The 3rd Changing Employment Research Paper in the series has now been published and is available to download for free. The paper entitled "Changing Employment Relations in Spain and Romania during the Great Recession: how trade unions respond to the challenge" written collecively by Theme 1 ESRs - Sara Lafuente Hernández, Dragos Adascalitei and Mona Aranea.

The paper discusses the impact of the crisis and national labor market reforms in Spain and Romania on trade unions’ bargaining power and strategies at the local level. While unions’ power has generally declined at the national level due to neoliberal globalization, and specifically due to the economic crisis, empirical findings from four case studies in capital-intensive sectors (automotive, steel and renewable energies) reveal strong union power at the local level. The impact of the decentralization of industrial relations is not linear across sectors and national contexts but rather context-specific.

The Research Paper Series has been developed to encourage debate and disseminate activities associated with the network. The central remit of the Research Paper Series is to explore and encourage debate on the changing nature of employment in Europe in the context of challenges, threats and opportunities for employees and employers. 

The network would like to invite contributors from within and out with the network.  You can find out more about the research paper seminar series under the research section of the web-site.