Sep 21, 2011

Articles in journals

Dias, J., Cerdeira, M.

10

8

Following a period of significant development at the end of the 1990s, with economic growth rates greater than those of the European Union, the Portuguese economy stagnated in 2002 and even declined in 2003. The current context of international crisis has just interrupted the fragile growth trend initiated in 2004: in fact, real GDP, which increased by 1.9 percent in 2007, had a growth rate of zero in 2008 and declined by 2.9 percent in last year. The crisis has abruptly increased the closure of companies and unemployment jumped from 7.3% in the second haft of 2008 to 10.1% in the forth quarter of 2009. Notwithstanding, social dialog was resilient to this situation of economic crisis, as shown by the number of collective agreements negotiated by the social partners, the number of workers covered by collective agreements and the observed increase in real wages. Additionally, social partners have agreed on a reform of the Labour Code. Are this data enough evidence of social concentration on crisis management? This paper will analyze this issue, giving particular attention to collective bargaining in Portugal and the crisis impact on the industrial relations system and their actors.

Collective Bargaining,Industrial Relations