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Notwithstanding the success of these pacts in
achieving the goals of political and economic stability,
culminating in the accession of Spain to the
European Economic Community, the last tripartite agreement was
signed in 1985. The reasons for the collapse of this period of
centralised wage bargaining and social pacts in Spain are
manifold. On the one hand, a large section within the union
movement, comprising the CCOO (Workers’ Commissions), was very
critical of the social pacts as they required that trade
unions could not fully exploit their bargaining power in order
to obtain wage increases. Moreover, the CCOO criticised the
neo-liberal economic policy of the government, including the
1984 labour market reform and the fact that workers were being
burdened with most of the costs of adjustment. Following some
years of conflict between trade unions and the government,
social dialogue was restored in the mid 1990s, initially with
the employer organisations alone, then also with the
government. As a consequence of this move from conflict
towards cooperation, several agreements were signed. Some of
these agreements were bipartite, that is, between unions and
employers - like the agreements on out-of-court dispute
resolution, learning and training. Other agreements were
tripartite, that is, including the government, trade unions
and employer associations. The most significant tripartite
agreements during these years were the 1996 pact on the reform
of the social security system and the 1997 labour market
reform. Finally, since 2001, trade unions and employers have
been signing centralised agreements containing guidelines for
collective bargaining.
Social pacts, or social partnership agreements as they
are known in Ireland,
between trade unions, employer associations, third sector
organisations and the government, have become the flagship of
the Irish Celtic Tiger phenomenon. The story of centralised
wage agreements started in Ireland
in the 1970s. However, due to the difficulties in implementing
the terms of the agreements at company level, the centralised
agreements were abandoned and there followed a period of
de-centralised wage bargaining. Nonetheless, a new centralised
partnership agreement was again signed in 1987. The objective
of this agreement was to help the Irish economy to move away
from the path of low growth, high inflation and high
unemployment that it had been on since the early 1980s. The
success of this partnership agreement in achieving the
objectives of wage moderation and macroeconomic stability led
social partners and the government to renew the agreement in
1991. So far, six partnership agreements have been signed (see
table 1), demonstrating a strong resilience compared to other
European countries’ experiences. Another key feature of these
agreements is the importance of the wage component. Even
though a trend can be appreciated in the widening of the
number of issues dealt with in these agreements, pay remains
the glue holding the partnership agreements together. Finally,
some authors have also highlighted a trend towards the
institutionalisation of these agreements, as shown by the
almost automatic renewal of agreements every four years,
notwithstanding that some conflicts have emerged in the
re-negotiation phases of the last three partnership deals.
2. From
outward to inward migration
Another key feature of the recent histories of Ireland and
Spain has been the role of migration. For most of the
twentieth century, these two countries were subject to large
outward migration in search of better economic conditions. In
the case of Spain, migration had both a domestic and
international component. Domestically, there was migration
from the southern regions of Andalusia, Extremadura and
Castille towards the north. At the same time, there was
significant economic migration towards other European
countries like France, Germany and Switzerland. In the case of
Ireland, migration occurred mostly towards the United Kingdom,
the United States and Canada.
This historical pattern has changed dramatically
during the last fifteen years, as these two countries have
witnessed a spectacular increase in inward migration,
transforming themselves into key destination countries in a
European context. Statistics show that Ireland and
Spain are two of the EU countries where the immigrant
proportion of the population has increased to the largest
extent. As economic conditions significantly improved in the
recent period, the two countries have become attractive
destinations. This trend has been further reinforced by the
recent eastern enlargement of the EU, resulting in the large
Polish and Romanian communities established in Ireland and
Spain respectively.
Most of the migrant population in Spain are
employed in low-skilled jobs and sectors like construction,
agriculture, cleaning and catering. These are low-paid jobs
that remain unfilled by the native population. Moreover, it is
estimated that a considerable proportion of this migrant
population has undertaken some form of activity in the
underground economy due to the high level of regulation of
economic activity in Spain. The stock of migrant workers
available to Spanish employers has guaranteed them a high
level of flexibility whilst keeping wage pressures low due to
the available pool of people. However, this has come at the
cost of low productivity increases and low incentives for
companies to innovate due to the availability of cheap labour,
thus jeopardising the future growth of the economy.
Inward
migration in Ireland has come mostly from Eastern Europe and
migrants are employed largely in the service sector due to the
boost in demand triggered by the increase in income levels.
More recently, a trend has also been observed pointing towards
the inward migration of more skilled employees to work in the
public sector, or to occupy middle-rank managerial positions
in private companies. As Ireland remains the EU country with
the lowest unemployment rate and showing evident signs of
skill shortages, this trend is very likely to become even more
prominent in the next few years.
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