The advent of pattern bargaining in Irish industrial relations

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12194
• Published date: 01 November 2017
• Date: 01 November 2017

The advent of pattern bargaining in Irish

industrial relations

William K. Roche and Tom Gormley

ABSTRACT

Drawing on the international literature on pattern bargaining in Europe and other

countries, the article examines the recent advent of pattern bargaining in Irish

industrial relations. Qualitative and quantitative data are deployed to explore the

genesis, features, institutional and economic context and future of pattern bargaining

in Ireland.

1 INTRODUCTION

This article examines the advent of pattern bargaining in Irish industrial relations

during the revival that followed the crisis experienced in 2008 and subsequent years.

The article begins by examining the literature on pattern bargaining and derives a

set of questions from this literature to guide the analysis of pattern bargaining in

Ireland. It then presents an overview of pay bargaining in Ireland up to the period

of the Great Recession to establish a context for the genesis and development of

pattern bargaining. It next outlines the research methods. Subsequent sections present

a detailed qualitatively informed quantitative analysis of pattern bargaining in the

private and state-owned commercial sectors over the period from 2011; examine

institutional and economic influences on pattern bargaining; and consider the possible

future evolution of pay bargaining. The final section summarises the main

conclusions of the article.

2 PATTERN BARGAINING

Pattern bargaining is generally understood to be a form of coordinated collective

bargaining in which unions establish a key wage bargain in one or more firms, or

covering a specific sector, with a view to establishing a ‘pattern’or going rate of

increases that is then extended to other firms and/or sectors through collective

bargaining (Sisson and Marginson, 2002). Two broad forms of pattern bargaining

can be distinguished—each marked out by their respective bargaining levels. First,

there is a European form, sometimes referred to as ‘trend setting’, current in

Scandinavia, Germany and Austria. Here, pattern setting involves key wage

bargains struck at a sector level, typically in engineering or manufacturing, which

are then extended to other sectors through collective agreements (Ibsen, 2016;

❒William K. Roche and Tom Gormley, College of Business, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

Correspondence should be addressed to William K Roche, College of Business, University College Dublin,

Blackrock Co Dublin, Ireland; email: bill.roche@ucd.ie

Industrial Relations Journal 48:5-6, 442–462

ISSN 0019-8692

© 2018 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Meyer, 1995; Traxler et al., 2008; Visser, 2013; Sisson and Marginson, 2002;

Wallerstein and Golden, 2000). Second, there is a form of pattern bargaining more

associated with the United States and Japan—with echoes also in European coun-

tries like the Netherlands and Italy (Visser, 2013: 54)—where pattern bargaining

most often has involved key wage bargains in large firms in industries such as autos,

trucking, rubber, aerospace and telecommunications that set the pattern for pay in-

creases in other firms within the industries affected but sometimes also for pay

movements across or between industries (Cappelli, 1990; Freedman and Fulmer,

1982; Katz, 1993; Mitchell, 1980; Sako, 1997). Irrespective of the level at which pat-

tern bargaining occurs, a common defining feature of this mode of bargaining is

what Cappelli (1990) has referred to as both the intention of unions to initiate and

extend key wage bargaining to other sectors or firms and the achievement of a high

level of uniformity in wage settlements as a consequence of coordination. Pattern

bargaining has commonly occurred in the context of recurring concentrated periods

of pay bargaining, or ‘pay rounds’, resulting in pay deals of broadly uniform dura-

tion. Pattern bargaining cycles have varied cross-nationally and over time: from

one-year cycles typical in Germany, Austria and Japan (Meyer, 1995; Sako, 1997;

Traxler et al., 2008) to three-year cycles in major US industrial sectors (Freedman

and Fulmer 1982) and three- and even four-year cycles in Sweden and Denmark

in the 1990s (Ibsen, 2016; Visser, 2013: 59–60).

The one reported instance of pattern bargaining in the UK involved engineering

draughtsmen and their union, the Association of Engineering and Ship Building

Draughtsmen, in the years following the Second World War. The union’s

workplace-based branches, centralised leadership and statistical service permitted

for a time the conduct of effective pattern bargaining with engineering employers

(Roberts et al. 1972). Wage coordination was less evident more generally. Knowles

and Robinson (1962) and Knowles and Thorne (1961), analysing pay settlements

for manual workers by industry-based national bargaining units over the period

1948–59, questioned the existence of nationally prevalent pay rounds in the UK.

A subsequent analysis of pay settlements by 190 manual bargaining groups

between 1950 and 1973 also concluded that pay rounds were not a feature of

pay determination in the UK (Elliott 1976). The same conclusion was reached

for pay bargaining in the UK public sector (Elliott and Fallick 1981). More con-

fined pay rounds, or what Elliott (1976: 196) referred to as ‘coalitions’of

bargaining groups were however identified. From the 1960s, industry-level

bargaining gave way to establishment and firm-level bargaining (Brown et al.

2009: 33–36). A detailed study of firm-level bargaining in engineering firms in

Coventry and in national newspapers in Fleet Street focused on the pay compari-

sons deployed by unions and employers’pay settlements. No sector-specific pattern

bargaining was evident, and indeed, the focus of pay bargaining was shown to

have alternated between intra-firm and external pay comparisons in response to

changes in bargaining structure, technology and the availability of pay data

(Brown and Sisson 1975).

Some discussions of pattern bargaining distinguish between ‘wage-moderating pat-

tern bargaining’and ‘wage-push’pattern bargaining. In the former, associated with

Germany, Austria and Scandinavia, wage patterns are established in exposed sectors,

and the parties to collective bargaining seek to maintain the international competi-

tiveness of firms in these sectors by not exploiting productivity improvements to the

full. The patterns, thus established, are extended to sheltered sectors, including the

443Advent of pattern bargaining in Irish industrial relations

© 2018 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd