher thresholds for trade union representation at company level.
In sum, while the crisis brought temporary gains to trade unions in terms of the outcomes of tripartite negotiations, these gains did not translate into any procedural or institutional strengthening of tripartism. We therefore support Bohle and Greskovits (2012) in arguing that labour is gradually being eased out of national-level policy-making, with even such an external shock as the economic crisis failing to halt this long-term trend.
The crisis and sector-level collective bargaining
Czíria (2012: 23–24) argues that sector-level bargaining procedures remained unchanged during the crisis, though the crisis worsened relations between the social partners, with wage setting being the most common reason for conflict. Compared to other CEE countries, Slovakia experienced the highest relative drops in post-crisis increases of collectively agreed base wages, with the 5.5 per cent average increase in 2009 dropping to 2.2 per cent in 2010. 14 Table 2 shows the average nominal wage increases (in company-level agreements) in selected sectors. In the metalworking sector, the largest drop occurred directly at the outset of the crisis in 2009 as production declined in response to the downturn in world markets. In the health care sector, the greatest drop was registered in 2010 as a result of the post-crisis austerity measures.
Average collectively agreed nominal wage increases (%).
* Including metallurgy; ** including the energy sector; *** including municipal services.
Source: Information System of Working Conditions (Informačný systém o pracovných podmienkach, ISPP) in Czíria (2012: 25).
While these are important findings, our analysis of the metalworking and health care sectors reveals changes to bargaining procedures in each sector. In metalworking, the crisis fuelled employers’ preferences for company-level solutions, though simultaneously encouraged bargaining coordination on feasible anti-crisis measures. The incentive for the social partners to coordinate bargaining thus restored sector-level bargaining. In health care, escalating wage disputes led to greater use of conflict settlement mechanisms in bargaining. Despite these differences, in both sectors we find path-dependent stability in established bargaining institutions.
Looking at bargaining outcomes, Czíria (2012: 24–25) reports wage moderation, work organization changes including fewer temporary/agency workers, redundancy pay, dispute resolution mechanisms and the use of flextime accounts and short-time working. Numbers of multi-employer and single-employer agreements only decreased slightly during 2008–2010. 15 However, our analysis again highlights sectoral differences. In metalworking, the social partners’ commitment to sectoral bargaining coordination produced consensus on the anti-crisis measures adopted. Although this favoured employers more than unions, unions welcomed their continued ability to conclude sector-level collective agreements. By contrast, the health care social partners were unable to reach consensus and bargaining outcomes ended up being settled through third-party mediation. These findings are based on the empirical evidence discussed below.
Bargaining in the metalworking sector
In 2008–2009, industrial production declined by 16 per cent as a result of declining exports. 16 Besides steel and electronics, the highly export-oriented manufacturing/automotive sector was hit most by the crisis, with its 20 per cent share in industrial production (2008) dropping somewhat in 2009. 17 The car manufacturers did not resort to any significant dismissals, instead giving priority to other anti-crisis measures such as flextime accounts and a ban on temporary agency work and fixed-term contracts (Czíria, 2009a).
The sector is well organized, with a single sector-level trade union, OZ KOVO, and several employer associations that bargain with OZ KOVO individually. The main long-term challenge to the sector is the decentralization of bargaining, fuelled by mergers/demergers among employer associations, legal changes and the state’s weak role in giving employers incentives to coordinate bargaining. Mergers/demergers have however also had a re-centralizing effect on the car industry. On demerging from other associations, ZAP SR for instance commissioned the Federation of Mechanical Engineering (Zväz strojárskeho priemyslu, ZSP) to bargain for the whole mechanical engineering sub-sector.
Despite the long-term trend towards decentralized bargaining, the crisis neither accelerated decentralization nor undermined sector-level bargaining institutions. It did however bring changes to bargaining procedures. As a result of employers’ rejection of horizontal extensions and their support for introducing stricter union representativeness criteria, OZ KOVO’s attitude towards employer associations worsened during the crisis (Czíria, 2012). Notwithstanding union dissatisfaction and employer desires to opt out of sectoral bargaining and adopt tailor-made anti-crisis measures, the social partners adopted a common position to negotiate anti-crisis measures aimed at guaranteeing employment stability for the skilled workforce. A number of employers focused on retaining their skilled workers, offering them more generous conditions temporarily to take advantage of flextime accounts or short-time working schemes. Others increased pressure on regular employees to accept short-time working. Finally, a few employers opted for dismissals of bogus self-employed and agency workers. With OZ KOVO open to tailor-made company arrangements, the conclusion of annual or biannual collective agreements continued without interruption.
Bargaining outcomes relate to the adoption of anti-crisis measures in all relevant sub-sectors: mechanical engineering, electronics and steel. Focusing here on mechanical engineering, the social partners signed an amendment to the 2008–2009 collective agreement, providing for short-time working, the use of flextime accounts and the payment of 60 per cent of wages on any lock-out. The 2010–2011 agreement saw the social partners again focusing on their anti-crisis strategy, this time including provisions jointly supporting legal changes aimed at lowering non-productive employer costs. 18 While earlier collective agreements did not include provisions on temporary employment, the 2010–2011 agreement stipulated that temporary contracts were not to be extended and that (bogus) self-employment was to be minimized. 19 On the initiative of the OZ KOVO, similar provisions were agreed in the 2010–2011 collective agreements for the electronic and steel sectors.
While these outcomes document the social partners’ efforts actively to use sector-level bargaining, the provisions tend to favour employers while also fuelling a parallel labour market, on the one hand protecting the skilled workforce, while on the other hand putting the burden of any decrease in production onto vulnerable and less unionized workers. This duality cannot however be attributed to failure on the part of the trade unions to protect ‘outsiders’, but instead to a deliberate strategy of both employers and OZ KOVO. 20
In sum, the crisis did not accelerate bargaining decentralization in the metalworking sector. Despite path-dependent developments and trade union dissatisfaction with employers’ support of anti-union legislative changes, coordinated bargaining continued throughout the crisis. Noteworthy changes occurred in bargaining procedures: the social partners’ common position on introducing anti-crisis measures brought with it a further incentive to strengthen bargaining coordination, and collective agreements containing anti-crisis provisions continued to be concluded without interruption. Bargaining intensified through employers’ and unions’ commitment to coordinate anti-crisis measures, consolidating the positions of sector-level bargaining institutions. Finally, bargaining outcomes embraced by both unions and employers are leading to a growing gap between a core skilled workforce (given the pre-crisis labour shortages) and employees in precarious jobs.
Health care sector bargaining
Until 2005, health care was covered by collective agreements for public services signed by national-level social partners. Since 2006, independent sector-specific bargaining applies to health care, with two sectoral trade unions directly negotiating multi-employer collective agreements with each of the four employer associations. Union density reached about 50 per cent and employer organization density about 80 per cent in 2006, making health care one of the best-organized sectors in the economy (Czíria, 2009b). Collective agreements cover about 95 per cent of public health care employees.
The effects the crisis had on public health care differ greatly from those in the metalworking sector. Instead of direct exposure to overemployment and production decreases, the crisis helped mitigate the pre-crisis labour shortages (Kaminska and Kahancová, 2011). On the other hand, the health care sector was hit by public sector austerity measures. With health insurance companies receiving reduced state funding from the state budget, budget constraints of public health care providers (especially smaller hospitals) increased. This situation escalated sector-level bargaining disputes, with the recurring focus on wage increases.
Despite these crisis-induced effects, established health care bargaining institutions remained stable. However, similar to the metalworking sector, noteworthy changes occurred in bargaining procedures, and it became increasingly difficult to conclude agreements after 2009 due to wage disputes. In the hospital sub-sector, unions concluded collective agreements with each of the two employer organizations in 2006 and amendments thereto in 2007 and 2008. Though the social partners bargained regularly in subsequent years, they failed to conclude any new agreement until mid-2012 when agreement was finally reached with the Association of Faculty Hospitals (AFN SR), though not with the Association of Hospitals of Slovakia (ANS). Between 2009 and 2012, all negotiations ended up going to arbitration, with disputes generally involving differing social partner views on wage rises. All arbitration decisions involved lower wage increases than had been originally demanded by the trade unions.
There were no substantial changes to the bargaining agenda, with the focus predominantly on wages, working hours, pension contributions, dismissal regulations and social fund maintenance. A certain broadening of bargaining outcomes could be seen from 2009 onwards, with new aspects including training and lifelong learning, improvements in the work-life balance and performance-related pay increases, though these provisions apply more often to hospitals with lower budget constraints.
In sum, coordinated bargaining in the Slovak health care sector has shown remarkable stability despite public sector austerity, with the main source of disputes between unions and employers being wage demands. There is also a certain tendency towards bargaining decentralization, fuelled by frequent legal changes, attempts legally to limit trade union co-determination rights and a major reorganization of health care employer associations. However, due to their strong interest representation structure in health care, unions are regularly able to voice their dissatisfaction with these moves through protests, strikes and government negotiations. 21 Therefore, though pressure to decentralize bargaining has increased, it has simultaneously created the right conditions for strengthening sector-level bargaining by shifting the entire bargaining responsibility to the health care social partners. Sector-level bargaining has thus not been defeated but strengthened by the high associational power and greater bargaining responsibilities of unions and employer organizations in times of public sector austerity. This continuity in bargaining procedures, despite greater third-party involvement in reaching post-crisis bargaining outcomes, has contributed to consolidating bargaining institutions.
Conclusions: a balanced recovery through collective bargaining?
Due to the Slovak economy’s strong industrial focus, the effects of the crisis were seen mainly in production cutbacks, unemployment, and greater exposure to precarious employment. By contrast, in the public sector and in health care in particular, though the crisis helped relieve labour shortages, it also led to strict austerity measures.
How did these consequences influence collective bargaining in Slovakia? This article aimed to reveal how the crisis influenced collective bargaining procedures, outcomes, and institutions within Slovak industrial relations at national and sector levels.
We have seen a dual pattern characterizing the way the crisis has affected bargaining at national and sectoral levels, with a declining role of social partnership in mitigating the effects of the crisis through national-level tripartism on the one hand, and consolidation of sector-level bargaining through coordinated bargaining procedures in the sectors studied on the other. Moreover, we have seen that the crisis not only had a different impact on bargaining at national and sector levels, but also within particular sectors.
At national level, dependence on political support brought temporary gains to trade unions in bargaining outcomes in the form of horizontal extensions to collective agreements and the co-determination of anti-crisis measures and Labour Code amendments. Though there was a similar temporary improvement in bargaining procedures, we are now witnessing a long-term, path-dependent weakening of social partnership, with unions becoming increasingly mere bystanders in policy-making (see Bohle and Greskovits, 2012). The crisis did not accelerate changes to formal tripartite institutions, characterized by their relative stability within path-dependent developments of the overall national industrial relations system.
At the sector level, the crisis did not send out any shockwaves to the established bargaining institutions in either the metalworking or health care sectors. Despite completely different crisis-induced challenges in each sector (dismissals, short-time working and flextime accounts in metalworking and wage disputes in health care), coordinated bargaining was consolidated in both sectors. However, consolidation occurred through procedural changes to bargaining, different in each sector. In metalworking, the crisis united the social partners in seeking the most feasible anti-crisis measures, leading to more intensive bargaining on collective agreements in mechanical engineering, steel and electronics. This procedural change saw the social partners increasingly resorting to established bargaining channels and thus consolidating bargaining institutions instead of bypassing them. In health care, pressure for bargaining decentralization originated in public sector austerity measures which shifted bargaining responsibilities to health care social partners and also divided health care employers with respect to their budgetary capabilities to pay higher wages. The social partners continued with their independent multi-employer bargaining but failed to conclude collective agreements due to escalating wage disputes. Bargaining was thus increasingly resolved through third-party involvement. However, the strong associational power of health care unions and employer associations prevented a collapse of coordinated bargaining procedures and helped consolidate the established bargaining institutions.
Looking at bargaining outcomes, unions were involved in defining anti-crisis measures (e.g. regarding temporary employment in the metalworking sector and wages in the health care sector). Though most outcomes were more beneficial to employers (metalworking) or were based on a mediator’s decision (health care), unions were nevertheless satisfied with their role in the bargaining process even if they were unable to improve their bargaining position.
We can derive several implications for the future role of collective bargaining and trade unions from the above discussion. One of the first involves looking at how developments at national and sector levels interact. The Slovak case shows that a reasonably well-established and functioning sector-level bargaining system can contribute more to a sustainable coordinated bargaining system than any formal but ‘illusory’ tripartism at national level. More research is required to test this implication from a long-term perspective, and involves studying developments in bargaining institutions throughout the economy. Such evidence could possibly refute the argument that tripartism has become the hallmark of industrial relations throughout the CEE as it partially compensates for underdeveloped sectoral collective bargaining (European Commission, 2013; Tatur, 1995; Iankova, 1998).
The second implication refers to trade union strength in facilitating a balanced recovery from the crisis. From a process-oriented perspective, trade unions are increasingly becoming mere bystanders in national-level policy-making while they play a leading role in sector-level bargaining. This meant that sectoral unions played a decisive role in Slovakia’s balanced, or coordinated, recovery from the crisis. However, looking at the outcomes, unions failed to achieve sustainable gains for workers or for themselves at national and sector levels. Interestingly and in contrast to the above process-oriented argument, national-level unions succeeded in providing greater protection to precarious workers (through the redefinition of ‘dependent employment’) than sector-level unions, with the latter basically ignoring this cohort of workers (especially in the metalworking sector).
Although this article has attempted to offer a comparative perspective covering national- and sector-level developments through a comparison of two sectors, caveats remain as to whether the sector-based arguments can be generalized for the whole economy, and whether it is possible to separate crisis-induced challenges to industrial relations from challenges to the long-term evolution of economic and industrial relations policy (e.g. transition, neoliberal policy-making, declining union density across the EU). Slovakia is still considered as a country where the sector is the dominant bargaining level, but there are many sectors with decentralized bargaining. The sectors looked at in this article are of crucial importance for Slovakia’s GDP and employment. Addressing sector-level bargaining developments throughout the economy and disarming the above caveats are undoubtedly subjects for further research.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful for the constructive comments of two anonymous referees, the authors of other contributions in this issue, and researchers within the GUSTO and BARSORI projects – in particular Dorothee Bohle, Maarten Keune, Paul Marginson and Monika Martišková.
Funding
This work was supported by the GUSTO project of the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme for Research, and the European Commission-sponsored BARSORI project [project number VS/2010/0811].