New Trends and Challenges in Nordic Industrial Relations

In the public discourse, the Nordic model continues to be an important source of inspiration for policymakers and serves as the poster child for European social democracy. At the same time, Nordic countries continue to be an outlier in industrial relations given their perceived stability and exceptionally high degrees of unionization, collective regulation, and autonomy from the state. Yet public conceptions of the Nordics are often outdated, and Nordic collective regulation faces a plethora of challenges. These not least include new political constraints, digitalization, and pressures emanating from European integration.

This one-day workshop aims to update our understanding of the state of Nordic industrial relations and to compare national adaptation strategies to common challenges. A key issue will be the challenges posed by EU integration, which presents a dilemma for Nordic industrial relations systems. While negative integration exerts liberalization pressure, efforts to counter this through EU regulation often do not sit easily with established national institutions or labor market practices.

The workshop seeks to shed light on the evolving heterogeneity of EU member states and the implications for the potential for further integration in the labor market field. It promises to offer further insight into institutional change and the role of cross-class alliances in the Nordic countries.