Agreements
Agreements are the outcome of collective bargaining and social dialogue processes. Social partners are encouraged to negotiate and conclude collective agreements that can then be implemented at European, national, regional, sectoral or company level. Increasingly Union labour laws are shaped by agreements that the parties voluntarily enter into and by soft law mechanisms.
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Collective bargaining beyond pay: An analysis of collective agreements in selected low-paid sectors
This report analyses and compares the content of 94 collective agreements in three low-paid sectors – manufacture of food, leather, textiles and clothes; residential and social care; and retail – across 11 EU Member States and Norway. The report examines how collective bargaining regulates working conditions beyond wages and how these topics have evolved between 2015 and 2022.Collective bargaining beyond pay: An analysis of collective agreements in selected low-paid sectors
This report analyses and compares the content of 94 collective agreements in three low-paid sectors – manufacture of food, leather, textiles and clothes; residential and social care; and retail – across 11 EU Member States and Norway. The report examines how collective bargaining regulates working conditions beyond wages and how these topics have evolved between 2015 and 2022.Equal value, equal pay: Concepts, mechanisms and implementation towards gender pay equity
This report presents an in-depth compilation of evidence and analysis on how the EU’s principle of equal pay for the same work and work of equal value can be implemented in practice, with a particular focus on work of equal value – thus, pay equity. According to this principle, when two jobs can be regarded as equivalent in terms of skills, effort, responsibilities and working conditions, they should be remunerated equally. But how can such equivalence be established?Researchers at Eurofound provide expert insights and can be contacted for questions or media requests.
Mária Sedláková
Research officerMária Sedláková is a research officer in the Working Life unit at Eurofound. She is responsible for drafting overview reports for sectoral representativeness studies, management and quality control of national reporting on industrial relations, social dialogue and working life, and development of a project on collective bargaining beyond pay. Before joining Eurofound, she worked as a technical research officer within the Governance and Tripartism Department at the International Labour Organization in Geneva on the Social Dialogue Flagship Report 2022. She also worked as a researcher at the Central European Labour Studies Institute in Bratislava (2013–2020), focusing on social dialogue, collective bargaining, working conditions and sociology of work. Maria holds an MA in Political Science with specialisation in Comparative European Politics from Central European University.
Christine Aumayr-Pintar
Senior research managerChristine Aumayr-Pintar is a senior research manager in the Working Life unit at Eurofound. She coordinates Eurofound’s research on social dialogue and industrial relations and oversees the Network of Eurofound Correspondents (NEC). Her primary research expertise – approached from a comparative EU-wide standpoint – centres on minimum wages, collectively negotiated pay and gender pay transparency. Prior to joining Eurofound in 2009 she was a labour markets and regional economics researcher at Joanneum Research in Austria. She earned a Master's degree in Economics and a PhD in Social Science/Economics having studied economics in Graz, Vienna and Jönköping.
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