Liberalization, Flexibility and Employment Relations Change in Southern European Telecoms since the 1990s

Summary: How do we explain divergent trajectories of change in employment relations institutions? Existing studies maintained that European economic integration and liberalisation, decline in trade union power, changing work organization and new pay systems would push national wage-setting institutions towards decentralisation. This crude version of the neoliberal convergence thesis, however, was not borne out. Instead, change in wage bargaining has been more nuanced and differentiated than anticipated. To overcome the limitations of earlier theoretical conjectures, this paper explores the mediating conditions under which neoliberal convergence pressures are likely to be moderated. I argue that ‘employer associability’ and ‘labour-state coalitions’ mediate pressures for convergence to the Anglo-Saxon model of decentralised bargaining. The plausibility of the argument is suggested by two case studies, which trace the process of structural and institutional change in Italian and Greek telecommunications sectors since the 1990s.

Bio: Dr. Andreas Kornelakis is a Lecturer in HR Management at the University of Sussex. He completed his PhD at the London School of Economics with financial support from Bodossaki Foundation and the LSE. His thesis was runner-up for a Best PhD Dissertation Prize from the journal Labor History. Additionally, he was awarded the ‘Michael Rose’ Best Paper Prize at the 2010 Work, Employment & Society conference. He has been a Visiting Researcher at the European University Institute (Florence), and a Visiting Lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London. Before his PhD, he completed an MSc in International Employment Relations and HR Management (Distinction) at the LSE, with a scholarship from Propondis Foundation, and was awarded the ‘Keith Thurley’ Prize for Best Overall Performance. His latest publication appeared at the European Journal of Industrial Relations. Finally, his research interests are at the intersection of comparative political economy, comparative industrial relations and HRM.

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