ABSTRACT
Collective bargaining has remained within the ambit of the nation state to a greater extent than most other areas of industrial relations. This chapter addresses the development and performance of bargaining under Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) in line with the following methodological considerations. The development of collective bargaining in terms of centralisation and coordination at the national level. The larger changes in both the centralisation and coordination of national bargaining reflect major alterations in its economic context. Debates on the macroeconomic performance of collective bargaining systems turn on their capacity for internalising negative wage externalities. Coordinated bargaining, as adjusted to changed economic circumstances, still prevails in Europe. There is no reason to expect EMU to cause lagged disorganisation in the future, since coordinated bargaining has survived despite extremely unfavourable economic conditions compared to the wider Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
