'The political economy of ultra-activity in collective bargaining': an article co-authored by Paulo Marques
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The article 'The political economy of ultra-activity in collective bargaining: explaining divergent post-crisis trajectories in Portugal and Spain', co-authored by Paulo Marques (DINÂMIA'CET-Iscte researcher and coordinator of the Youth Employment Observatory, Rui Branco, Óscar Molina and Madalena Ferreira has been published by Routledge in the New Political Economy Journal.
This paper examines ultra-activity in collective bargaining – the rule that keeps expired agreements in force – and how its curtailment can shift bargaining power in fragmented wage-setting systems.
Drawing on elite interviews, parliamentary debates and legal texts, the article examines the post-crisis trajectories of Portugal and Spain, two Southern European countries with institutional similarities but divergent reform paths regarding the regulation of ultra-activity. In Spain, the 2012 labour reform unilaterally curtailed ultra-activity; however, the 2021 reform reinstated indefinite ultra-activity. In Portugal, by contrast, indefinite ultra-activity had been abolished earlier, in 2003, and was never reinstated, even as other elements of austerity-era reform were reversed in 2019.2 Instead, employers used legal discontinuity to restructure actor coalitions, displace dominant unions, and reconfigure bargaining arrangements.
The paper asks: why did these two countries adopt different reform strategies in the regulation of ultra-activity? And what do these choices reveal about broader dynamics of institutional change?