Creating public value in hostile conditions: public procurement as an opportunity for collective bargaining in Poland and Slovakia

Abstract

In the context of the EU-level frameworks for public procurement and collective bargaining, this article tests, conceptually and empirically, whether the expected expansion of socially responsible public procurement also leads to improvements in collective bargaining as a governance mechanism. The empirical focus is on three cases showing variations in how procurement may influence bargaining. These cases are from Poland and Slovakia, EU Member States characterised by hostile conditions, in the sense of underdeveloped or defunct collective bargaining structures in the former and their erosion in the latter, but also, in both countries, a lack of experience of effective public procurement processes in public services. Emerging from a broader theoretical framework of creating public value in hostile conditions, it is argued in this article that similar conditions in public procurement can produce varying outcomes in terms of collective bargaining, supporting bargaining in one instance and constraining it in another.