In Europe, the direction of bargaining on the terms of employment has been from centralized systems towards more decentralized negotiation systems, which means that negotiations are moving closer to company-specific bargaining at the company level. However, Finland’s bargaining system has remained remarkably stable compared to Sweden, Denmark, and Germany. The Finnish Forest Industries transition to company-specific bargaining was a significant change in Finland’s collective bargaining system, and it sparked a lively debate about the wage effects of local bargaining.
This research project studies the effects of company-specific bargaining in levels of wages and their dispersion. In addition, the project analyses the effects of company-specific bargaining on which pay batches make up earnings (wage formation) and how company-specific bargaining affects wage differences between different groups.
The project aims to answer the following research questions:
