Globalization, which refers to the process of increased integration between countries, has had significant effects on employee relations (Lansbury, 2018). Economic liberalism, a key feature of globalization, has fostered individualism and competition since the 1980s, hindering collective mechanisms aimed at limiting ‘a race to the bottom’ in labour standards in many countries (Doellgast et al., 2018). Despite being one of the causes of the 2008 financial crisis, the neo-liberal political discourse has become, over the past decade, a one-size fits-all recipe for structural reforms with the blessing of international bodies, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the European Union (EU). In the EU, most governments have sought to reduce unemployment and/or contain labour costs primarily by weakening the role of statutory and/or collective bargaining regulations in setting labour standards (Koukiadaki et al., 2016; Marginson, 2015). Thus, economic liberalism during the crisis has reduced the role of institutional mechanisms (e.g. collective bargaining and labour laws) and increased the role of market forces in the regulation of employee relations.