Is union influence on wage formation waning worldwide?

The coverage of collectively bargained wage agreements is wide in Scandinavia and continental European countries. In the mid-1990s coverage in Germany was 92%. But there are major differences between country groups. In the Scandinavian countries the coverage of the contract agreements is about equal to the level of unionisation. In continental Europe, including southern Europe, the high coverage of wage agreements is not attributable to a correspondingly strong position of the unions in the labour force. It depends instead on employers also paying non-union members of the basis of the negotiated agreements or on the fact that wage agreements are declared to be generally binding.