Steen Scheuer

A Novel Calculus? Institutional Change, Globalization and Industrial Conflict in Europe

Keywords: collective action, globalization, industrial conflict, institutionalism, strikes, trade unions

■ Collective industrial conflict in Europe has declined dramatically since the 1970s. This decline is the result of significant changes in institutional factors, influencing the calculations of employees and their organizations when considering strike action. Declining union density and changes in market protection seem major influences, while institutional and legal changes are important explanations of persistent major inter-country variance. This indicates a novel industrial conflict calculus for employees, which entails a more restricted use, but not the withering away of the strike.

Introduction

In the 1970s, European employers and employees every year lost on average almost 420 working days for every 1000 employees through industrial conflict. In the 1980s this figure declined to 200, in the 1990s to 56 and today seems to have stabilized at a level of just over 50 days lost, little more than an eighth of the level in the strike-prone 1970s (Table 1). In absolute figures, the number of working days lost (WDL) due to industrial conflict has fallen from over 48 million in the 1970s to just 7.2 million days today.

Part of the immediate explanation would seem to be the absence of very large, prolonged and often politically motivated strikes, such as the British miners' strike in 1984-85 and the large strikes in Italy and Spain in the 1970s and 1980s. But the underlying trend for shorter and minor strikes also seems to show a decline: in Denmark, for instance, disregarding large conflicts in the period from 1970 to 2003, the level of WDL has dropped from around 70 per 1000 employees per year to 40 (Scheuer, 2004: 6).

While researchers in the 1970s and early 1980s wrote about the 'resurgence of class conflict' (Crouch and Pizzorno, 1978) or 'strikes . . . and class conflict in capitalist societies' [START_REF] Korpi | Strikes, Industrial Relations and Class Conflict in Capitalist Societies[END_REF], sometimes seemingly priding themselves on high strike levels on their own home turf, such language seems to have evaporated. These days, when authors do turn to the subject, titles come more in versions of 'peace in Europe?' [START_REF] Edwards | Strikes and Industrial Conflict: Peace in Europe?[END_REF]cf. Shalev, 1992), 'heroic defeats' [START_REF] Golden | Heroic Defeats. The Politics of Job Loss[END_REF] and 'the worst record in Europe?' [START_REF] Rigby | The Worst Record in Europe? A Comparative Analysis of Industrial Conflict in Spain[END_REF].

So have strikes really withered away? Are workers so content with wages and conditions that strikes are no longer a reasonable option? Has the working class simply disappeared as a political force, and the strike with it, as some of the gloomiest pessimists will have it (for example Crouch, 2004: 53-7)? 3 Not quite.

First, newspapers still report spectacular strikes by workers faced with companies outsourcing production lines to low-pay (or maybe just lower-pay) countries. Whether protesting against EU regulations allowing imports of cheaper commodities from inside or outside the EU, against moving production lines to developing countries, against the privatization of public enterprises and utilities, or against the closing of factories following other restructuring measures by management, the strike still seems to be one valid form of expression and protest for employees (and not only for blue-collar workers).

Second, even if pay formation in many European countries has become decentralized, making national bargaining less frequent, it still typically takes the form of some kind of local collective bargaining, and these bargaining processes still contain an impetus or a motivation for local short-term strike activity, whether official or unofficial. Changes have

The Strike and the Right to Strike

In a classic formulation, the strike is 'a temporary stoppage of work by a group of employees in order to express a grievance or enforce a demand' (Hyman, 1972: 17). All parts of the definition have significance:

• The strike is temporary: whatever the outcome, employees intend to return to the same work, and the employer normally expects the same.

(Though a stoppage may become permanent if the strikers are laid off or the company goes bankrupt.) • Finally, the strike is not impulsive, but rather a kind of rational action used to achieve something (to force through a demand, resist the demand of the opponent or express a protest). Calculations may be mostly on the part of strike or union leaders, while, for strikes, socialnormative or other non-rational motives may be at play: some union leaders prefer fighting and losing to not fighting at all (Elster, 1989;[START_REF] Golden | Heroic Defeats. The Politics of Job Loss[END_REF][START_REF] Kelly | Rethinking Industrial Relations[END_REF][START_REF] Oskarsson | Organized Labour and Varieties of Capitalism[END_REF].

Organized employees and their unions often emphasize that the right to free collective bargaining implies the right to strike. This right has certainly not always been recognized. One might say that, in general, dictators do not like strikes: it is well known that it was just as illegal to strike in Franco's Spain as it was in the former Soviet Union, even though the ideological justifications differed. Democratic politicians do not generally like them either, but they do not tend to outlaw them. In many cases, they do the opposite, guaranteeing the right to strike. This may be connected with the obvious role of strikes and popular revolts in protesting against unfair political rule and demanding democratic governance (as in Poland, South Africa and Zimbabwe in recent decades; see Novitz, 2003: 61).

Thus, it is most certainly not only unions and their members who ascribe great significance to the right to strike (Novitz, 2003: 49-73). In virtually every democratic state this right is recognized as fundamental, even though this recognition has rather varying shapes and forms: in some countries the right is explicitly and specifically laid down in law, sometimes in the Constitution (as for instance in France, Italy, Spain and Sweden), while in other countries the right to strike emerges implicitly from legal practice of the courts and the legislators. For instance in Denmark, where the right to strike is not embedded in law, the general view has been that what is not directly illegal is allowed. 4 In the UK, where there is also no formal right to strike, the situation is somewhat different, since the common law underwrites the sanctity of the individual contract, which is breached by collective action in the form of a strike. Strikes are therefore not legal except where the law specifically prescribes an 'immunity' from the sanction of the courts (and this immunity has been substantially reduced in the past quarter century).

Neither in Denmark nor the UK has the lack of legislation to safeguard the right to strike prevented employees from striking. On the contrary, over long periods of time these countries had high levels of strikes, and it is therefore tempting to say that the difference between direct and indirect rights to strike does not hold much significance. On the other hand, the fact that in Germany, political strikes intended to influence government or parliament are illegal would appear in part to explain why strike rates are substantially and persistently lower than in France, Italy and Spain (see later analysis). And in the UK, changes in legislation in the 1980s do seem to have had an impact on industrial conflict [START_REF] Elgar | The Impact of the Law on Industrial Disputes in the 1980s[END_REF]. 5 Strikes are not without costs [START_REF] Crouch | Trade Unions: The Logic of Collective Action[END_REF], for both parties to the conflict and often for third parties too (a company's subcontractors and customers, patients, clients or pupils, even university students, and also the families of the strikers and society in general). Some of these generalized costs are among the reasons why legislators do restrict the use of industrial conflict (Novitz, 2003: 75-88). Companies lose earnings and possibly market share, employees lose their wages and unions lose the money they spend on supporting the striking workers. Often the strike is used as a threat which it is hoped will not be activated, certainly by some groups of employees; however, deciding whether or not to strike is never easy. Partly there are economic costs, as mentioned above; partly there are social or human costs in the form of deterioration of the relationship between striking employees and the managements, which might cause long-term damage to the working environment.

As noted in the introduction, substantial change has taken place in strike patterns, and in this article I shall attempt to diagnose some of the changes involved and some of their implications. I undertake a macrocomparative analysis of strikes in Europe between 1970 and2003, attempting to answer the following questions:

• What are the incidence and prevalence of strikes in Europe and how radically are they declining?

• Are national strike patterns converging or diverging?

• How can we explain the decline in strike activity and the new patterns of industrial conflict? • Is there a novel calculus emerging in industrial conflict, and what is its implication for the future of strikes?

Methodology: Choice of Indicator The reason for this selection is that all these countries have good statistics for all or most of the time period covered (1970 and onwards); however, very small countries such as Iceland and Luxembourg have been excluded. For Greece, data in the main do not exist, and for the countries in central and eastern Europe, only some have strike data in the International Labour Organization (ILO) database and these data do not go back further than 1990. 6 The data have been drawn from the Statistical Yearbook of the ILO. 7 In interpreting these comparisons it is important to be aware that national definitions of a stoppage of work vary significantly, as do criteria for inclusion in the official statistics (the lower limit for duration, numbers involved and/or WDL before a strike is counted) [START_REF] Eiro | Developments in Industrial Action -1998-2002[END_REF][START_REF] Jackson | Strikes[END_REF][START_REF] Monger | International Comparisons of Labour Disputes in 2002[END_REF]Stokke, 1999: 27;Stokke and Thörnqvist, 2001: 250-2;[START_REF] Walsh | Strikes in Europe and the United States. Measurement and Incidence[END_REF]. In this article no attempt has been made to compensate for these variations, since experience in so doing shows that it does not make much difference when the focus is on WDL. In fact, the ILO statistics are the generally acknowledged resource for this information, despite these limitations. They cover the absolute number of stoppages in each country, the number of workers involved, the number of WDL as a result of industrial disputes and in most cases also the total number of employees.

The three strike measures are used in various ways in the comparative strike literature, depending on the particular theoretical interest of the authors. Thus, several contributions look at how the number of strikes is influenced, for example, by union organization [START_REF] Clegg | Trade Unionism under Collective Bargaining: A Theory Based on Comparisons of Six Countries[END_REF][START_REF] Edwards | Strikes and Industrial Conflict: Peace in Europe?[END_REF][START_REF] Mikkelsen | Arbejdskonflikter i Skandinavien 1848-1980[END_REF][START_REF] Morris | Unionization Matters: An Analysis of Post-World War II Strikes[END_REF]. In this article, however, the main focus is on how much industrial conflict 'disturbs' and intervenes in production itself, 8 and, therefore, the third measure, WDL, is used throughout (except in Table 2). This seems to be the preferred indicator for most observers today (see the uses in Edwards and Hyman, 1994: 252;[START_REF] Monger | International Comparisons of Labour Disputes in 2002[END_REF]Stokke and Thörnqvist, 2001: 248).

The reasons for this choice are that the number of disputes is typically small, and not indicative of societal impact, because they vary so much in size. While researchers have taken many different approaches to analyzing the forms and shapes of strikes, it seems to this author that many of the patterns found are spurious, and may be a function of variance in the statistical reporting by the individual countries. Therefore, WDL is assumed to be less affected by statistical measurement problems than the other two measures, since differences in the reporting principles and practices of the countries influence the 'number of strikes' measure much more than that of WDL.

Industrial Conflict in Europe since 1970

What is the overall picture? Table 2 shows the proportion of employees involved in industrial conflict, stated as annual averages for each decade since 1970 (data for the present decade ending in 2003). This shows a marked decline in most European countries since the 1970s, when industrial conflict in most of the region reached a peak (see Crouch and Pizzorno, 1978;and for Italy, Franzosi, 1995: 4-5). On average, 97 employees out of every 1000 (or almost 1 out of 10) took part in an industrial conflict in the 1970s, while today, this figure is reduced to 27 of every 1000 (or one 1 of 37). This is true for the Scandinavian countries, for Ireland and the UK, and also for some of the southern European countries, especially Italy and Spain. The latter two countries had almost twice the incidence of industrial conflict (both in terms of workers involved and of WDL) as in northern Europe, so the decline is particularly dramatic. It is also clear that in most countries in the centre of (western) Europe the number of strikers is very low.

While there has been a substantial overall decline in strike participation, the pattern cross-nationally is not all that different today from that in the 1970s: countries with most strikers then are in the main still at the top of the league table. However, the variance has become significantly smaller than in the 1970s. Whatever the causes may be, one cannot fail to conclude that European industrial relations, as far as industrial conflict is concerned, are moving significantly towards convergence, with patterns of strike participation less differentiated than previously. Variations across EU15, with the continuing exceptions of Italy and Spain (and probably also Greece, for which adequate data do not exist), are today relatively small. But they are still there, as will be discussed in the following sections.

The five graphs in Figure 1 show WDL per country over the period from 1970 to 2003, as far as data are available. 9 In graph 1A for Scandinavia one sees that Finland had until 1986 a substantial number of years with a high number of WDL: over 1000 in 1971, 1973[START_REF] Clegg | Trade Unionism under Collective Bargaining: A Theory Based on Comparisons of Six Countries[END_REF]and again in 1986. After 1986 only twice has the score approached 500 WDL. In Denmark, the peaks are in 1973, 1985 and (perhaps against the general trend) 1998. The Danish levels are lower than in Finland, but higher than in both Norway and Sweden. However, both Norway and (especially) Sweden experienced a small increase in the 1980s. More recently, with the exception of Denmark in 1998, all four countries have been approaching approximately the same low level. If Norway and Sweden had more stable industrial relations in the 1970s than Denmark and especially Finland, this difference has been completely levelled after the year 2000.

The trend for the British Isles (Ireland and the UK, see graph 1B) is almost identical, and in reality very close to Finnish experience. Turbulent industrial relations in the 1970s became more 'peaceful' in the 1980s, and in the 1990s conflict levels became as low as in the central European countries, a trend which has continued in the 2000s. For the UK, the figure shows the big labour disputes, partly in the 1970s up to the point in 1979 when the Labour government was replaced by a series of Conservative governments, the downward trend becoming interrupted of course 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 In north-western continental Europe (graph 1C) a similar trend can be seen, in both France and Belgium. The Netherlands has a lower level. The graph does show a rather different structure for industrial conflict, since the peaks are certainly not as high as in Scandinavia or the British Isles, and the period since 1982 seems very peaceful and even, excepting one 'blip' in the Netherlands in 1995. Furthermore, there are indications of an increasing trend in France in the most recent years, something which places France marginally higher on the aggregate scale than the other countries shown here, and also higher than the UK (see also Figure 2D).

As for southern continental Europe (graph 1D), it can be seen that Spain and Italy had an extremely high level in the 1970s, as mentioned earlier, but in this case there has been a very sharp drop, even though 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 Spain has maintained a level of industrial conflict that almost corresponds to Belgium and France in the 1970s. Portugal on the other hand has quite peaceful industrial relations. What is apparent, especially for Spain, is a pattern of 'waves' and very big disputes: The first ones appear in the wake of democratization after the death of Franco, but again in 1988 and in the beginning of the 1990s significant highpoints occur, with over 600 WDL (for a discussion, see [START_REF] Rigby | The Worst Record in Europe? A Comparative Analysis of Industrial Conflict in Spain[END_REF]. The Italian pattern has quite different origins and explanations, probably partly connected to the state's role as a major employer (see [START_REF] Franzosi | The Puzzle of Strikes[END_REF].

Finally, we have central continental Europe: Germany, Switzerland and Austria (graph 1E). The level for these three countries is extremely low, and it has been that way throughout the post-war era. This may be a surprise to some, since sometimes major industrial conflict erupts and receives substantial media coverage, as in the case of the Opel workers in Germany protesting in October 2004 against the outsourcing of jobs. The numbers, however, show that leaving aside these occasional major disputes, German industrial relations and those of Austria (until 2002) and Switzerland, too, are hardly ever marked by industrial conflict. Even here, certain years clearly appear as highpoints. In Germany, these occurred in 1971, 1978 and 1984. The latter was the year of big labour battles caused by the demand for the implementation of the 35-hour week. As we know, the trade union movement was at least partly victorious in these battles. Today these accomplishments are being rolled back in Germany, but that is a different story. Austria did, however, break its peaceful record completely in 2003: a number of very large conflicts erupted, in the main political strikes against the government's planned pension reforms. The Austrian Trade Union Confederation, the ÖGB, organized a number of very large protest strikes (similar to those common in France), the most far-reaching since the Second World War. Added to this, there were major strike outbreaks in the railways and Austrian Airlines, resulting in an aggregate loss of 1.3 million working days, or 400 WDL per 1000 employees. 10 Across western Europe as a whole, there is a clear picture of convergence and a general decline in industrial conflict. In the 1970s, countries like Italy, Spain, Ireland, the UK and Finland had a very high level, while Denmark, Belgium and France were in the middle group; today the level is much more similar and overall much lower. Convergence is the predominant trend, and the days of high numbers of WDL are over. This does not imply that major conflicts have disappeared, though.

A different way of viewing this development -a way that focuses especially on the differences between the European countries -is to look at rankings. If there is a general downward trend in strike activity, it is interesting to see whether this trend influences all countries in equal measure, or if some countries change place over the decades. Thus, in the 1970s (Figure 2A) Spain and Italy were positioned at the top, with the UK, Finland and Ireland at a high medium level, Denmark, Belgium and France in the middle, and Austria, Switzerland, Portugal, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and Germany all at the very low end. Does this pattern persist? To some extent it does.

In the 1980s (Figure 2B) the league table is still headed by the same five countries (Spain, Italy, Finland, the UK and Ireland), while in the middle, countries like Sweden and Norway have moved somewhat up the scale from their very low levels in the 1970s. Maybe the 'resurgence of class conflict' came a bit later here? Otherwise, the overall ranking has not changed much. (Note that the vertical axis on each graph 2A to 2D is scaled differently, to accommodate the continuing overall decline in WDL.)

In the 1990s (Figure 2C), Spain was still the most strike-prone country, but some large conflicts in Denmark and Finland moved these two countries to second and third place. In Denmark, just one official conflict (almost a general strike) resulted in a total of 1178 WDL per 1000 employees, the highest number for any European country since 1990. The UK, France and Portugal, on the other hand, had become much more peaceful. Also, Norway moved up the scale, not because of increased Norwegian strike activity, but because strike levels dropped faster in most other countries.

Finally, in the 2000s (Figure 2D, averaging only the four years for which data are available) -with the lowest general level for WDL -we again find Spain, Italy and Finland among the top five, but now Norway is among the 'top' countries, as a result of a very large conflict in 2000. Also, a novelty, Austria has taken the second place that was occupied by Denmark in the 1990s. At the very bottom, the least strike-ridden countries are (in ascending order): Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and Portugal.

A general conclusion on the patterns of cross-national variation would be that while some countries persist in their position in the league table, at the high (Spain, Italy and Finland) or the low end (Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands and to some extent Portugal), others do change places and significantly so. Denmark is for most of this period in the middle, but was high-ranking in the 1990s; the UK used to be one of the most strike-ridden, but since the 1990s is now in the middle or just below; while Norway seems to have moved relatively in the opposite direction. Austria is a complete surprise.

The Overall Decline

Finally, this article discusses two aspects of the patterns detected: first, potential explanatory factors behind the decline in strikes; and second, some possible considerations concerning the still prevalent country differences. Some of the explanations suggested in the literature are as follows:

• Declining union density: The most evident explanation is the general weakening of trade union organization in Europe, first and foremost reflected in the decline in density. This decline is described in many sources (Ebbinghaus and Visser, 2000;[START_REF] Visser | European Trade Unions: the Transition Years[END_REF] for the USA, see, for example Kaufman, 2004: 53), but it cannot really be the only explanatory factor. For even in countries with relatively stable union densities, strike levels have dropped significantly. • Declining collective bargaining coverage: Coverage has declined in some countries: in Germany in the period just from 1995 to 2001 from 83 to 71 percent in the west and from 73 to 56 percent in the east; and in the UK in the period from 1984 to 1998 from 66 to 42 percent, quite significant rates of decline. 11 But in most other countries, as [START_REF] Traxler | Collective Bargaining: Levels and Coverage[END_REF] has shown, there has been no general decline in bargaining coverage. Countries with extension clauses which are widely used (such as Austria and France) maintain very high coverage rates, and most countries with a less legalistic approach to bargaining coverage (as in Scandinavia) have not experienced this kind of decline.

• Globalization with less state intervention in support of national employment:

The strengthening of the EU internal market, in combination with the gradually increasing liberalization of global trade through the WTO, entails less state protection of national companies and industries and less state financial intervention to protect employment. In consequence, striking for state support for ailing producers (such as shipyards) has much less appeal to workers today than in the past. At the same time, globalized competition means that some employees may face losing their work to developing countries, should they strike too extensively. That globalization plays a role in undermining the strength of the labour movement and blunting the strike weapon is probably true in a general sense. • Sectoral and occupational changes: It has long been argued that the change from manufacturing to the service economy, and the associated trend in employment from manual worker to salaried employee, adversely affects solidarity and militancy. In fact the causal relationship is ambiguous. Increased public employment may have increased the tendency to strike (because of high centralization on the part of the employer, and a high degree of employment security); conversely, increases in the private service sector and the 'knowledge economy' may pull in the opposite direction. The growing prevalence of privatization may thus have contributed to a downward trend in strikes, but this can only have been a major factor in the recent period. • Individualization: This more general sociological factor may also contribute, although it is of course difficult to say why today's employees should have become much more individualistic, and when such a change took place. However, a change in the balance of risks and opportunities may make strikes a less attractive option for individualistically oriented employees, with a higher estimate of the sacrifices involved and a lower expectation of gains.

The 'Many Cases of Europe'

Why do strike patterns differ in Europe, and why do these differences seem to persist? Explanations for the persistently high strike levels in Spain and Italy have been proposed by [START_REF] Franzosi | The Puzzle of Strikes[END_REF] and [START_REF] Rigby | The Worst Record in Europe? A Comparative Analysis of Industrial Conflict in Spain[END_REF]. While these authors point to several important causal factors, the most important appears to be the fact that striking plays an almost integral role in sectoral bargaining. In other countries, such as the UK and in Scandinavia, pay bargaining including unofficial strikes typically takes place at workplace level; this means that when employees do strike, it is only in a minority of companies and thus the toll in WDL is much smaller. Another factor seems to be political strikes, which have all but disappeared in northern Europe, but which are still a fact of life in Mediterranean countries. It is tempting also to mention the very high employment security for workers in Spain and Italy (a legacy of corporatism), which makes it rather less risky for workers to go on strike, and also results in conflict over attempts to introduce more labour market flexibility.

At the other end of the spectrum are the countries with very low levels of WDL, both in absolute and relative terms: Germany, Austria (until 2002), Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium and to some extent also Portugal. These are countries where there is no tradition of large political strikes and where sectoral bargaining generally takes place with strikes only few and far between. There are exceptions: Germany in particular does have intermittent sectoral disputes, resulting in individual years with a larger number of WDL, but even then the size of such disputes rarely results in levels approaching the peaks recorded in southern Europe or in Scandinavia. It is interesting that the most recent English-language introduction to German industrial relations makes only a few passing references to the issue of industrial conflict (Müller-Jentsch and Weitbrecht, 2003). One part of the explanation for the extraordinary labour peace in Germany (and some other countries in this group) might be the strong works council system, which gives employees much more say in the everyday business of their companies, and thus makes striking 'against oneself' appear pointless.

Finally, we have the countries in the 'middle range', where there the level of WDL is significant, but not overwhelming. These include France, Ireland, the UK and all four Scandinavian countries. Here, strikes are still common either in the recurring processes of local workplace pay bargaining, or as a political means of protest (or both). However, resort to strikes in either case is episodic and infrequent, contrary to the pattern in Spain and Italy. Trade unions and employers' associations therefore constantly monitor any conflicts in order to contain the eruptions that do occur, something which in France is left to the politicians.

It is worth noting that in these countries, despite very different institutional arrangements in industrial relations, levels of industrial conflict in terms of WDL are today almost indistinguishable. France has a constitutional right to strike, the Scandinavian countries have an embargo on strikes and lock-outs while a collective agreement is in force, while the UK has neither of these. Apparently, institutional differences are not a major influence on the occurrence of industrial conflict. This is surprising, since many observers argue that the legislative framework strongly influences the level and pattern of strikes. In the USA, for example, public-sector strike bans have been shown to have significant damping effects [START_REF] Hebdon | Do Public-Sector Strike Bans Really Prevent Conflict?[END_REF]. Yet in Europe, if the workers wish to strike, the specific national institutional rules are apparently of little significance. This however can hardly be the truth.

One might argue that high levels of striking, as in the 1970s, are unhealthy and self-defeating in the globalized economy which we have today. As with the individual right to quit a job, we consider collective action a basic democratic right and would consider it an infringement of individual and democratic rights if politically this were removed. On the other hand, when the individual employee quits (without another job at hand), he or she always runs a risk and doing so repeatedly can be selfdefeating. So the right to strike is there and is important, but extensive use is a symptom of defects in the industrial relations system.

That is why it is fundamentally wrong to say, for example, that a Scandinavian country such as Denmark has especially peaceful industrial relations, as it is sometimes claimed by defenders of 'the Danish model' [START_REF] Due | The Survival of the Danish Model[END_REF]. As Stokke has emphasized (1999: 28-30), industrial conflict in the Scandinavian countries displays a level quite close to most other European countries.

Conclusion: The Novel Calculus of Industrial Conflict

But what do the generally falling trends in industrial conflict mean? Will it wither away in a not too distant future? Are strikes an extremely outdated way of fighting? Will there be 'peace in our time'? Or will companies also in the future have to balance on the risk of conflict, when the collective agreements are to be renewed, or when the local wage negotiations take place? Will the right to strike have to be exercised once in a while if we are not to forget about it completely? Can situations still occur, where the strike as a form of action still today and in the future will be an effective and legitimate expression of the collective interest or collective protest of a specific group?

One might believe in 'peace in our time'. The strike figures are now extremely small. The average European strike level in the 2000s is 53 WDL annually for every 1000 employees (who each work approximately 225 days a year); the loss of workdays due to strikes in other words makes up just under 0.02 percent of all possible workdays or less than two per ten thousand! On the other hand, it is also easy to see from the data given that the level of conflict in most countries seems to have declined sharply from the 1970s to the 1990s, but from then on has not fallen much further. One might interpret this trend in industrial conflict in Europe as stabilization at a far lower level than in the past, particularly in the most strike-prone countries. The continued occurrence of spectacular strikes, for example in connection with workplace closures or outsourcing, is something that will prevent dispute levels from falling towards zero. Such actions bring the attention of the public to processes that hit the employees, who have few other ways of gaining the attention of the media.

We discussed earlier some explanations for the secular decline in strike activity since the 1970s. We must also ask for explanations for the substantial national differences which remain evident, even if crossnational differences have reduced considerably over time. While it is impossible to propose detailed causal explanations here, some hypotheses can be suggested, based both on the literature and upon the recent changes in industrial conflict patterns. They are summarized in Table 3.

• Unemployment levels play a substantial role in the economic literature, for example in the Ashenfelter and Johnson model (1969). 12 Judging from the patterns, it is quite clear, however, that neither the decline in industrial conflict nor the cross-national variation could be explained by unemployment. While industrial conflict fell in concert with increasing unemployment in the 1970s, the recovery of employment in the 1980s and onwards was not accompanied by increasing strike activity, neither generally nor in those countries benefiting most from labour market improvement. • Union density and bargaining coverage may have had a slight effect on industrial conflict levels: both have been declining, especially density, and this trend has not been reversed. As for the variation, however, it is certainly difficult to discern a connection between any of these two factors and industrial conflict: Both France and Germany have high bargaining coverage, but their levels of industrial conflict vary substantially. • Labour law and changes in the legal framework have received considerable attention in the literature [START_REF] Elgar | The Impact of the Law on Industrial Disputes in the 1980s[END_REF]Hebdon andStern, 1998, 2003). Clearly, different national systems' labour law can be expected to influence the variation in patterns and levels of conflict between European countries, though as noted previously this effect is far from straightforward. • Globalization and the reduction in national employment protection, as discussed earlier, may be important in explaining the overall decline in industrial conflict levels. However, there is no evidence that differential exposure to international economic forces can help explain crossnational variations in WDL. • Embeddedness or history: national traditions of either high or low conflict may become established over time and shape the behaviour of the industrial relations actors. Within countries, one may likewise observe such learned patterns in particular companies or industries. This does seem to be an important factor, shaping expectations of what is legitimate and effective.

Institutional factors may be judged to play a substantial role: legalregulative institutions affect the dynamics of industrial conflict, while normative or cultural-cognitive institutions play a role in explaining national variation (see Scott, 2001: 52). In sum, strikes are often based on and have to be understood as rational calculations, embedded in an institutional system, which to a large extent affects the actual calculation: not necessarily economic, however, for calculations may be value-based [START_REF] Crouch | Trade Unions: The Logic of Collective Action[END_REF][START_REF] Hyman | Strikes[END_REF][START_REF] Hyman | Social Values and Industrial Relations[END_REF]. Industrial conflict may result from frustrations over large negative enforced conditions, for example mass lay-offs in the case of declining markets, often as a futile, yet comprehensible cry for help. Not all participants in industrial conflict will agree on the calculation, but on these occasions the majority normally rules, since collective action otherwise becomes virtually impossible.

Calling participants' deliberations and reflections on strike action 'rational calculations' may appear overdone: according to some estimates, a strike lasting more than four days will virtually always represent a negative cost-benefit calculus (Metcalf et al., 1983: 185-91). Protests against mass lay-offs may be an exception: workers are reacting, because they feel that the attention of the public needs to become directed toward the phenomenon. Another explanation might be that the union representatives -confronted with a sizeable setback, for example major job losses -may decide that the least-worst option is to fight and lose rather than not fight at all. 13 Consideration of rational calculation makes it possible to expect that there will be decreased strike activity as markets become globalized and outsourcing of jobs is made much easier. Workplaces are simply much less protected by national borders than they were in the 1970s. It also becomes fair to expect European nations to move towards convergence, with their strike patterns becoming more similar.

As a fundamental civic right the right to strike is still significant, but the actual occurrence of strikes can definitely not be seen as a simple expression of either the strength or the weakness of the labour movement, as [START_REF] Korpi | Strikes, Industrial Relations and Class Conflict in Capitalist Societies[END_REF] have cogently explained. They must, however, be seen as an expression of the embedding of the actors in nationally specific negotiation relations, and their more or less rational deliberations and reflections within these.

Strikes may presumably always be seen as the beginning of a process, not the end. By conducting a strike, a collective of employees can set a new agenda or put new issues on the existing agenda, often in the context of establishing (or improving) a collective agreement. That way strikes have often been used. However, one cannot in every case strike one's way to victory. The victories are won at the negotiating table, where the strike threat may be a useful card to play. This card instantly loses much of its value, however, when it is actually played. Negotiation victories usually involve concessions by both sides. The reciprocity of the negotiation process becomes far more difficult in the context of strikes or lock-outs, when feelings are riding high, and the parties may have difficulties acting and deliberating rationally. If the strike may still be seen as a countervailing power resource for employees faced with the superior power resources of employers, the waning of industrial conflict is indeed lamentable. But if it is a function of employees finding other ways and means to express their demands, a decrease in industrial conflict may be less regrettable. Nevertheless, the strike is still a significant civic right, but more as an emergency resource than as an 'everyday right'.

FIGURE 1 .

 1 FIGURE 1. WDL per 1000 Employees per Year

European Journal of Industrial Relations 12(2) 144TABLE 1 . Average WDL per Year in 15 European Countries by Decade, 1970-2003

 1 Simple average is average of averages of countries (disregarding country size). Weighted average is calculated on aggregate numbers, as shown in the table.Countries are those with available data for almost the whole period: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany (Western Germany until 1993), Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Data for Greece are incomplete, and for the countries of Central and Eastern Europe do not go back further than 1990.

	Period	Dependent	WDL (000)	Simple	Weighted
		employment (000)		average	average
	1970-79	115,342	48,280	351	419
	1980-89	129,807	25,947	175	200
	1990-99	147,640	8,278	70	56
	2000-03	142,511	7,257	44	51
	Note:

1

The data have been drawn from the Statistical Yearbook of the International Labour Organization (ILO). 2 Source: ILO. taken place, but industrial conflict is definitely still a fact of life of European employment relations. Why is this?

  • The strike is a special type of collective action: if one individual stops work as a protest, this is not considered a strike. • It is a complete work stoppage, and therefore different from other types of action such as working to rule or banning overtime.

• It is also important that we are talking about employees, since collective action by other groups in society (for instance road blockades by French wine growers protesting at cheap Italian or Spanish wine imports, or class boycotts by students) are only referred to as strikes by analogy.

Scheuer: A Novel Calculus? 149 TABLE 2. Annual Average Strike Participation per 1000 Employees by Decade, 1970-2003

	Country	1970-1979	1980-1989	1990-1999	2000-2003
		2000
	DK		41.4	39.5	39.6	26.3
	FI	1500	174.5	136.0	38.3	28.2
	NO		4.0	13.6	10.2	11.4
	SE		4.9	28.4	7.4	5.4
	IE	1000	34.2	37.3	11.9	12.3
	UK		70.6	47.7	8.5	14.1
	AT	500	na	4.2	4.9	2.7
	DE		na	na	4.3	3.7
	CH FR	0	0.3 90.2	0.2 6.5	0.8 0.8	3.7 0.6 2000	2002	2003
	BE		23.3	7.8	3.4	2.8
	NL		5.1	3.8	4.7	3.0
	PT		na	17.7	17.8	8.6
	IT		491.4	318.9	91.3	112.9
	ES		221.0	271.3	173.3	162.8
	Average	96.8	66.6	27.8	26.6

Note: na = not available. Source: ILO.

A: Scandinavia

Average WDL per Year per 1000 Employees, by Decade, 1970-2003

	FIGURE 1. Continued FIGURE 2.
	A: 1970-79
										Spain
						Italy
				UK
				Finland
				Ireland
		Denmark
		Belgium
		France
		Germany
		Norway
		Sweden
		Netherlands
		Portugal
	Switzerland
	Austria
	0	200	400	600	800	1000	1200	1400	1600	1800	2000
										Germany
										Austria
	B: 1980-1989								Switzerland
											Spain
								Italy
						Finland
						UK
					Ireland
				Sweden
				Denmark
		Norway
		Portugal
		France
		Germany
		Belgium Netherlands								2000 2002	2003
		Austria
	Source: ILO. Switzerland
	0	100		200	300		400	500		600	700
	C: 1990-1999
										Spain
					Denmark
					Finland
				Italy
				Ireland
				Norway
		Sweden
		UK
		Belgium
		Portugal
		France
		Netherlands
		Germany
		Austria
		Switzerland
	0	50		100	150		200	250		300	350

European Journal of Industrial Relations 12(2)

Note: Effects are denoted as 0 = no effect; (+) = slight effect; + = clear effect.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author wishes to thank Torgeir Stokke (FAFO, Norway), Jens Erbo Christensen and Morten Madsen (LO Danmark) plus two anonymous referees and the editor for their thorough and useful comments on earlier versions of this article.

NOTES


Claus Schnabel

Stefan Zagelmeyer

Susanne Kohaut

An Empirical Analysis with British and German Establishment Data

Keywords: collective bargaining, bargaining coverage, Germany, United Kingdom

Introduction

Collective bargaining coverage is an indicator of the practical relevance of collective self-regulation by the labour market parties, and also reflects the power of employers' associations and unions as well as their capacity to shape the regulation of the employment relationship and the labour market.

In his seminal analysis of the decentralization of collective bargaining in industrialized countries, Katz (1993: 19) stated that 'there are few systematic quantitative data tracing the evolution of bargaining structure'. Since then, several studies have provided cross-national data on the structure and coverage of collective bargaining (for example, [START_REF] Traxler | Collective Bargaining Coverage and Extension Procedures[END_REF][START_REF] Visser | Unions and Unionism around the World[END_REF], on the basis of which there have been empirical analyses of the macro determinants of bargaining centralization [START_REF] Traxler | Collective Bargaining and Industrial Change: A Case of Disorganization?[END_REF][START_REF] Traxler | National Labour Relations in Internationalized Markets: A Comparative Study of Institutions, Change, and Performance[END_REF]. Other research has analysed the determinants of collective bargaining centralization in the United States by using industry-level data (Greenberg, 1966a and1966b;Hendricks and[START_REF] Hendricks | The Determinants of Bargaining Structure in U.S. Manufacturing Industries[END_REF][START_REF] Hendricks | The Demand for Labor Market Structure: An Economic Approach[END_REF]. However, the micro determinants of employer demand for collective bargaining and of firms' (as well as unions') choice of governance structures for the employment relationship have received less attention in empirical work (notable exceptions being [START_REF] Deaton | The Determinants of Bargaining Structure: Some Large Scale Survey Evidence for Britain[END_REF][START_REF] Booth | The Bargaining Structure of British Establishments[END_REF], perhaps partly because of a lack of suitable data on the company or establishment level. In recent years, a number of quantitative studies have been published for countries such as Germany [START_REF] Kohaut | Zur Erosion des Flächentarifvertrags: Ausmaß, Einflussfaktoren und Gegenmaßnahmen[END_REF], France [START_REF] Cahuc | Voice and Loyalty as a Delegation of Authority: A Model and a Test on a Matched Worker-Firm Panel[END_REF] and the UK (Zagelmeyer, 2004a), but there has been no attempt at comparative quantitative analysis. 1 This article tries to fill this gap by examining the determinants of firms' choice of multi-employer, single-employer or no collective bargaining in Britain and Germany. In both countries, multi-employer collective bargaining played a leading role in the determination of the terms and conditions of employment for most of the post-war period. German industrial relations has displayed a 'relative centralization of collective bargaining . . . at sectoral level' (Jacobi et al., 1998: 191), while multiemployer bargaining also dominated pay determination for the British workforce in establishments with 25 or more employees until the mid-1980s (Brown et al., 2003: 199).

Britain and Germany have both experienced a decollectivization and decentralization of collective bargaining, although these processes started at different points in time, and decentralization has been more 'organized' in Germany (see Zagelmeyer, 2004b). In contrast, the prevailing trend in collective bargaining coverage in most of the EU has been stability [START_REF] Traxler | Collective Bargaining Coverage and Extension Procedures[END_REF]. In this article we investigate econometrically whether the same factors can explain the choice of bargaining arrangements by British and German firms, and discuss the implications for the future of collective bargaining coverage in both countries.

In the next section, we first outline the legal framework and recent developments concerning collective bargaining in Britain and Germany, then explore the incidence of collective bargaining in both countries, and subsequently discuss the advantages and disadvantages of different arrangements. Following this, we present a theoretical and empirical analysis of the determinants of employer demand for collective bargaining in Britain and Germany, estimating models for both countries using representative data from the German Institut für Arbeitsmarkt-und Berufsforschung (IAB) Establishment Panel and the British Workplace Employee Relations Survey (WERS). The final section discusses the results from a comparative perspective and identifies issues for further research.

Collective Bargaining in Britain and Germany: Legal Background, Recent Trends and Incidence

Legal Background

British industrial relations actors -employers, unions and the statehave traditionally preferred voluntary to legislative regulation of the employment relationship [START_REF] Edwards | Great Britain: Still Muddling Through[END_REF][START_REF] Flanders | The Tradition of Voluntarism[END_REF]Gospel and Palmer, 1993: 155). Without express reference in the individual employment contract, collective agreements are not legally binding and thus not enforceable by law, depending for their ultimate enforcement on the sanctions available to the parties. Each union involved in the conclusion of collective agreements must be recognized by the employer for this purpose. Collective agreements may be reached at any level.

Single-employer agreements may be reached at establishment, company, divisional or corporate level. At shop-floor level, a formal system of collective agreements may coexist with informal rules and agreements that are often termed 'custom and practice' [START_REF] Brown | A Consideration of Custom and Practise[END_REF]. At industry level, multi-employer bargaining may be conducted between employers' associations and trade unions or union confederations, at national or local level.

The German system involves a dual system of representation through trade unions and works councils, extensive juridification, encompassing organizations on both sides of the labour market, and a system of regional industry-level collective bargaining [START_REF] Jacobi | Germany: Facing New Challenges[END_REF]. The constitutionally protected principle of autonomous bargaining (Tarifautonomie) gives organizations of employers and employees the right to regulate working conditions without state interference.

Collective agreements are legally binding and may be concluded at either industry level (Verbandstarifverträge) or single-employer level (Firmentarifverträge). Bargaining is mainly conducted at regional industry level, but in certain industries is frequent at national or company level. Sectoral agreements can be extended by government regulation to all employers and employees in an industry. Another form of collective agreement is the works agreement (Betriebsvereinbarung), concluded between a firm and its works council within the legal framework of codetermination. These may not contain provisions which are generally regulated by collective agreement (such as wages), unless expressly permitted by the union-employer agreement.

Recent Developments

In Britain, industry-wide bargaining over terms and conditions of employment became consolidated in the early 20th century, but signs of decentralization became apparent from the time of the Second World War, with the rise of shop-floor bargaining. The Donovan Report in 1968 made clear that workplace bargaining had become more important than was generally realized. After government attempts to formalize and stabilize collective bargaining within the framework of national incomes policies had failed, the significance of multi-employer collective bargaining continued to decline through the 1970s, although formal coverage rates remained quite high [START_REF] Brown | The Changing Nature of National Wage Agreements[END_REF].

Between 1979 and 1997 there were major changes in bargaining arrangements. Zagelmeyer (2004a) estimates the coverage rates of different bargaining arrangements for British establishments with 25 or more employees. While single-employer collective bargaining covered about 20 percent of those establishments between 1980 and 1990, it declined to less than 15 percent in 1998. Multi-employer bargaining covered about 47 percent of those establishments in 1980 and 1984, but declined to 18 percent in 1998. Conversely, the prevalence of individual regulation (no collective bargaining) grew from 33 to 68 percent of all establishments.

For western Germany, it has long been assumed that regional industrywide bargaining is the most important mechanism. Although no official statistics exist, it was traditionally estimated that collective bargaining covered around 90 percent of all employees (OECD, 1994). However, decentralization was encouraged in the early 1970s by qualitative bargaining policies, which aimed at 'humanizing' working life and protecting employees against the adverse effects of rationalization and technological change. Industry agreements now included provision for negotiation over performance standards, work organization and rest periods, to be determined at establishment level. When unions in the metal and printing industries achieved their goal of a shorter working week, they had to concede more flexible organization of working time, to be implemented for example by works agreement [START_REF] Bispinck | Stationen der Tarifpolitik von 1949-1999[END_REF].

In the 1990s, increasing international competition, high unemployment and German unification accelerated changes in collective bargaining. Increasingly, industry-wide collective agreements included so-called 'opening clauses' which authorized the lower levels, usually the employer and the works council, to deviate from the multi-employer agreement in order to save jobs. Following unification, the transfer of the western German industrial relations and collective bargaining institutions to eastern Germany resulted in a number of frictions, with employers' associations and trade unions both facing difficulties in recruiting and retaining members. A major challenge was the unions' goal of bringing eastern wages up to western levels, despite lower productivity, which induced many firms to opt out of the system. Consequently, the number of firms with company agreements more than doubled in the 1990s [START_REF] Bispinck | Stationen der Tarifpolitik von 1949-1999[END_REF][START_REF] Hassel | The Erosion of the German System of Industrial Relations[END_REF]2002;[START_REF] Schnabel | The Reform of Collective Bargaining in Germany: Corporatist Stability vs. Firm Flexibility[END_REF]2003).

Representative data show that between 1995 and 2001 the coverage rate of multi-employer collective bargaining fell from 53 to 45 percent of all western German establishments with one or more employees, and from 28 percent in 1996 to 22 percent in 2001 in eastern establishments. Singleemployer bargaining also seems to have fallen in recent years while individual regulation has grown, but changes in the survey question mean that these two developments cannot be traced over a longer period of time [START_REF] Kohaut | Senior Researcher at the Institut für Arbeitsmarkt-und Berufsforschung[END_REF]Schnabel, 1999 and2003).

Incidence of Collective Bargaining in Britain and Germany

The availability of large-scale establishment surveys in Britain and Germany makes it possible to estimate and compare bargaining coverage rates. For Britain, we use WERS98, a nationally representative survey of 2191 establishments with 10 or more employees. For Germany, data for the year 2000 are taken from the IAB Establishment Panel. Each year this nationally representative panel surveys several thousand establishments with at least one employee covered by social insurance. 2 Table 1 displays collective bargaining coverage rates, based on the weighted data of both representative datasets.

In 1998, 26.8 percent of British establishments with 10 or more employees were covered by collective pay bargaining, with 11.7 percent covered primarily by single-employer collective bargaining and 15.1 percent by multi-employer bargaining. Single-employer bargaining coverage varied between 7.5 percent for establishments with 10 to 19 employees and 43.8 percent for those with 1000 and more employees. The respective figures for multi-employer bargaining coverage are 11.5 and 33.3 percent. Hence for both categories of collective bargaining, coverage rates appear to be positively associated with establishment size.

Table 1 displays separate data for western and (post-communist) eastern Germany, since these regions differ considerably in terms of historical traditions and labour market conditions. In 2000, 48.1 percent of western establishments were covered by collective bargaining, with 2.7 percent covered by single-employer and 45.4 percent by multi-employer bargaining. In eastern Germany, 27.5 percent of all establishments were covered by collective bargaining: 4.3 percent by single-employer and 23.2 percent by multi-employer bargaining. Again, as in Britain, coverage rates appear to be positively associated with establishment size in both parts of Germany. To facilitate comparisons with the British data, figures for German establishments with 10 or more employees are presented in the last line of Table 1. They reinforce the impression that singleemployer bargaining is relatively more important in Britain, whereas multi-employer bargaining clearly predominates in Germany. However, it is important to note that the questions regarding bargaining arrangements are different in the two surveys. WERS98 asked for the mode of pay-setting, including collective bargaining levels, for different occupational groups. An establishment was coded as subject to a particular collective bargaining level if it applied to at least one occupational group. Where different groups were under different bargaining arrangements, the highest (or most centralized) was chosen. In contrast, the IAB asks whether the establishment is subject to a multi-employer or singleemployer collective agreement, with no explicit reference to pay determination or to occupational group. Although it seems plausible that the highest level of collective bargaining in Britain is similar to the highest level of pay determination, one could also argue that the limitation to the pay issue might cause an underestimation of the general level of collective bargaining coverage.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Different Levels of Regulation

Since some firms prefer single-employer collective bargaining while others prefer multi-employer agreements to determine terms and conditions of employment, different types of bargaining arrangement presumably have specific advantages and disadvantages for industrial relations actors. These have been widely discussed in economics, political science and sociology (for example, [START_REF] Aidt | Unions and Collective Bargaining: Economic Effects in a Global Environment[END_REF][START_REF] Berthold | Evolution von Lohnverhandlungssystemen -Macht oder Ökonomisches Gesetz?[END_REF][START_REF] Calmfors | Centralisation of Wage Bargaining and Macroeconomic Performance: A Survey[END_REF][START_REF] Flanagan | Collective Bargaining and Macroeconomic Performance[END_REF][START_REF] Moene | Bargaining Structure and Economic Performance[END_REF]OECD, 1997;[START_REF] Traxler | National Labour Relations in Internationalized Markets: A Comparative Study of Institutions, Change, and Performance[END_REF]. While much research has examined the association between the degree of centralization of a national bargaining system and macroeconomic performance [START_REF] Calmfors | Bargaining Structure, Corporatism and Macroeconomic Performance[END_REF]OECD, 1997), only recently has the focus of attention shifted to the level of pay determination as an explicit decision by the company [START_REF] Freeman | Getting Together and Breaking Apart: The Decline of Centralised Collective Bargaining[END_REF][START_REF] Lindbeck | Centralized Bargaining and Reorganized Work: Are They Compatible?[END_REF][START_REF] Ramaswamy | Centralized Bargaining, Efficiency Wages, and Flexibility[END_REF]Zagelmeyer, 2004a).

From a macroeconomic perspective, one may assume that any negative effects of collective agreements and wage rises for other employees, employers and consumers are more likely to be internalized, the higher the degree of centralization or coordination of collective bargaining, since bargaining parties at central level cannot escape negative macroeconomic effects such as unemployment. On the other hand, centralized negotiations cannot fully use the information, capabilities and flexibility available at local level and the outcomes are less likely to reflect the economic situation and specific needs of individual establishments and companies.

Decentralized solutions, either single-employer collective agreements or individual regulation, permit agreements tailored to the situation of the company or establishment, including local labour market conditions. Decentralized regulation should thus provide for a differentiated wage structure and maximization of employment opportunities. However, if the demands of a company's workforce are not only oriented to its specific situation, but rather to the terms and conditions in other establishments or companies, this may lead to pay leapfrogging, particularly if unions are organized above the company level. This may be associated with higher wage increases, supposedly shifting the costs to unemployed outsiders, and national policy-makers will have difficulties in steering macroeconomic wage and price movements.

From the perspective of the company, collective agreements significantly reduce transaction costs by substituting one set of negotiations for a large number of individual bargains and by standardizing the terms and conditions of employment. This advantage is positively associated with the degree of bargaining centralization and bargaining coverage. In addition, wages are largely taken out of competition by multi-employer bargaining, and the shift of industrial conflict to a level above the company reduces the danger that disputes will sour the working atmosphere within the establishment.

In addition to transaction costs, power factors affect employer considerations [START_REF] Arrowsmith | Externalisation and Internalisation of Collective Bargaining in Europe: Variation in the Role of Large Companies[END_REF]: unionized employers can pool their strength and prevent leapfrogging by bargaining at multi-employer level, which may also minimize the power of the local union(s). The capacity to pool power collectively increases with the homogeneity of activities across firms, whereas greater heterogeneity of activities across companies makes even tacit collusion more difficult. Arrowsmith et al. (2003: 368) argue that intensive competition, which increases uncertainty and instability and acts as pressure for localization in transaction-cost terms, strengthens management's control over the employment relationship. It would further increase management's power to use 'divide and rule' tactics against the unions when it comes to investment decisions between production sites.

Thörnquist (1999: 80), focusing on Sweden, emphasizes politicoideological motives related to the balance of power between capital and labour as 'of utmost importance' in shaping employer preferences for a particular bargaining level. Centralized systems increase union power and employers may thus favour decentralized bargaining in order to protect management prerogative and control over the employment relationship. Traxler (2003: 2, 19) identifies a tension between performance (or efficiency) considerations and political motives, but concludes that 'extended managerial control may be seen [by the employers] as an end in itself or as a means of improving performance'. The various advantages and disadvantages discussed above point to a potential conflict between the company and macroeconomic perspectives, implying that generally applicable and efficient solutions may be difficult to find.

Furthermore, the advantages and disadvantages of different regulation levels may change over time.

The optimal level of regulation as well as collective bargaining coverage may be affected by macroeconomic trends in various ways. On the one hand, the degree of centralization may increase, because (for Germany) EMU requires a higher degree of nominal wage flexibility, and because it is often assumed that the coordination of collective bargaining will help achieve this better. On the other hand, the prevailing trend over the last decade has been a reduction in inflation rates, and consequently a reduced need for centralized negotiations to ensure wage moderation. Increased unemployment as well as the option of moving production abroad may make decentralized negotiations more attractive for companies, because they reduce insider power and improve the employer's bargaining position. Growing international competition and the increased speed of technological change also entail that the transaction-cost advantage of centralized arrangements decreases in favour of the informational and flexibility advantages of decentralized regulation. Globalization is associated with the increasing importance of flexible work organization to adapt to rapidly changing conditions in product markets, with a shift from Taylorist work organization to greater team orientation, fewer levels of hierarchy, increased individual responsibilities and job enlargement. Investment in firm-specific human capital, employee participation and performance-related compensation become more important. The relatively rigid rules established by collective bargaining, with limited scope for decision-making on compensation systems and other personnel policies, may pose serious problems for many firms and prompt them to opt out of the collective bargaining system.

Empirical Analysis Previous Empirical Research in Britain and Germany

Despite a growing interest in cross-national variation and longitudinal change in bargaining arrangements and coverage, empirical research on their determinants is still relatively small and has not resulted in an established set of consistent findings. Furthermore, to the best of our knowledge no study has covered more than one country.

There exist only three studies of collective bargaining centralization in Britain. The earliest quantitative study, by [START_REF] Deaton | The Determinants of Bargaining Structure: Some Large Scale Survey Evidence for Britain[END_REF], is based on survey data covering 970 manufacturing firms and shows that regional concentration, labour costs, union density and multi-unionism are positively associated with centralization, while there are negative associations for establishment size, foreign ownership and product market concentration. The other two studies are based on the WERS Surveys. [START_REF] Booth | The Bargaining Structure of British Establishments[END_REF] shows that centralization is negatively associated with establishment/organization size and foreign ownership, and positively associated with the share of labour costs in turnover. Zagelmeyer (2004a) finds, however, that the influence of several independent variables varies across years, so that their overall impact is not clear-cut. 3 In addition, there has been considerable research on the determinants of union recognition in Britain (Beaumont and[START_REF] Beaumont | The North-South Divide in Britain: The Case of Trade Union Recognition[END_REF][START_REF] Beaumont | Trade Union Recognition and Employment Contraction, Britain, 1980-1984[END_REF][START_REF] Disney | British Unions in Decline: Determinants of the 1980s Fall in Union Recognition[END_REF][START_REF] Machin | Union Decline in Britain[END_REF]. Despite differences, a consistent finding is that recognition is positively associated with organization and establishment size and establishment age, and negatively associated with foreign ownership and single-establishment companies.

There is more research on the determinants of bargaining arrangements in Germany, but this is quite heterogeneous with regard to explanatory determinants included in the models. Despite differences in detail, analyses of the choice between decentralized regulation and multiemployer collective bargaining [START_REF] Bellmann | Flächentarifverträge im Zeichen von Abwanderung und Widerspruch: Geltungsbereich, Einflußfaktoren und Öffnungstendenzen[END_REF][START_REF] Kohaut | Zur Erosion des Flächentarifvertrags: Ausmaß, Einflussfaktoren und Gegenmaßnahmen[END_REF][START_REF] Lehmann | Stabilität und Veränderung der Flächentarifbindung von Arbeitgebern in Deutschland. Eine theoretische und empirische Analyse[END_REF] show that establishment size, establishment age, and being a subsidiary establishment of a multi-plant company are positively associated with multi-employer collective bargaining. Further research based on other datasets is mostly consistent with this evidence and points to additional determinants such as union density and workforce composition [START_REF] Franz | Tarifbindung und die ökonomische Rationalität von Lohnrigiditäten[END_REF][START_REF] Lehmann | Stabilität und Veränderung der Flächentarifbindung von Arbeitgebern in Deutschland. Eine theoretische und empirische Analyse[END_REF][START_REF] Hübler | Works Councils and Collective Bargaining in Germany: The Impact on Productivity and Wages[END_REF].

Potential Determinants of Collective Bargaining Structure

Arguments regarding collective bargaining coverage and bargaining centralization range from macro-level determinants (for recent summaries, see [START_REF] Traxler | National Labour Relations in Internationalized Markets: A Comparative Study of Institutions, Change, and Performance[END_REF]Zagelmeyer, 2004a) to micro-level determinants (summarized by [START_REF] Lehmann | Stabilität und Veränderung der Flächentarifbindung von Arbeitgebern in Deutschland. Eine theoretische und empirische Analyse[END_REF]Zagelmeyer, 2004a). The present article focuses on micro-level factors affecting the level of regulation of the employment relationship. This section summarizes the theoretical arguments regarding these determinants, focusing on employer choice between three alternative options, namely individual regulation, single-employer collective bargaining and multi-employer bargaining. We assume that the employer has the right to make this choice unilaterally, but this does not preclude negotiation with the union(s) over the bargaining structure and the fact that power relations, and institutional factors (labour law, extension schemes, union strength, employers' associations) will also influence the choice. We go on to estimate an econometric model for the probability that an establishment is associated with a certain governance structure. Since our data are only cross-sectional and do not provide information on all issues of interest from a theoretical perspective, the following analysis is not an exact testing of hard-to-quantify economic hypotheses, but should rather be seen as an attempt to identify empirically certain characteristics of establishments associated with different forms of regulation.

There are several reasons, in addition to the descriptive evidence presented in Table 1, why company or establishment size may be positively associated with both union recognition and the centralization of bargaining arrangements. As size increases, organizational structures become more complex and personal relationships become more distant, and costs associated with coordination, monitoring and communication increase. Collective bargaining may reduce complexity and improve communication. In addition, transaction costs of concluding individual contracts increase with the number of employees and may be reduced by collective agreements. In addition, centralized collective bargaining provides collective goods, for example wage moderation. Large firms may benefit particularly from the collective goods supplied by multiemployer collective bargaining and hence disproportionately support employers' associations and sectoral bargaining arrangements [START_REF] Kohaut | Zur Erosion des Flächentarifvertrags: Ausmaß, Einflussfaktoren und Gegenmaßnahmen[END_REF]. The terms agreed in such bargaining are often oriented towards the less profitable (and usually smaller) companies and hence protect larger, more profitable firms from higher pay claims. Another reason for a positive association between establishment or company size and collective bargaining is that there may be economies of scale for trade unions in terms of organizational activity. Larger establishments may thus be positively associated with unionization, higher membership density and collective bargaining.

On the other hand, larger firms are more likely to experience distinctive industrial relations problems, and have the organizational resources to deal with them independently (Beaumont et al., 1980: 127); whereas smaller companies have a greater need to enhance their bargaining position by combination through multi-employer bargaining. In order to control for non-linearities, we therefore include the establishment size variable in linear and in squared form in the estimations. In addition, a branch plant dummy variable catches the possibility that establishments in multi-plant organizations might more likely be covered by collective bargaining than independent establishments of similar size.

Establishment age may also play a role in bargaining arrangements: recently established businesses (start-ups) often require more flexible institutional arrangements at early stages of their existence. In addition, institutional inertia could lead to path-dependency: companies that have benefited from multi-employer bargaining in the past may retain this arrangement because they have positive expectations of its problemsolving capacity. Limitations in the German dataset force us to restrict establishment age to a dummy variable taking on the value of 1 if the establishment is not more than five years old.

The association between bargaining arrangements and employment structures is open to alternative hypotheses. A homogeneous workforce may be positively associated with demand for collective regulation, as there should be benefits from standardization; in contrast to establishments with highly skilled employees, whose terms and conditions of employment can best be regulated by individual contracts, those with a large proportion of low-skilled employees may be more likely to be covered by collective agreements. On the other hand, it is argued that employees without qualifications or with very low levels of skills have lower propensities to unionize and to handle their employment relationships collectively. The lower levels of firm-specific human capital of such employees also entail less demand for collective regulation on the employer side, since the costs of opportunistic behaviour (and of substituting these workers) that could be reduced by collective regulation and the union monitoring function are lower. In this case one might expect the percentage of low-skilled workers to be negatively associated with collective bargaining.

There exist few clear-cut theoretical hypotheses on how company ownership influences choice among bargaining arrangements. It could be argued that foreign ownership is negatively associated with collective bargaining since the management of establishments controlled by foreign multinationals may require distinctive institutional settings; multinationals may develop their own company-or enterprise-specific employment system which is incompatible with the predominant industrial relations institutions in the host country. Their managements may also copy the supposedly successful institutional and organizational configuration of establishments in their country of origin. Unfortunately, we have no complete data on the country of foreign ownership, but we apply a dummy variable to test whether establishments that are predominantly foreign-owned are more or less likely to rely on collective bargaining.

Our estimations also control for public-sector affiliation of the establishment. While the general behavioural assumption for private-sector firms in capitalist economies is profit-maximization, public-sector establishments may follow different objectives. Beaumont and Gregory (1980: 47) argue that public employers may encourage union organization and collective bargaining in order to improve staff relations and service, implying a positive association with collective bargaining. Moreover, since such establishments, in particular in public administration, have similar structures across the country, there may be benefits from standardizing employment conditions through multi-employer bargaining.

Finally, there may be industry-specific factors, such as the level of collectively agreed wages and the quality of the employers' association, with an impact on collective bargaining coverage. This is (imperfectly) captured by including a set of industry dummy variables indicating the sectoral affiliation of the main economic activity of the establishment.

Empirical Results

In our empirical analysis we make use of an ordered-probit model that estimates the probability of choosing one of the three alternative options. We thus assume that the dependent variable can be interpreted as an ordered categorical variable, and this for at least two reasons. Following the transaction-cost arguments outlined earlier, the probability of choosing a specific bargaining arrangement increases from individual regulation over single-employer collective bargaining to multi-employer collective bargaining. The employer may reduce transaction costs by moving from individual contracting to standardized single-employer agreements, and even further if an employers' association can deliver collective agreements at lower cost and with additional advantages from specialization effects, reduced risk of industrial action, sectoral standardization of wages and so on. In contrast, under the aspects of flexibility and differentiation, a firm's probability of choosing a specific bargaining arrangement should fall in the same order (with individual contracts offering the greatest and multi-employer arrangements the least flexibility and differentiation). Since both perspectives imply the same order (albeit with different justifications and underpinnings), an ordered-probit estimation is feasible (for details, see Greene, 2000: 875ff.). This is not to deny that alternative models of employer choice are possible, all of which require specific assumptions and have different strengths and weaknesses that cannot be discussed in detail here.

Our empirical results are presented in Tables 2 and3 in the form of marginal effects (reflecting the effects of a one-unit change in a continuous explanatory variable at its mean or of a discrete change of a dummy variable from 0 to 1 with all other variables set at their sample means). The same models are applied to Britain and to western and eastern Germany. While the descriptive information on collective bargaining incidence is based on weighted data, the econometric investigation uses unweighted data, and all models include the stratification variables of the representative surveys (industry dummies and establishment size) (see [START_REF] Winship | Sampling Weights and Regression Analysis[END_REF] for a discussion of these methodological issues). Definitions and descriptive statistics of the dependent and independent variables used in these estimations can be found in Table A1. The estimates show that almost all independent variables play a statistically significant role in explaining the structure of collective bargaining, although their precise effects differ in Britain and Germany.

We first interpret the public sector dummy variable because it provides a good example of the similarities and differences among the three regions analysed. In accordance with expectations, establishments operating in the public sector are more likely to have collective bargaining than other establishments, ceteris paribus. This effect is very strong in Britain where belonging to the public sector lowers the probability of no collective bargaining by 56 percentage points, while increasing the probabilities of single-and multi-employer bargaining by 15 and 41 percentage points respectively (see Table 2). In western and eastern Germany, the probability of multi-employer bargaining rises by only 13 and 21 percentage points respectively, if an establishment operates in the public sector (see Table 3).

The probability of multi-employer bargaining also increases with size of establishment, but at a decreasing rate (indicated by the negative coefficient of the quadratic in establishment size). This effect is strongest in eastern Germany, where simulations show that increasing the size of an establishment from 100 to 200 employees increases its probability of multi-employer bargaining by 6 percentage points (whereas the respective effects are just 2 percentage points in western Germany and 1 percentage point in Britain). In both countries, branch plants are less likely to have no collective bargaining and are more likely to be subject to multi-employer agreements than independent establishments, which may reflect a spill-over effect from their parent company. In contrast, newly founded establishments are less likely to make use of multiemployer bargaining, probably because they require more flexible institutional arrangements at this early stage of their existence or because they have not been organized yet by trade unions and employers' associations.

In addition, industry effects play a significant role in explaining bargaining arrangements in both countries.

The percentage of low-skilled employees in the workforce seems to be negatively related to multi-employer bargaining, but this effect is statistically significant in Germany only. Foreign ownership or control increases the probability of no collective bargaining by 10 percentage points in Britain and 5 points in western Germany, whereas it lowers this probability by 16 percentage points in eastern Germany. 4 Despite these differences in detail, the broad picture is that more or less the same set of variables is associated with enterprise-level regulation of the employment relationship in Britain and in both western and eastern Germany. Although the establishment size effect is much stronger in eastern than in western Germany and the foreign ownership effect differs between both regions, we would not conclude from our regressions that the determinants of bargaining structure in eastern Germany are totally different from those in western Germany. Moreover, the east German pattern does not more closely resemble those factors which shape the 'disorganized decentralized' British system (as compared to the 'organized decentralized' western German one), as might have been expected given the different traditions and experience of collective bargaining in the east.

Conclusions

While much international and comparative research has made extensive use of qualitative data obtained through case studies, there are very few examples of comparative research based on company and establishment surveys. Whitfield et al. (1998: 193ff.) make the case for survey-based comparisons by arguing that case studies could be complemented by such quantitative research. They suggest that comparing establishment surveys, if they have common questions and comparable sample populations, may lead to useful results in an informed international comparative analysis at the micro level, but they also warn that problems of incompatibility may occur.

In this article we have tried to identify major determinants of collective bargaining structure by comparing the results of two nationally representative establishment surveys for Britain and Germany. As the institutional framework in both countries differs and as the British data refer to establishments with 10 or more employees whereas the much larger German dataset covers all establishments with at least one employee, our analyses need to be interpreted with care. We also experienced a potential problem of question incompatibility concerning the dependent variable because the British data focus on pay determination, whereas the German data do not refer to a particular issue. Since pay determination is the major issue in collective bargaining in Germany also, and can be said to determine the choice of bargaining arrangements, and since the dependent variable chosen is very broad, we think that incompatibility is not a serious problem. All in all, we feel that the datasets used and developed possess the characteristic of reasonably close comparability.

This said, we must admit that the variables analysed represent a small subset of those available in both datasets, as well as a subset of those that would be ideal for a comprehensive comparative analysis. Feasibility clearly qualified desirability. We also acknowledge that surveys and cross-sectional analyses tell us little about causal relationships and processes. However, they allow for more comprehensive testing than other approaches, and they enable us to present a broad picture and to identify factors that are associated with firms' choice of a certain level of collective bargaining. Obviously our approach has to be complemented with studies using alternative methods.

Despite these qualifications, some interesting results were obtained from the empirical analyses. For Britain and (western and eastern) Germany alike, the probability of multi-employer bargaining increases with size of establishment, which may reflect the advantage of falling transaction costs. Establishments operating in the public sector are more likely to make use of collective bargaining and are less likely to rely on individual regulation than other establishments -an effect that is particularly strong in Britain. In both countries, branch plants are more often subject to multi-employer agreements than independent establishments.

The lower bargaining coverage of new establishments and the increasing privatization of companies in the public sector both imply that coverage will further decline over time, as has been the case in Britain and Germany in recent decades. However, data limitations make the determinants of changes in firms' bargaining status difficult to identify (for initial attempts see Zagelmeyer, 2004a, for Britain, and[START_REF] Kohaut | Senior Researcher at the Institut für Arbeitsmarkt-und Berufsforschung[END_REF]Schnabel, 2003, for Germany). Further micro research employing future waves of both datasets should make better use of the panel character of the data. Combined with macro research on bargaining coverage of the type employed, for instance, by [START_REF] Traxler | National Labour Relations in Internationalized Markets: A Comparative Study of Institutions, Change, and Performance[END_REF], this should enable us to obtain a better insight into the determinants of changes in bargaining institutions.

Our finding that more or less the same set of variables is associated with firms' choice of regulation structure for the employment relationship in Britain as in Germany is interesting, since the institutional framework and the bargaining traditions in these countries differ markedly. We would not claim to have identified a common model which fits both countries perfectly or which could be generalized to other countries. It might be interesting to see, however, to what degree these variables also play a role in other countries whose experiences in the coverage and evolution of collective bargaining may have been totally different. While this is beyond the scope of the present study, more comparative research on the determinants of collective bargaining structure, making use of micro-and macroeconometric analyses as well as case studies, is clearly needed.

TABLE 1 . Bargaining Coverage in Britain and Germany by Establishment Size (%)

 1

	Establishment size	Great Britain (1998)	Western Germany (2000)	Eastern Germany (2000)
	(number of employees)	Single-employer Multi-employer CB CB	Single-employer Multi-employer CB CB	Single-employer Multi-employer CB CB
	1-9	na	na	2.0	40.9	3.2	18.2
	10-19	7.5	11.5	3.1	54.1	6.9	33.0
	20-49	10.3	16.3	4.7	59.7	7.1	44.0
	50-99	14.5	15.6	8.8	56.9	11.6	48.1
	100-199	20.9	23.5	8.2	64.8	13.1	53.8
	200-499	32.6	19.1	10.1	68.9	17.3	56.6
	500-999	41.7	16.7	12.9	78.4	12.2	74.5
	1000 and above	43.8	33.3	12.7	81.2	16.9	77.0
	Average	11.7	15.1	2.7	45.4	4.3	23.2
	Average, 10 or more	11.7	15.1	4.6	57.1	8.0	39.9
	employees
	Note: CB = collective bargaining.
	Sources: WERS98, IAB Establishment Panel 2000; own calculations based on weighted data.

TABLE 2 . Determinants of Collective Bargaining Structure in Britain (1998)

 2

	Explanatory variables	No CB	Single-employer Multi-employer
			bargaining	bargaining
	Establishment size	-0.0002**	0.0001**	0.0001**
	(number of employees)	(-6.27)	(5.86)	(6.20)
	Establishment size squared	1.05 e-08**	-0.52 e-09**	-0.53 e-09**
		(4.85)	(-4.64)	(-4.82)
	Branch plant	-0.20**	0.11**	0.09**
	(dummy: 1 if yes)	(-6.50)	(5.48)	(7.63)
	Establishment age	0.07*	-0.04*	-0.03*
	(dummy: 1 if 5 years or less)	(2.18)	(-2.05)	(-2.31)
	Low-skilled employees	0.0003	-0.0001	-0.0002
	(percentage)	(0.69)	(-0.69)	(-0.69)
	Foreign ownership/control	0.10**	-0.06**	-0.05**
	(dummy: 1 if yes)	(3.38)	(-3.08)	(-3.70)
	Public sector	-0.56**	0.15**	0.41**
	(dummy: 1 if yes)	(-18.37)	(11.88)	(12.42)
	Industry dummies	yes**	yes**	yes**
	n	2125	2125	2125
	Pseudo R 2	0.226	0.226	0.226
	Note: Ordered-probit estimates; dependent variable is an index of the type of
	collective bargaining; estimates shown are marginal effects. Heteroscedastic-
	consistent z-values are in parentheses.
	* denotes statistical significance at the 0.05 level.
	** denotes statistical significance at the 0.01 level.
	Source: WERS98; own estimations.

TABLE 3 . Determinants of Collective Bargaining Structure in Germany (2000)

 3

		Western Germany		Eastern Germany
	Explanatory variables	No CB	Single-employer Multi-employer	No CB	Single-employer Multi-employer
			bargaining	bargaining		bargaining	bargaining
	Establishment size	-0.0002**	-0.00001**	0.0002**	-0.0007**	0.00003**	0.0006**
	(number of employees)	(-5.58)	(-4.94)	(5.54)	(-11.28)	(7.23)	(11.15)
	Establishment size squared	4.47 e-09**	3.40 e-10**	-4.81 e-09**	-1.25 e-07**	-5.85 e-09**	-1.19 e-07**
		(5.38)	(4.93)	(-5.36)	(8.92)	(-6.41)	(-8.86)
	Branch plant	-0.17**	-0.02**	0.19**	-0.22**	-0.005	0.22**
	(dummy: 1 if yes)	(-15.41)	(-11.03)	(15.18)	(-12.31)	(-0.30)	(11.69)
	Establishment age	0.14**	0.006**	-0.15**	0.12**	-0.009**	-0.11**
	(dummy: 1 if 5 years or less) (7.19)	(11.08)	(-7.43)	(6.38)	(-4.37)	(-6.56)
	Low-skilled employees	0.0005*	0.00004*	-0.0005*	0.001**	-0.00004**	-0.001**
	(percentage)	(2.51)	(2.49)	(-2.51)	(2.94)	(-2.77)	(-2.94)
	Foreign ownership/control	0.05*	0.003*	-0.05**	-0.16**	-0.001	0.16**
	(dummy: 1 if yes)	(2.01)	(2.45)	(-2.04)	(-3.67)	(-0.44)	(3.47)
	Public sector	-0.12**	-0.01**	0.13**	-0.21**	0.001	0.21**
	(dummy: 1 if yes)	(-5.59)	(-4.37)	(5.46)	(-7.15)	(0.32)	(6.85)
	Industry dummies	yes**	yes**	yes**	yes**	yes**	yes**
	n	8006	8006	8006	5301	5301	5301
	Pseudo R 2	0.110	0.110	0.110	0.156	0.156	0.156
	Note: Ordered-probit estimates; dependent variable is an index of the type of collective bargaining; estimates shown are marginal effects.
	Heteroscedastic-consistent z-values are in parentheses.
	* denotes statistical significance at the 0.05 level.
	** denotes statistical significance at the 0.01 level.

Sources: IAB Establishment Panel 2000; own estimations.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors would like to thank Thorsten Schank, two anonymous referees and the editor of this journal for helpful comments and suggestions. The provision of the WERS dataset by the UK Data Archive, which is jointly funded by the University of Essex, the Economic and Social Research Council and the Joint Information Systems Committee, is gratefully acknowledged. The Workplace Industrial/Employee Relations Surveys were jointly sponsored by the Department of Trade and Industry; the Department of Employment; the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS); the Economic and Social Research Council; and the Policy Studies Institute. The usual disclaimer applies.

NOTES

1 For a qualitative comparative analysis using case studies from Belgium, Germany, Italy and Britain, see [START_REF] Arrowsmith | Externalisation and Internalisation of Collective Bargaining in Europe: Variation in the Role of Large Companies[END_REF] and Marginson et al. (2003). 2 Details regarding these datasets are given in [START_REF] Cully | Britain at Work: As Depicted by the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey[END_REF] for WERS98

and [START_REF] Kölling | The IAB-Establishment Panel[END_REF] for the IAB. The two years were chosen because 1998 represents the most recent information available for Britain, and 2000 has the advantage that it is the year in which the IAB panel was substantially augmented, while it is still relatively close to the 1998 date for Britain. 3 [START_REF] Kohaut | Zur Erosion des Flächentarifvertrags: Ausmaß, Einflussfaktoren und Gegenmaßnahmen[END_REF] found similar differences between western and eastern Germany in their probit analysis of multi-employer collective bargaining, but they also were not able to provide a simple and convincing explanation for this result. 4 Two additional variables of interest (and suggested by a referee) would be the structure of the product market and union presence or strength within establishments. Unfortunately, information on these variables is not available in the German dataset. Using the four cross-sectional WIRS/WERS datasets, Zagelmeyer (2004a) studied the association between the presence and level of collective bargaining on the one hand, and (i) union density and/or (ii) geographical scope of the product market and/or (iii) the extent of competition on the other. There were no stable results over time.