While much policy and scholarly attention goes to the negotiation of pay in collective bargaining agreements, there is relatively little attention to the hours to which these pay rates refer. Yet, the wages employees earn cannot be understood without reference to working hours: weekly working hours play an important role in understanding whether wages are adequate and working time reductions can constitute an alternative method of increasing wages (c.f. Piasna et al., 2024). Moreover, different pay rates are often negotiated depending on the timing, predictability and variability of work hours. Premium pay for inconvenient hours (e.g., shifts, nights, weekends, overtime) can constitute an important part of monthly incomes, which may help especially low skilled workers make ends meet (Ilsøe, 2012). Thus, to guarantee that policies related to the adequacy of minimum wages and collectively bargained wage floors result in improved standards of living for workers, it is essential to understand the working time aspect of wage bargaining.
In this paper session, we present and discuss research into the collective bargaining agenda on pay for standard and non-standard working times. We contribute to current discussions about decent wages, living wages and in-work poverty, all of which commonly acknowledge that insufficient work hours compound challenges of earning decent incomes in many households at risk of poverty (Besamusca, 2019; Ilsøe et al., 2024; Salverda, 2018). We also relate to the industrial relations literature on the decentralization of collective bargaining (Ibsen & Keune, 2018; Katz, 1993; Visser, 2016), which posits collective bargaining over working times is facing major changes due to a combination of modern employees’ preference for individualized arrangements in collective agreements (e.g., working more hours to save for longer holidays or sabbaticals) and employers’ push for more discretion over employee work hours to adapt to the 24/7 economy of today’s global market (Boumans, 2021; Chung & Tijdens, 2013).
An important question addressed in this session is the access that groups of workers have to collectively bargained pay arrangements relating to standard and non-standard working hours. This question is crucial for understanding the role of collective bargaining in (effectively) curbing labor market inequalities. The session’s papers interrogate this question through analyses of country and sector level differences in collective bargaining practices, such as the occurrence of working time-related provisions in collective bargaining agreements. To do so, the papers in the session make use of the unique WageIndicator CBA database, which contains over 3100 coded collective agreements from countries worldwide. Secondly, three of the session’s papers combine these data with other sources (e.g., microdata on wages, surveys among factory workers) to study the gap between the collectively bargained provisions that are agreed on paper, and resulting labor market outcomes in practice.
Session overview
The session opens with a paper on recent developments in the collective bargaining agenda on pay for standard and non-standard working times. This paper presentation provides an overview of current debates on standard working times (e.g. working time reduction, individual time saving schemes, and structural unpaid overtime) and non-standard working times (e.g., availability of premium pay for inconvenient hours, payment of premiums in time off, integration of premium pay in basic wage rates based on shift characteristics). Secondly, it presents findings from an analysis of over 1800 European collective agreements to estimate the extent of inequality in the provision of premium pay for inconvenient hours across countries and sectors.
Building on this general overview, the other papers interrogate the difference between collectively bargained provisions on paper, and how they work out in terms of labor market outcomes. Addressing the need to estimate reliable standard working times in order to implement living wages across global supply chains, Prof Tijdens & Mr Ahmad compare standard working times in collective bargaining agreements to statutory provisions on maximum standard working times as well as to contractual and usual working times across 193 UN countries. Assessing whether premium pay rates negotiated in CBAs effectively raise workers’ incomes, Dr Elias Moreno measures the premiums associated with overtime, shift and weekend work hours using microdata on wages from EU member states, and compares them to bargained provisions. Finally, Ms Feby investigates whether the inclusion of more extensive and stringent provisions on payment for overtime hours is associated with greater compliance and lower incidence of wage theft in the Indonesian garment sector. Invited reactions by expert discussants contribute to the session by integrating perspectives from the North American and African bargaining contexts.
Together, the papers in this session contribute to a better understanding of the effectiveness of collective bargaining as an institution in setting decent working conditions, including decent pay and working times.
