Flagship Report

Social Dialogue Report 2022: Collective bargaining for an inclusive, sustainable and resilient recovery

05 May 2022

This first edition of this new ILO flagship report focuses on collective bargaining.

Publication

Collective bargaining outcomes on gender equality in France

28 February 2022

Issue Brief no. 5 - Labour Relations and Collective Bargaining

Negotiating for decent working time - a review of practice

10 December 2019

This Issue Brief gives an overview of the regulation of working time through collective agreements in different regions of the world and outlines innovative solutions by the bargaining partners. It presents practices from various countries, which can advance a human-centered approach to the regulation of working time through collective bargaining.

Publication

Rules of the Game: An introduction to the standards-related work of the International Labour Organization (Centenary edition 2019)

20 February 2019

A brief presentation of the ILO’s standards policy with a view to facilitating understanding and ownership by the ILO’s traditional constituents, as well as the United Nations system, non-specialists and the broader public.

Factsheet no. 5 - Labour Relations and Collective Bargaining

Grievance handling

19 March 2018

Workers have rights and entitlements that are established in laws, employment contracts, collective agreements and workplace rules, as well as in custom and practice (the way things are normally done – and have been done for a long time – in a particular workplace, industry or occupation). We say that workers have a grievance when they believe that some aspect of these is not being respected by their employer. Grievances are usually described as ‘individual’ when only one worker is involved and ‘collective’ when a group of workers all believe they are suffering from the same breach of the rules. Grievances relate to addressing infringements of existing rights and entitlements, from bullying or harassment, to underpayment of wages, refusal to grant rest periods, weekly rest days or public holidays, discrimination or underpayment of bonuses or other entitlements.

International Labour Review, Vol. 154 (2015), No. 1

Shrinking collective bargaining coverage, increasing income inequality: A comparison of five EU countries

07 April 2015

Wage-setting institutions can play a crucial part in containing the socio-economically destabilizing growth of income inequality. Using an analytical framework that distinguishes between protective and participative standards, the author examines their respective effects on the incidence of low-paid employment and income inequality under the wage-setting systems of Belgium, France, Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom. His comparative focus on the interplay of statutory minimum wages and collective wage bargaining shows that while the latter is more effective than the former at reducing inequality, both require state intervention, with particular emphasis on participative standards to counter the erosion of industrial relations institutions.

Guidelines

Equal Pay - An introductory guide

04 October 2013

Ensuring that the work done by women and men is valued fairly and ending pay discrimination is essential to achieving gender equality. However, pay inequality continues to persist and gender pay gaps in some instances have stagnated or even increased.

Technical brief

Gender equality in tripartite social dialogue in Europe and Central Asia

14 August 2013

This technical brief presents unique data on the participation of men and women in tripartite social dialogue in 50 countries in Europe and Central Asia (ECA region). Despite tangible progress, women remain under-represented in national social dialogue institutions in the ECA region (18 per cent of participants). The target set by the United Nations of at least 30 per cent of women at decision-making level is achieved only in 15 per cent of social dialogue bodies. In 18 per cent of countries women are not represented at all. The best results are in Western Europe (17 per cent), followed by Eastern Europe and Central Asia (14 per cent), and Central and South Eastern Europe (8 per cent). More encouraging figures come from the analysis of the gender composition of tripartite delegations in the International Labour Conference. In 2012, the best result among regions was that of the European delegations (36 per cent), while the whole Conference registered 27 per cent women participants. The European Regional Conference in Oslo in 2013 gathered delegates from 42 countries out of whom 41 per cent were women. The brief concludes with some policy advice for further promoting gender equality in social dialogue institutions at national, regional and international level.