Collective bargaining
Collective bargaining refers to all negotiations between one or more employers (or their organisations) and one or more workers’ organisations (trade unions) for determining working conditions and terms of employment, including issues related to pay and working time, and for regulating relations between employers and workers, as outlined in ILO Convention 154. A number of dimensions of collective bargaining (‘bargaining structure’) have been identified. These include coverage which refers to the percentage of employees directly affected by agreements; the level that bargaining occurs at; the scope, or range of topics encompassed by bargaining; and depth – that is the extent to which agreements are jointly implemented and reviewed.
Find the latest content on this topic below.
National minimum wages in the EU: policy-driven growth, continued convergence and increased proximity to negotiated wages
Over the past year, national minimum wages continued to rise substantially across the EU, especially in central and eastern European countries, continuing the narrowing of regional disparities. The EU Minimum Wage Directive has emerged as a significant driver of minimum wage hikes in many countries, exceeding inflation levels and increasing faster than collectively agreed wage floors in many low-paid sectors.Four decades of data reveal a European workforce transformed beyond recognition
Eurofound's 2024 Working Conditions Survey charts how digitalisation, demography and climate change have reshaped European labour over 35 years.Shaping Europe’s social and employment future
The European Union is navigating a period of profound transformation - from the cost‑of‑living crisis to the green and digital transitions, demographic shifts, and geopolitical uncertainty. At the heart of the EU’s response to these challenges stands the Employment and Social Affairs Committee of the European Parliament. With 60 Members, the Committee plays a central role in ensuring fair working conditions, strong social protection, and equal opportunities across the Union.Eurofound collects country-level information on collective bargaining in the EU through its Network of Eurofound Correspondents. Across the EU, collective bargaining coverage is very diverse, as Eurofound research shows. About 60% of employees are covered by collective bargaining in the EU, but this ranges from 80% or more in some countries to less than 10% in others (European Commission data).
Collective bargaining, the core of organised industrial relations, takes place in different institutional settings. National systems vary in terms of the respective roles of collective bargaining and legislation in regulating the labour market, in the levels at which bargaining is conducted (cross-sectoral, sectoral, company and workplace, regional, occupational), and in the way in which negotiations at different levels may interrelate (articulation). The degrees of centralisation and coordination of collective bargaining – and especially pay bargaining – are important features of the system, with implications for both labour market and macroeconomic outcomes. The outcome of collective bargaining is typically a collective agreement. Such agreements can regulate both the procedures for relations between the signatory parties and the terms and conditions of employment of those workers covered by the agreement, such as pay and working time.
While the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union recognises the autonomy of social partners, in particular in relation to pay bargaining, EU policies nevertheless exert a significant influence on collective bargaining and the wider industrial relations system. For example, the country-specific recommendations (CSRs) in the framework of the European Semester have addressed issues such as aligning pay developments with productivity, minimum wage-setting and pay indexation systems. More generally, collective bargaining takes place within a framework which is, in part, set by EU legislation, including provisions concerning equal pay for work of equal value and the requirements of the Working Time Directive and related legislation.
European Commission: European Semesteropens in new tab
European Commission: Commission welcomes political agreement on adequate minimum wages for workers in the EUopens in new tab
European Commission: Working Time Directive (2003/88/EC)opens in new tab
This is a selection of the most important outputs for this topic.
26 January 2024
Minimum wages for low-paid workers in collective agreements
In this pilot project, Eurofound successfully established the feasibility of, and piloted, an EU-wide database of minimum pay rates contained in collective agreements related to low-paid workers. A conceptual and measurement framework was devised, a total of 692 collective agreements – related to 24 low-paid sectors of interest – were selected to be ‘fully coded’ and representative data on negotiated minimum pay were compiled for 24 EU Member States. Based on more than 3,202 renewal texts, time series of collectively agreed minimum rates were created from 2015 to 2022 for 19 countries. This is the first time that an EU-wide data collection has provided comparative time series on negotiated pay. Key findings are is that in some countries outdated agreements contain rates below the applicable statutory minima, and that the potential of collective agreements to regulate pay generally or for employees earning higher wages than the minimum pay is not always fully capitalised on.
See also the national country reports (Eurofound papers), providing meta-data for the data collection, at the end of this web page.
30 August 2022
Moving with the times: Emerging practices and provisions in collective bargaining
This report analyses recent developments and emerging practices in collective bargaining processes and outcomes, mainly in the private sector. The report covers collective bargaining systems in 10 EU Member States and is based on cases identified through interviews with key stakeholders and negotiating parties at national level. It analyses the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent economic and social crisis on collective bargaining dynamics and collective agreements. It also investigates practices and innovations that have emerged in response to structural drivers such as technological change, decarbonisation and climate-neutrality policies, and workforce ageing. It assesses the capacity of collective bargaining systems to adapt to structural changes in work, production and the labour market as well as medium-term trends.
4 March 2016
The importance of collective bargaining in establishing working time in Europe
1 March 2016
Working time developments in the 21st century: Work duration and its regulation in the EU
This report examines the main trends and milestones characterising the evolution of the most important aspects of collectively agreed working time in the European Union during the first decade of the 21st century. Drawing primarily on information collected by Eurofound across all EU Member States and Norway, it focuses in particular on five sectors: chemicals, metalworking, banking, retail and public administration. The report describes the institutional regimes of regulation and assesses the evolution of agreed working hours (hours expected to be spent on work according to collective agreements or agreed between employers and employees) and usual working hours (hours usually spent in practice in work activities) between 1999 and 2014. The report points to the tension that exists between the pressure for decreased working hours in favour of a better work–life balance and fewer health problems for workers and the need for working time flexibility to meet the demands of a modern world economy.
4 November 2015
Collective bargaining in Europe in the 21st century
Collective bargaining systems in the EU have undergone a steady change since the end of the 1990s. But as businesses across Europe struggle to respond to intensifying global competition, pressure from employers for greater flexibility in collective bargaining is increasing, especially since the 2008 economic crisis. This report sets out to map developments in all major aspects of collective bargaining (apart from pay and working time, which have been analysed separately by Eurofound) over the past 15 years. In doing so, it aims to distinguish long-term trends and to identify changes brought on by the crisis. It also aims to identify the directions collective bargaining is likely to take in the coming years. The study finds a common and strong trend of convergence across the EU towards decentralisation and more flexibility in collective bargaining processes, but with significant asymmetries in the timing and pace of change.
11 September 2015
Pay in Europe in different wage-bargaining regimes
National wage-bargaining institutions are crucial in achieving pay outcomes that help to increase employment and economic growth within the context of avoiding macroeconomic imbalances within the European Monetary Union. Using a large set of empirical macroeconomic data from a variety of sources, including Eurofound and the European Commission AMECO database, this report analyses how the institutional features of national wage bargaining regimes influence pay outcomes. These features include bargaining level, type and level of coordination, use of opening clauses and the existence of wage pacts. The impact of government intervention through extension and derogation clauses and tripartite councils is also examined. The results of the study indicate that the key institutional variables of the wage-bargaining regime that influence pay outcomes are the type of coordination (how coordination is achieved) and the bargaining level.
13 April 2014
Pay in Europe in the 21st century
The issue of wages has attracted particular attention at European level since the onset of the economic crisis. Changes in economic governance, notably within the European semester, have prompted discussions on wage‑setting mechanisms. While, overall, wage‑bargaining regimes have remained relatively stable over time in many countries, the most substantial changes were seen in Member States facing more difficult economic circumstances. This report provides comparative time series on wage‑bargaining outcomes across the EU Member States and Norway, discussing pay developments against the background of different wage‑bargaining regimes and looks into the link between pay and productivity developments. It also investigates the different systems and levels of minimum wages in Europe at present, carrying out an accounting exercise through a hypothetical scenario of a minimum wage set at 60% of the median national wage (with some alternative scenarios as well for comparison) in order to benchmark and evaluate minimum wage levels and systems in Europe, and to discuss the possibilities and difficulties of coordination in this matter.
Researchers at Eurofound provide expert insights and can be contacted for questions or media requests.
Mária Sedláková
Research officerMária Sedláková is a research officer in the Working Life unit at Eurofound. She is responsible for drafting overview reports for sectoral representativeness studies, management and quality control of national reporting on industrial relations, social dialogue and working life, and development of a project on collective bargaining beyond pay. Before joining Eurofound, she worked as a technical research officer within the Governance and Tripartism Department at the International Labour Organization in Geneva on the Social Dialogue Flagship Report 2022. She also worked as a researcher at the Central European Labour Studies Institute in Bratislava (2013–2020), focusing on social dialogue, collective bargaining, working conditions and sociology of work. Maria holds an MA in Political Science with specialisation in Comparative European Politics from Central European University.
Christine Aumayr-Pintar
Senior research managerChristine Aumayr-Pintar is a senior research manager in the Working Life unit at Eurofound. She coordinates Eurofound’s research on social dialogue and industrial relations and oversees the Network of Eurofound Correspondents (NEC). Her primary research expertise – approached from a comparative EU-wide standpoint – centres on minimum wages, collectively negotiated pay and gender pay transparency. Prior to joining Eurofound in 2009 she was a labour markets and regional economics researcher at Joanneum Research in Austria. She earned a Master's degree in Economics and a PhD in Social Science/Economics having studied economics in Graz, Vienna and Jönköping.
This section provides access to all content that has been published on the topic.
