This article analyses the challenge of variable pay to collective bargaining, based on a cross-national comparison that takes banking organizations in Austria, Norway, Spain and the UK as representatives of Europe's principal bargaining systems. The hypothesis is that the capacity of collective bargaining to govern variable pay varies with the bargaining system. As the findings show, articulated multi-employer bargaining is more able to govern variable pay than its unarticulated counterpart and single-employer bargaining. Within the case of articulated multi-employer bargaining, single-channel systems of employee workplace representation are superior to dual systems, all the more since the former equip the unions with selective incentives for membership.
Arrowsmith, J., P. Marginson and K. Sisson (2003) `Externalisation and Internalisation of Collective Bargaining in Europe', Industrielle Beziehungen10: 363-92.
2.
Arrowsmith, J., H. Nicolaisen, B. Bechter and R. Nonell (2007) `The Management of Variable Pay in Banking', paper prepared for the Eighth European IIRA Congress, Manchester, 3-6 September.
3.
Brown, W., S. Deakin, D. Nash and S. Oxenbridge (2000) `The Employment Contract: From Collective Procedures to Individual Rights', British Journal of Industrial Relations38: 611-29.
4.
Crouch, C. (1993) Industrial Relations and European State Traditions . Oxford: Clarendon Press.
5.
Dølvik, J.E. and T.A. Stokke (1998) `Norway: The Revival of Centralized Concertation' , pp. 118-45 in A. Ferner and R. Hyman (eds) Changing Industrial Relations in Europe. Oxford: Blackwell.
6.
Ilsøe, A., J.S. Madsen and J. Due (2007) `Impacts of Decentralization: Erosion or Renewal?' , Industrielle Beziehungen14: 201-22.
7.
Kersley B., C. Alpin, J. Forth, A. Bryson, H. Bewley, G. Dix and S. Oxenbridge (2006) Inside the Workplace: Findings from the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey. London: Routledge.
8.
Kessler, I. and J. Purcell (2003) `Individualism and Collectivism in Industrial Relations' , pp. 313-37 in P. Edwards (ed.) Industrial Relations: Theory and Practice, 2nd edn. Oxford: Blackwell.
9.
Marginson, P., K. Sisson and J. Arrowsmith (2003) `Between Decentralization and Europeanization: Sectoral Bargaining in Four Countries and Two Sectors', European Journal of Industrial Relations9: 163-87.
10.
Miguélez, F., C. Prieto and C. Castaño (1999) `Employment Relations in the Spanish Banking Industry: Big Changes', pp. 223-54 in M. Regini, J. Kitay and M. Baethge (eds) From Tellers to Sellers: Changing Employment Relations in Banks. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press .
11.
Nonell, R. and J. Molins (2007) `Spain', pp. 279-98 in F. Traxler and G. Huemer (eds) Handbook of Business Interest Associations, Firm Size and Governance. London and New York: Routledge .
12.
Smith, P. and G. Morton (2006) `Nine Years of New Labour: Neoliberalism and Workers' Rights', British Journal of Industrial Relations44: 401-20.
13.
Stokke, T. (2008) `The Anatomy of Two-Tier Bargaining Models', European Journal of Industrial Relations14: 7-24.
14.
Traxler, F. (1998) `Austria: Still the Country of Corporatism', pp. 239-61 in A. Ferner and R. Hyman (eds) Changing Industrial Relations in Europe. Oxford: Blackwell.
15.
Traxler, F. and G. Huemer , eds (2007) Handbook of Business Interest Associations, Firm Size and Governance. London and New York: Routledge.
16.
Traxler, F., S. Blaschke and B. Kittel (2001) National Labour Relations in Internationalized Markets. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
17.
Upchurch, M., M. Richardson, S. Tailby, A. Danford and P. Stewart (2004) `EU Social Policy and Non-Union Forms of Employee Representation: A Case Study from UK Finance', paper presented at the Seventh European Congress of the International Industrial Relations Association, Lisbon, 7-11 September.
18.
Van het Kaar, R. and M. Grünell (2001) `Variable Pay in Europe', EIROnline; at: www.eurofound.europa.eu/eiro/2001/04/study/index.html
19.
Verd, J.M. and C. Pérez (2004) `Skills and Credentials at the Core of the Relation between Resources and Employment', pp. 101-26 in B. Clasquin, N. Moncel, M. Harvey and B. Friot (eds) Wage and Welfare. Brussels: Peter Lang.
20.
Visser, J. (2005) `Beneath the Surface of Stability: New and Old Modes of Governance in European Industrial Relations', European Journal of Industrial Relations11: 287-306.
