Smart Bargaining in the Services Sector: Overview, Challenges, Opportunities

To support capacity building for collective bargaining in the service sector, the BARSERVICE project seeks to understand bargaining practices, and challenges and opportunities for smart bargaining in the service sector in nine European countries (six EU member states and three candidate countries). Services form an important pillar of the European economy, but little is known about collective bargaining in these activities. BARSERVICE documents negotiation practices, the structure and power relations between employers and unions, the coverage of collective agreements, the content of collective agreements, as well as strategies to detect and reduce undeclared work in service industries. The findings of the project will directly inform initiatives for capacity building of social partners and mutual exchange of experiences. BARSERVICE analyzes the situation in four sub-sectors: social care, trade, financial banking services and publishing. The project will identify the main challenges that the mentioned sub-sectors face with regard to: i) structural transformations of European economies, ii) deterioration of working conditions in service industries due to low wages, job instability and gender segregation; iii) lack of adequate conditions for the development of collective bargaining. The complementary aspect of the project refers to undeclared work and strategies for its reduction through the promotion of appropriate working conditions and collective bargaining.
The main role of IRMO as a partner institution in the project is to participate in research activities related to Croatia.