Industrial relations and sectoral interests: Comparing extension of collective agreements in construction and shipyards in Norway

This article expands knowledge on the (inter)sectoral dimension of industrial relations, specifically how sectoral differences in product market competition, scope and mobility have shaped organized actors’ regulative responses to the rising cross-border labour and services mobility in the post-2004 EU/EEA Single Market. We compare how organized employers and labour in the (non-tradeable) construction sector and the (tradeable) shipbuilding sector approached the extension of collective agreements and navigated EU posting rules in wake of the 2004 enlargement. Showing how organized employer interests in tradeable and non-tradeable sectors are oppositely affected by enhanced cross-border mobility, competition and national re-regulation of migrant workers’ rights, we explain why shipbuilding employers acted as antagonists while organized construction employers in alliance with their union counterparts served as protagonists in the strife over extension.