The complexities of stability - how and why Nordic employers stay put

In recent years, multi-employer bargaining has come under severe pressure in traditionally coordinated Western-European countries. What was first an incremental corrosion due to falling union density rates and weakening of sector level agreements, has recently turned into a frontal assault on especially Southern-European multi-employer bargaining (MEB) by European institutions (Marginson & Walz 2015).  The Nordic region has been considered an exception in this respect, with their strong organized actors and multi-levelled systems of autonomous, coordinated bargaining. Even in the Nordic stronghold, however, the multiple pressures from economic crisis, structural changes to the economy, union decline, free movement of workers within the European Union leading to low-wage competition and clashes with the EU regime, intensified by changing political winds have cast doubts about the future stability of collective bargaining. This paper analyses recent developments in the Nordic systems of collective bargaining with a special emphasis on the role of employers in upholding the capacity for encompassing coordination and consequently broad coverage of collective bargaining across sectors.