How does State-led decentralization affect workplace employment relations? The French case in a comparative perspective

Abstract

We examine the effects of State-led decentralization of collective bargaining on workplace employment relations. After exploring the development of company-level collective bargaining in France in the broader European context, we analyse intra-national variations in social dialogue practices across companies and workplaces, and propose a classification of four workplace clusters. As the decentralization process varies in its extent and in nature between types of workplace, we argue that the diversity of workplace practices is best explained by contrasting reactions to legal requirements. Nevertheless, these requirements have standardizing effects on certain bargaining practices, which might in turn lead to the impoverishment of the collective bargaining process.