ABSTRACT
Within any particular country, government, unions and employers adopt different approaches towards statutory minimum wage regulation reflecting diverse objectives and competing interests. While a statutory national wage floor is supported by most European country governments, the motives and policy goals are mixed, and this shapes the consequences of minimum wage setting. Also, employers and unions each display varied outlooks towards minimum wages across Europe, creating complex trajectories of regulatory adjustment. In Germany, for example, the right of government to set a basic wage standard in the labour market is resisted by employers and some unions as stepping outside the accepted boundaries of public policy into areas of regulatory responsibility controlled by unions and employers. By contrast, unions and employers in the UK now accept the statutory wage floor as providing needed protection against damaging cost-led competition in markets where opportunities for joint wage regulation have substantially diminished since the late 1970s. Much of the balance of dialogue and conflict among government, unions and employers is shaped by the context of collective bargaining, including factors such as the strength unions enjoy in the arena of joint wage-setting, the share of workers whose pay is not protected by collective bargaining and the use by government of legally binding extension measures.
