Pay and working conditions in finance and utility call centres in Denmark and Germany

This study analyses how national institutions, sectoral bargainingstructures and union strategies affect working conditions andpay by comparing call centres in two liberalized service sectors:financial services and utilities. We find more segmentationand expansion of low wage work in Germany and more cooperationon high-involvement practices at workplace level in Denmark.However, outcomes are not uniform; we find differences betweensectors in the use of subcontracting and union power at theworkplace-level. Poor economic performance, segmentation-orientedemployer strategies, declining bargaining coverage and weakenedunions in Germany have undermined formal constraints on employers,whereas better outcomes in Denmark are due to a pronounced stabilityof the regulative and normative institutional framework. However,the Danish model is also being weakened from the margins.