Comparing collective bargaining agreements for developing countries

What is it about?

Background Collective bargaining is the process by which employees negotiate the terms of their employment with their employers. Regulating working conditions is conducive to success within industries, in terms of an employee’s satisfaction and motivation, as well as establishing competitiveness both nationally and internationally. In an increasingly globalised world, there is a real need to establish an understanding of the global economy, including wage setting processes and working hours. To what extent do web-based databases enable the examination of variations within bargaining agreements? Are these agreements used as mechanisms to set wages? What else might these agreements cover? Purpose Two researchers set out to answer these questions with the aim of filling gaps in the information contained within collective agreements. Using a new online database, the authors wanted to investigate agreements within 11 countries to ascertain to what extent wages, working hours, paid leave and work-family arrangements were included in the details. The team wanted to identify correlations between agreements through comparison. What they did Focusing their attention on 11 developing countries – Benin, Brazil, Ghana, Indonesia, Kenya, Madagascar, Peru, Senegal, Tanzania, Togo and Uganda, the researchers analysed 249 collective agreements. Hosted on the web-based WageIndicator, the authors presented a quantitative comparison of what the clauses of each agreement included and what the contents of each were. What they found Although 98 per cent of the collective agreements contained wage clauses; only a small number specified wage levels. 71 per cent featured social security clauses, 89 per cent had working hour agreements and 84 per cent work-family arrangements. Interestingly, where a collective agreement featured one of these four clauses, it was more likely for the other three to be included. From this it was deduced that none were included at the expense of another. Implications That the research constitutes one of the first multi-country analyses of collective agreements, enables the establishment of a baseline, from which future studies can take their lead.

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