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��������Research objectives in BARCOVID��

Kea Tijdens

3 September 2021

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Funded by the European Commission. Directorate-General

for Employment. Social Affairs and Inclusion - VS/2021/0190 1

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COVID-19 IMPACT ON INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS LANDSCAPE

  • Research Question 1
    • Will the Covid consequences affect the industrial relations landscape and the degree of coordination among employers, workers, their respective representatives, and public authorities in Europe?
  • Methods
    • Collecting text data from social partners’ press releases and newsletters (approx. 50 items p/m during 24 months = 1200 items).
    • Keyword extraction to classify each news item for prevalence of keywords
    • Analysing the monthly updated database
  • Deliverables
    • 8 Quarterly reports about the Covid-19 impact on industrial relations (2 pages/q)
    • 1 Overarching report Covid-19 impact on the industrial relations landscape (20 pages)

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COVID-19 IMPACT ON CBA RENEWAL STRATEGIES

  • Research Question 2
    • Will the Covid consequences impact the collective bargaining institutional settings, specifically the renewal of CBAs, their signatories, levels of bargaining and enterprises/organisations covered?
  • Methods
    • Investigate for the 600 CBAs in CBA Database whether the expired CBAs have been renewed.
    • Develop a coding scheme to classify the renewal strategies of expired CBAs
    • For 5 countries (AT, ES, IT, FR, NL) social partners of not-renewed CBAs are asked to complete a short online questionnaire about the renewal process (max 10 interviews per country)
    • For 13 countries the renewal strategies of the CBAs in the Database will be based on Internet search and where needed asking signatories or social partners to complete a short online questionnaire about the renewal process (max 20 interviews in total)
  • Deliverables
    • 8 country reports (AT, ES, IT, FR, NL, CEE, Portugal, Candidate countries) (5 pages/c)
    • 1 Overarching analytical report (40 pages)

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COVID-19 IMPACT ON CBA CLAUSES �(before-after comparison 5 countries)

  • Research Question 3
    • Will the Covid consequences impact the clauses negotiated in CBAs, specifically regarding hiring and firing, wages, occupational health and safety, use of digital technologies (e.g. teleworking), work organisation, and surveillance?
  • Methods
    • For 3 countries (ES, IT, NL) renewed CBAs will be entered into the CBA-Database (est. 150 CBAs)
    • For 2 countries (AT, FR) max 50 CBAs + 50 renewed CBAs will be entered into the CBA-Database (max. 200 CBAs)
    • For 13 countries (other) renewed CBAs will be entered into the CBA-Database (max. 50 CBAs in total)
    • Analysis of the before-after changes, including analysis whether changes are due to COVID-19 or to other causes
  • Deliverables
    • 8 country reports (AT, ES, IT, FR, NL, CEE, Portugal, Candidate countries) (10 pages/c)
    • 1 Overarching analytical report (40 pages)