The role of collective bargaining in addressing flexibility and security

This article examines the role of collective bargaining in addressing flexibility and security in the chemical and pharmaceutical sector in Italy and Denmark. My multi-level and comparative focus on collective bargaining highlights that sector-level industrial relations institutions account for a considerable degree of within-country homogeneity in the content of company agreements over issues of flexibility and security. Moreover, it shows that the degree of company-level heterogeneity is conditioned primarily by firm-level contingencies: union representation and organizational characteristics. This means that at company level, both institutional and non-institutional structures are important explanatory variables.