Sources for Academic and Socio-Economic Data on Labor Relations

One challenge in comparative labor relations research is finding quality sources of data with which to work.  The Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labor Studies (AIAS) offers a wide range of scholarly and socio-economic data on labor relations topics.  One of its databases is called the ICTWSS database and it covers four key elements of modern political economies in advanced capitalist societies: trade unionism, wage setting, state intervention and social pacts. The database contains annual data for 34 countries. It runs from 1960 till 2012.  You can access the ICTWSS database at: http://www.uva-aias.net/208

In addition, the AIAS has other data sets available (http://www.uva-aias.net/51).  These includes 8 collections in addition to the ICTWSS, including the list below from its website:

The monthly Collective Bargaining Newsletter is produced by AIAS in cooperation with the ETUI and can be found on the AIAS and ETUI websites. The Newsletter includes additional links to records that provide background information. Since June 2013 all files are integrated in an online archive www.cbnarchive.eu.

Database of Collective Agreements in the Netherlands. The database is based on the ‘FNV CAO-Database’ and contains detailed information on collective labour agreements concluded in the Netherlands.

(FWRC) is a joint initiative launched by ABU and the University of Amsterdam. AIAS and the Hugo Sinzheimer Institute manage this international website that provides information on research reports and articles relating to temporary employment in the broadest sense in five languages (English, Dutch, French, German and Spanish).

The Intermediair ‘Best Employers’ survey is an annual survey of Dutch employers concerning their HR policies, used for the Best Employers list in the Intermediair weekly. AIAS acts as an advisor for the questionnaire.

The dataset is based on comparable surveys of secretaries in the Netherlands about their job content, and working conditions in 1993, 2000, and 2004.

The reports and administration of this study group provides a portrait of an age of social scientific research and the debate in the field of the quality of labour over a period of 20 years. The archive consists of eight document files. Among them reports of the study group meetings during the entire period of 1979-2002; information about 11 international seminars and the programme files of the study group including a Trend report Quality of Labour and the design-focussed research. The archive also contains some publications that have been supervised by the study group and some publications that are hard to obtain elsewhere.

The Trade organisations database consists of names, years of establishment, historical development, NACE industry-codes and other data of more than 1400 trade and employers organisations. For the years 1980, 1991, 2001 and 2005, the mergers, separations and removals of these organisations have been investigated.

The WageIndicator Survey is a continuous, multilingual, multi-country web-survey, conducted more than 60 countries since 2000. The web-survey generates cross sectional and longitudinal data which might provide data especially about wages, benefits, working hours, working conditions and industrial relations.