Premium
Social partners' levers: job quality and industrial relations in the waste sector in three small European countries
Author(s) -
Sørensen Ole Henning,
Kirov Vassil,
Holtgrewe Ursula
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
industrial relations journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.525
H-Index - 3
eISSN - 1468-2338
pISSN - 0019-8692
DOI - 10.1111/irj.12213
Subject(s) - negotiation , social partnership , general partnership , quality (philosophy) , business , industrial relations , social dialogue , job creation , collective bargaining , social partners , economics , labour economics , political science , market economy , management , finance , philosophy , epistemology , law
This article examines how social partners in the waste sector in Austria, Bulgaria and Denmark strive to protect job quality from negative impacts of two European trends: privatisation and greening. The article uses qualitative, comparative research to examine social partners' levers for protecting and improving job quality. Three levers are identified: negotiation power, collective agreements and general regulation that facilitate negotiation and social partnership. In general, privatisation has had a negative influence on job quality and the levers of collective actors, whereas the impact of greening is ambiguous, that is, not necessarily positive. The article concludes that stakeholders' ability to improve job quality is contingent upon their activity on both a national and European level.