Technology resistance and globalisation with trade unions: the choice between employment protection and flexicurity

Kjell Lommerud () and Odd Rune Straume

No 13/07, Working Papers in Economics from University of Bergen, Department of Economics

Abstract: We analyse how different labour market institutions — employment protection versus ‘flexicurity’ — affect technology adoption in unionised firms. The analysis is cast in a setting of corporate globalisation, where domestic unionised labour face the double threat of labour-saving technological innovations and international outsourcing of domestic production. In the main part of the analysis, we analyse trade unions’ incentives to oppose or endorse the adoption of new technology. Our main result is that both weaker employment protection and a higher reservation wage for unionsed workers (interpreted as increased ‘flexicurity’) contribute to making trade unions more willing to accept labour-saving technological change. Furthermore, these effects are reinforced by globalisation. In an extension to the main analysis, we endogenise the technological progress by studying firms’ incentives to invest in new technology and find that these incentives are also generally strengthened in a labour market with more ‘flexicurity’.

Keywords: Technology adoption; Globalisation; Trade unions; Employment protection; Flexicurity. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F16 F23 J51 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2007-10-30
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Working Paper: Technology resistance and globalisation with trade unions: the choice between employment protection and flexicurity (2007)
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