Ines Wagner

• Wagner, Ines (2020). Equal Pay for Work of Equal Value? Iceland and the Equal Pay Standard. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society.  s 1- 20 . doi: 10.1093/sp/jxaa032 Show summary

  Job evaluation systems have a history of being critiqued as upholding gender inequality. Paradoxically, however, the Icelandic Equal Pay Standard (IEPS), a novel and publicly praised gender equality policy, is based on a job evaluation tool. The aim of this article is to stipulate an initial analysis of how key stakeholders in the Icelandic context view and assess the strengths and weaknesses of the IEPS so far. Drawing on organizational literature and feminist institutionalism, the findings show how equal pay for work of equal value can be achieved. At the same time, the article highlights the need for more emphasis on and awareness of the value of feminized work within organizations, which remains underrecognized in the IEPS.

• Lillie, Nathan; Berntsen, Lisa; Wagner, Ines & Danaj, Sonila (2019). A comparative analysis of union responses to posted work in four European countries, In Jens Arnholtz & Nathan Lillie (ed.),  Posted Work in the European Union: The Political Economy of Free Movement.  Routledge.  ISBN 9780367142711.  Chapter 5.  s 89 - 108
• Wagner, Ines & Shire, Karen (2019). Labour Subcontracting in Cross-Border Labour Markets: A Comparison of Rule Evasion in Germany and Japan, In Jens Arnholtz & Nathan Lillie (ed.),  Posted Work in the European Union: The Political Economy of Free Movement.  Routledge.  ISBN 9780367142711.  Chapter 10.
• Refslund, Bjarke & Wagner, Ines (2018). Cutting to the Bone: Workers' Solidarity in the Danish-German Slaughterhouse Industry, In Virginia Doellgast; Valeria Puglinano & Nahan Lillie (ed.),  Reconstructing Solidarity: Labour Unions, Precarious Work, And the Politics of Institutional Change in Europe.  Oxford University Press.  ISBN 9780198791843.  3.  s 67 - 83
• Seeliger, Martin & Wagner, Ines (2018). A socialization paradox: trade union policy cooperation in the case of the enforcement directive of the posting of workers directive. Socio-Economic Review. . doi: 10.1093/ser/mwy037 Full text in Research Archive. Show summary

  The formulation of common political positions from the trade union movement at the European Union (EU) level mainly takes place at the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC). In the case of the Enforcement Directive of the Posting of Workers Directive, a central cleavage line runs between neither countries nor political parties, but between different vertical levels of the system of European labor relations—the sectoral and interprofessional levels. Here, due to both horizontal and vertical differences, trade unions were unable to effectively formulate and pursue joint positions. On these grounds, we aspire to provide a theoretical argument on political dynamics in the EU’s multilevel system. While the ETUC representatives internalize supranational norms through their embeddedness in the EU’s institutional landscape, this socialization process does not advance—but rather prevents—integration by disrupting trade union power at the supranational level.

• Lillie, Nathan & Wagner, Ines (2017). Practicing European Industrial Citizenship : The Case of Labour Migration to Germany, In Claudia Wiesner; Anna Björk; Hanna-Mari Kivistö & Katja Mäkinen (ed.),  Shaping Citizenship: a Political Concept in Theory, Debate and Practice.  Routledge.  ISBN 9781138735989.  10.
• Wagner, Ines (2017). Trade unions and migrant workers in Germany: Unions between national and transnational Labour market segmentation, In Stefania Marino; Rinus Penninx & Judith Roosblad (ed.),  Trade Unions and Migrant Workers: New Contexts and Challenges in Europe.  Edward Elgar Publishing.  ISBN 9781788114073.  8..  s 158 - 178
• Wagner, Ines & Berntsen, Lisa (2016). Restricted Rights: Obstacles in Enforcing Labour Rights of EU Mobile Workers in the German and Dutch Construction Sectors. Transfer - European Review of Labour and Research.  22(2) . doi: 10.1177/1024258916636025 Show summary

  There is considerable evidence that employers are violating the labour rights of mobile EU workers. However there is disagreement as to whether the lack of enforcement of these rights is caused by poor EU-level or weak national-level potential to oversee and sanction infringing companies and to enforce the rules. This poses the following three questions. Which enforcement gaps exist in relation to EU labour mobility? Which circumstances lead to these particular enforcement gaps? And what is being done to close those gaps? To answer these questions we examine the behaviour of institutions key to these processes, interviewing the respective labour enforcement agencies and trade unions in the German and Dutch construction sector as well as mobile EU workers themselves. We discuss three distinct difficulties encountered in enforcing labour standards: 1) disparities between enforcement institutions in different EU Member States; 2) enforcement challenges faced within the national context; and 3) representation gaps between host country collective representation channels and mobile EU workers.

• Wagner, Ines & Refslund, Bjarke (2016). Understanding the diverging trajectories of slaughterhouse work in Denmark and Germany: A power resource approach. European journal of industrial relations.  22(4), s 335- 351 . doi: 10.1177/0959680116682109 Show summary

  Germany and Denmark are among the world's largest exporters of meat products. Two decades ago their labour markets were similar, but since then they have diverged significantly. The industry in Denmark has maintained high wages and good working conditions, while in Germany there has been a rapid growth in precarious employment, with widespread use of subcontracted and posted migrant workers. We argue that the key explanation for this radical difference is the power position of the trade unions, which also affects how employers position themselves. We show how trade union power embedded in the local and sectoral industrial relations systems influences the wages and working conditions in German and Danish slaughterhouses.

• Caro, Erka; Berntsen, Lisa; Lillie, Nathan & Wagner, Ines (2015). Posted Migration and Segregation in the European Construction Sector. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.  40(10), s 1600- 1620 . doi: 10.1080/1369183X.2015.1015406 Show summary

  Worker ‘posting’ or temporary migration of manual workers sent by their employers to work on projects abroad has become increasingly prominent in the European construction industry. It is now normal to find groups of workers from all around Europe on construction sites, living in nearby temporary accommodations, moving on to other projects or back home when the project is complete. This article highlights the interaction between the social and spatial segregation and transnational mobility of these workers in the European Union construction labour market. We argue that the work-focused and employer-dominated nature of the posted workers' social world abroad contributes to their segregation from host societies and reinforces a nationally based labour market segmentation of the European construction labour market. This is because posted workers do not have the same opportunity or interest to build political, social and economic resources in host societies and workplaces as more permanent migrants.

• Wagner, Ines (2015). EU Posted Work and Transnational Action in the German Meat Industry. Transfer - European Review of Labour and Research.  21(2), s 201- 213 . doi: 10.1177/1024258915573187 Show summary

  This article traces the course of a transnational action in the German meat industry involving an alliance of transnational posted workers, a local civil society organization and the trade union NGG (Gewerkschaft Nahrung-Genuss-Gaststätten). As labour’s channels of influence have broken down and posting of low-wage workers has intensified, trade unionists have responded by building coalitions with societal actors. The case illustrates a complementary approach to studying how resistance unfolds in transnational workplaces under conditions in which traditional avenues for protest are blocked or marginalized.

• Wagner, Ines (2015). Rule Enactment in a Pan‐European Labour Market: Transnational Posted Work in the German Construction Sector. British Journal of Industrial Relations.  53(4), s 692- 710 . doi: 10.1111/bjir.12053 Show summary

  This article analyses the micro‐level rule enactment of the posting of workers framework in the German construction sector. I examine how actors draw on different power resources in order to influence policies without formal negotiation within transnational workspaces and thereby initiate institutional change. Drawing on interviews with posted workers, managers, unionists, works councillors and labour inspectors I show how transnational subcontracting allows the emergence of different regulatory spaces at national and workplace level. The article concludes that the informal renegotiation of employment relations in transnational workspaces is likely to destabilize the posting framework negotiated at policy level.

• Wagner, Ines (2015). The Political Economy of Borders in a 'Borderless' European Labour Market. Journal of Common Market Studies.  53(6), s 1370- 1385 . doi: 10.1111/jcms.12256 Show summary

  The reconfiguration of political space lies at the heart of the European project and is the subject of manifold studies on the new shape of the European Union, but relatively little attention has been paid to the ways in which borders are de‐ and reconstructed in a pan‐European labour market. In a pan‐European labour market, state borders shift. Postings made via subcontractors and agencies providing temporary workers also rearrange the borders of the firm. However, we know very little about how these bordering practices interact within the pan‐European labour market. This study argues that while borders have become porous, their porousness is one‐directional, in the sense that it is in favour of capital but impacts negatively on labour rights. In developing a framework for understanding the relationship between changes in sovereign borders and changes in employment relations in the EU, this article integrates insights from international relations, political economy and border research.

• Wagner, Ines & Lillie, Nathan (2014). European Integration and the Disembedding of Labour Market Regulation: Transnational Labour Relations at the European Central Bank Construction Site. Journal of Common Market Studies.  52(2), s 403- 419 . doi: 10.1111/jcms.12096 Show summary

  European integration through mutual recognition has facilitated the growth of a pan‐European labour supply system in which transnational subcontractors ‘post’ workers from low‐wage areas to higher wage areas. This allows employers to create spaces of exception in which the national industrial relations system of the country where work occurs does not fully apply. Drawing on interviews with managers, workers, unionists and works councillors at the European Central Bank construction site in Frankfurt, Germany, this article shows how transnational subcontracting allows employers to access, and create competition between, sovereign regulatory regimes. It concludes that high‐cost, high‐collective good national systems such as the German one, which depend on territorial boundedness for their integrity, are likely to be destabilized by this aspect of European integration.

View all works in Cristin

• Wagner, Ines (2018). Workers Without Borders: Posted Work and Precarity in the EU. Cornell University Press.  ISBN 9781501729157.  168 s. Show summary

  How the European Union handles posted workers is a growing issue for a region with borders that really are just lines on a map. A 2008 story, dissected in Ines Wagner’s Workers without Borders, about the troubling working conditions of migrant meat and construction workers, exposed a distressing dichotomy: how could a country with such strong employers’ associations and trade unions allow for the establishment and maintenance of such a precarious labor market segment? Wagner introduces an overlooked piece of the puzzle: re-regulatory politics at the workplace level. She interrogates the position of the posted worker in contemporary European labour markets and the implications of and regulations for this position in industrial relations, social policy and justice in Europe. Workers without Borders concentrates on how local actors implement European rules and opportunities to analyze the balance of power induced by the EU around policy issues. Wagner examines the particularities of posted worker dynamics at the workplace level, in German meatpacking facilities and on construction sites, to reveal the problems and promises of European Union governance as regulating social justice. Using a bottom-up approach through in-depth interviews with posted migrant workers and administrators involved in the posting process, Workers without Borders shows that strong labor-market regulation via independent collective bargaining institutions at the workplace level is crucial to effective labor rights in marginal workplaces. Wagner identifies structures of access and denial to labor rights for temporary intra-EU migrant workers and the problems contained within this system for the EU more broadly.

View all works in Cristin

• Wagner, Ines; Fjell, Live Kjos; Frisell, Marte Marie & Østbakken, Kjersti Misje (2020). Likelønn og det kjønnsdelte arbeidsmarkedet: Individuelle preferanser eller strukturelle begrensninger?. Rapport – Institutt for samfunnsforskning. 2020:4. Full text in Research Archive. Show summary

  Det norske arbeidsmarkedet er varig kjønnsdelt. Kjønnssegregering er en viktig forklaring på kjønnsforskjellene i lønn og er nær knyttet til arbeidstid, arbeidsforhold og karriereutvikling. I den offentlige debatten er lønnsgapet mellom kvinner og menn særlig blitt problematisert som et spørsmål om kjønnssegregering i arbeidsmarkedet og som et spørsmål om individuelle valg og individuell adferd. Samtidig er lønnsnivået systematisk lavere i forhandlingsområder der andelen kvinner er høyest. Denne rapporten ser på de underliggende årsakene som kan hjelpe oss til å forstå lønnsgapet mellom kvinner og menn i det kjønnsdelte arbeidsmarkedet i Norge. Rapporten legger særlig vekt på å undersøke om det er individuelle valg eller strukturelle faktorer ved arbeidsmarkedet som kan forklare lønnsforskjellene mellom kvinnedominerte og mannsdominerte yrker. Selv om dette er viktig å understreke, tar det oppmerksomhet bort fra andre grupper. For eksempel har den kvinnedominerte offentlige sektoren kontinuerlig lavere lønninger enn sammenlignbare sektorer som er mannsdominert. Hvordan likelønnsproblemet forstås og presenteres, har viktige implikasjoner for de politiske løsningene som blir iverksatt. Dokumentanalysen vil derfor konsentrere seg om hvordan lik lønn forstås i den norske debatten, og særlig om hvordan det forstås av Landsorganisasjonen (LO). Spesielt settes det søkelys på hvordan likelønn blir diskutert i tilknytning til lavlønnssektoren og offentlig sektor.

• Pedersen, Axel West; Grødem, Anne Skevik; Rasmussen, Magnus Bergli & Wagner, Ines (2019). Inntektssikring for befolkningen i yrkesaktiv alder – en sammenligning av syv nordeuropeiske land.
• Pedersen, Axel West; Grødem, Anne Skevik & Wagner, Ines (2019). Trygdepolitikk og trygdemottak i åtte nordeuropeiske land. Rapport – Institutt for samfunnsforskning. 2019:14. Show summary

  Rapporten sammenligner utviklingen i inntektssikringssystemene for befolkningen i yrkesaktiv alder og deres bruk i åtte nordeuropeiske land. I tillegg til de fem nordiske landene omfatter sammenligningen Nederland, Storbritannia og Tyskland. Kapittel 2 gjør rede for hovedtrekk i den kronologiske utviklingen i trygdepolitikken i hvert av de åtte landene over de siste to til tre tiårene. Kapittel 3 sammenfatter forskjeller og likheter mellom landenes trygdesystemer med hensyn til sjenerøsitet, tilgjengelighet og andre generelle systemtrekk. Kapittel 4 tar spesielt for seg dreiningen mot aktivering i sosialpolitikken som alle de åtte landene i varierende grad og på ulike måter har forsøkt å iverksette siden midten av 1990-årene. Kapittel 5 tar opp det mer analytiske spørsmålet hvorvidt den observerte variasjonen mellom land og over tid i trygdesystemene og trygdepolitikken har påvirket andelen trygdemottakere og avhengigheten av henholdsvis trygdeinntekt og arbeidsinntekt blant befolkningen i yrkesaktiv alder. Rapportens funn sammenfattes og diskuteres i kapittel 6.

• Wagner, Ines (2018). Certified Equality: The Icelandic Equal Pay Standard. Rapport – Institutt for samfunnsforskning. 2018:11. Full text in Research Archive. Show summary

  In 2018, Iceland introduced a statutory certification process for companies and institutions with over 25 employees, which, through this process, must prove that they pay men and women the same for the same job. This mechanism moves the burden of proof from employee to employer and forces companies to develop a more transparent system for the way they value different jobs. The purpose of the certification process is to close the relatively small but sustained wage gap between the genders. Based on qualitative in-depth interviews with key government informants, social partners and HR leaders in Iceland, this report takes an initial look at how the Icelandic Equal Pay Standard was established and how it works in practice. The findings show that the Icelandic Equal Pay Standard moves focus from individual explanations of why women earn less than men, to establishing a supportive institutional environment for equal pay between the genders at the corporate level. «Supportive» means public support, but also a transparent environment in which cases of inequality cannot remain unknown or hidden.

• Wagner, Ines & Grødem, Anne Skevik (2018). Sertifisert likestilling: Likelønnsstandarden på Island. Rapport – Institutt for samfunnsforskning. 2018:10. Full text in Research Archive. Show summary

  I 2018 introduserte Island en lovpålagt sertifiseringsprosess for bedrifter og institusjoner med over 25 ansatte, som gjennom denne må bevise at de lønner menn og kvinner likt for samme jobb. Denne innovative mekanismen forflytter bevisbyrden fra ansatt til arbeidsgiver og tvinger bedrifter til å utvikle et mer gjennomsiktig system for måten de verdsetter ulike jobber på. Hensikten med sertifiseringsprosessen er å tette det relativt lille, men vedvarende lønnsgapet mellom kjønnene. Med utgangspunkt i kvalitative dybdeintervjuer med statlige nøkkelinformanter, arbeidslivsparter og HR-ledere på Island tar denne rapporten en første kikk på hvordan likelønnsstandarden ble etablert, og hvordan den fungerer i praksis. Funn viser at den islandske likelønnsstandarden flytter fokus fra individuelle forklaringer på hvorfor kvinner tjener mindre enn menn, til heller å etablere et støttende institusjonelt miljø for likelønn mellom kjønn på bedriftsnivå. «Støttende» betyr her generell offentlig støtte, men også et gjennomsiktig miljø hvor tilfeller av ulikhet vanskelig kan forbli ukjent eller skjult.

View all works in Cristin