The hybridization of national collective bargaining systems: The impact of the economic crisis on the transformation of collective bargaining in the European Union

Abstract

In this article it is argued that the economic crisis has made national collective bargaining systems increasingly multi-layered, perforated and dynamically unstable, i.e. hybrid. The authors explain these transformations in terms of the concomitance of two different sources of change which do not necessarily follow the same logics. The first source stems from national systems’ endogenous logic of path dependency and the second from pressure to reform in accordance with exogenously applied strategies and logics. It is argued that these sources act like a whipsaw, pushing and pulling national collective bargaining systems between the two logics, leading to hybrid collective bargaining systems.