by Nick Wailes & Russell D. Lansbury

Contents

Foreword

1. The types of flexibility introduced

A. Forms of flexibility: definitions and outline

B. Employment contracts

1. Dismissal and redundancy procedures and practices
   
2. Use of part-time work, contract labour, temporary work and other atypical employment relationships

C. Pay determination procedures and systems

1. Changes in wage protection provisions such as minimum wages and means of maintaining the purchasing power of pay
   
2. Decentralization of pay determination
3. Pay linked to performance including financial participation and gainsharing and special bonus schemes
   
4. Rationalization of total elements of remuneration

D. Working time

1. Has there been a trend towards the calculation of working hours in reference to a longer period (e.g. a Month or a Year)?
   
2. Have arrangements for 6 or 7 day working weeks, shift work, night work, or flexible working hours spread?

E. Work organization
Notes

II. The positions of the social partners on flexibility

A. Recent trends in government policies towards flexibility and the factors underlying the trends

B. Recent Trends in the positions of employers towards flexibility

C. Recent trends in the positions of workers' organizations towards flexibility

D. Conclusion

III. The sources of flexibility

A. The sources of flexibility

1. Legislation
   
2. Collective agreements
   
3. Informal agreements
   
4. Work rules
   
5. Individual contracts of employment
   
6. Employers' unilateral action
   
7. Hierarchical order of instruments
   

B. Legislative provisions constraining or facilitating collective bargaining and informal negotiations on flexibility

C. Employers'attitudes towards negotiations on flexibility

D. Disagreements and debates over the role different instruments for the introduction of flexibility should play

IV. The process of collective bargaining over flexibility

A. The traditional bargaining system

B. Managed decentralism flexibility

C. Coordinated flexibility

D. Fragmented flexibility

E. Conclusion

V. Outcomes of collective bargaining on flexibility

A. Tradeoffs involved in flexibility bargaining

B. Comparisons with the parties' initial positions and outcomes of collective bargaining

C. Effects of Collection Bargaining on Employment Conditions and Enterprise Efficiency

Appendix 1: Accord agreements & national wage case decisions, 1983-1996

Bibliography