This article examines ultra-activity in collective bargaining – the rule that keeps expired agreements in force – and how its curtailment can shift bargaining power in fragmented wage-setting systems. Drawing on elite interviews, parliamentary debates and legal texts, we compare Portugal and Spain. Spain's 2012 reform limited ultra-activity (introducing a one-year time limit), seeking to decentralise bargaining and weaken unions; the rule was restored in 2021. Portugal abolished indefinite ultra-activity in 2003 and tightened expiry procedures in 2012, allowing employer federations to let agreements lapse, ally with moderate unions and entrench lower wage norms. By conceptualising ultra-activity as a procedural ‘switching point’, we show how similar reforms generate divergent liberalisation trajectories – reversible in Spain yet durable in Portugal – because bargaining coordination and representativeness rules shape who bargains and how breakdowns are managed. These findings refine accounts of institutional change by suggesting that domestically embedded, incremental legal shifts may prove harder to reverse than crisis-led reforms adopted under heightened external constraint. They also clarify why employers may support sectoral bargaining when it offers flexibility and predictable negotiating counterparts.

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Comparative political economy,Southern Europe,Collective bargaining,Post-crisis labour market reforms,Ultra-activity

• Psychology - Social Sciences
• Economics and Business - Social Sciences
• Political Science - Social Sciences
• Social and Economic Geography - Social Sciences

This publication is an output of the following project(s):

• Rebuilding solidarity in an age of job dualisation