Collective labor relations in Europe are challenged not only by economic crisis but also by structural changes of employment and a weakening organizational capacity of trade unions and employers’ organizations. This has severe consequences with respect to the polarization of wages and an increase of low paid employment. This development was deepened by the transformation of welfare states as activating policies rather supported flexible and low paid work than to hamper it. Even though these changes of employment are common to all European countries and the US, they are mediated by country specific institutions and actors’ strategies. At the center of interest are arrangements which insure minimum payments to employees ranging from voluntary bargaining to compulsory minimum wages.

Within the proposed panel we ask if the adaptation of minimum wage/ minimum payment regulations can be regarded as an expression/form of resilience against the precarisation of paid work. We want to answer this question in a threefold way: First, considering the strategies of different collective actors within different minimum wage setting institutions; Second, asking if actors just cope with environmental or institutional changes or if they actively try to influence them and possibly produce feed-back loops with respect to the creation of new institutions; Third, evaluating how successful minimum wages procedures are to prevent low wage employment. Theoretical considerations address institutional and actor centered approaches. Selected countries cover the broad spectrum of different minimum wage setting systems.