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Does collective bargaining play a role in employment in the European Union today? The European Employment Strategy implemented in the European Union since 1997 invites social partners in all member states to participate in the promotion of employment at all levels. Is this the role of trade unions and employers organisations? Do social partners in the member states negotiate employment? Do they contribute to an objective of full employment? Do they want to improve 'employability'? Do they, finally, negotiate and reach agreements on such issues? Building on a in-depth study conducted by a European-scale network of experts for the DG Employment and Social Affairs of the European Commission, this report addresses these crucial issues. It analyses processes of collective bargaining and agreements on employment in the fifteen member states in 2000 and 2001. It includes national insights as well as comparative analyses of current trends. Researchers at the Institut des Sciences du Travail, a Department of the Catholic University of Louvain, here produce a fourth review of recent developments observed in the field of employment bargaining in Europe. This analysis, which has been conducted at the request of DG Employment and Social Affairs, focuses on agreements negotiated in the field of employment, and on the identification of the coordination mechanisms that structure these negotiations. The study contains 15 national contributions.
This open access book discusses transnational trade union cooperation in Europe – its forms, focuses, conditions, and obstacles. It provides an overview of existing trade union cooperation and includes detailed analyses of two specific questions: the debates on statutory minimum wages and the Posting of Workers Directive. Drawing on empirical research, the authors take a comparative approach, considering national industrial relations regimes as well as individual sectors. With the ongoing processes of integration in Europe, it has become increasingly important for unions to cooperate with regard to employers and EU institutions. The authors illustrate the interconnections between national and European industrial relations, and explore the process of European integration in labour markets. Illustrating the potential for and difficulties involved in deepening trade union cooperation across Europe, this work is a vital read for trade unionists, researchers and students interested in European trade unionism and labour markets.
Transnational collective bargaining (TCB) has become a ‘hot’ topic of European industrial relations. As well as collective bargaining between workers and employers conducted at the sectoral or national level, negotiations on employee rights and working conditions now also take place at the supranational level, within multinational companies. It is a development that poses major challenges for trade unions, as well as for employers and lawmakers. This book takes stock of the particular challenges faced by trade union representatives, works councils and employer organisations; it reviews the existing literature on this topic and examines contrasting views of the prospects for subsequent development of this new practice; it also offers some practical suggestions for policymakers who find themselves having to deal with this new component of the Europeanisation of industrial relations. One of the key questions tackled in the book is whether a regulatory framework for TCB is feasible, necessary and/or useful. Perhaps even more importantly: can we, given the proliferation of instances of TCB, actually manage without such a legal system, and what should be the main elements of such a framework? By providing a better understanding and a critical analysis of the emergence and development of transnational collective bargaining, the authors of this book offer valuable help to trade unionists and practitioners in preparing for – and being prepared for – this next stage in the internationalisation of industrial relations.
First published in 1999, this volume recognises that in the course of European integration, national economic policy makers lose some effective policy instruments. Contributors to this omnibus volume analyse the 'room for maneuvering' available to national and EU economic and social policies under the conditions of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). They explore the possibilities for European coordination and discuss the tasks of employers’ associations and labour unions on the national and EU level in wage, employment and macroeconomic policies. Section 1 of the book deals with the strengths and weaknesses of the EU in the context of global competition. In spite of national differences, many of the EU member countries share important characteristics. Section 2 addresses the need for and the feasibility of policy coordination in the EMU. With the start of the EMU, wage policy will have to bear the main burden of absorbing asymmetrical economic shocks. The authors from the DIW argue that a wage policy favourable to economic growth, employment and convergence has to be guided by the inflation target set by the European Central Bank (ECB) and by the long-term increase of productivity in individual countries. A precondition for this kind of wage policy is coordination between the main actors of EU economic policy (ECB, EcoFin, social partners).
The formerly communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have witnessed a profound transformation of their labour laws since the 1990s and, especially, after their accession to the European Union. Today, in comparison to the other Member States, they continue to have weak trade unions and employers’ associations and an underdeveloped system of collective bargaining. Moreover, the recent economic and financial crisis highlighted the need to invest further efforts in bringing the CEE industrial relations closer to the ‘old’ Member States, in order to facilitate a more meaningful enforcement of the EU-wide economic and social policies. This is the first book to scrutinise this important matter in depth. Focusing on four current CEE labour law regimes – in Slovenia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Poland – that also have different collective bargaining trends and can be said to exemplify some of the main legal and institutional frameworks for collective bargaining that the CEE countries have developed, the author addresses the following major issues: – the transition from a centralised to an open market economy and the degree of continuing residual characteristics; – the extent to which labour laws since the 1990s have enabled an adequate institutionalisation of industrial relations to allow free and voluntary collective bargaining at the national, sectoral, and company levels; and – the effectiveness of the standard-setting role of trade unions and employers’ associations insofar as they have persisted or come into play. The analysis always keeps in focus the development of labour laws in relation to a number of such interlinked elements as market transformation, type of privatisation of state ownership, and attitudes towards welfare. It draws on both the relevant literature and on twenty-five interviews with legal and policy experts from social partners’ organisations and staff within the ministries for social affairs in the selected countries. In support of the study’s general finding that the laws in CEE countries could provide more stimulus for sectoral and cross-sectoral collective bargaining, the author offers deeply informed recommendations and insights into legal shortcomings and pinpoints how the existing legal frameworks can be enhanced. Any professional or academic in the field of industrial relations, and particularly those concerned with complex transitions such as those occurring in the CEE countries and elsewhere in the world, will find this book of great value.
This title was first published in 2002: Although the economic integration of the European Union is far-advanced, its social dimension remains under-developed. Often there is uncertainty about, and lack of information on, the economic, social and legal situation of employees in the other EU countries. This study investigates this situation. It acknowledges the term "Europeanization" as being in no way clearly defined, but offers an interpretation of the Europeanization of industrial relations as a socio-political process, with the main focus the change within the plant and organization. Industrial relations in Germany are used as a point of reference against which selected aspects of industrial relations in France, the UK, and Italy are compared and contrasted. Specific areas of study include: workplace and company organization; collective bargaining; trade unions and employers' associations; and government regulations and legislative standardization.
The insertion in June 1997 of a Title on employment in the Treaty on European Union has accelerated the drafting of European policy in this field over the last few years. This European dynamic has had widespread impact on the themes and mechanisms that characterise national systems of industrial relations. On the one hand, employment is increasingly governed by rules negotiated between the social partners and, depending on the circumstances, the State. This phenomenon of joint labour market regulation is confirmed by a marked desire on the part of employers' associations and trade unions to integrate employment-related issues into their actions and negotiations. On the other hand, the incorporation of employment-related themes by employers’ associations and trade unions, usually in concertation with government policies, is related with greater coordination of bargaining and concertation mechanisms established at European level and within each Member State. Today, the various national realities appear to be directed to various degrees by these two general tendencies. These phenomena active in the field of employment bargaining must therefore be analysed on three counts: the first focuses on the development of the coordination mechanisms that structure these negotiations, and more specifically raises the issue of co-responsibility for the labour market; the second deals with the strict content of employment bargaining, and examines the question of negotiated flexibility of working conditions and employment; the third addresses the autonomy of collective bargaining in Europe. This analysis informs our research, which is in turn intimately linked to recent changes taking place in national systems of industrial relations.
« The book presents the findings of a four-year study of the challenges facing trade unions and their responses in ten west European countries. The project involved a substantial number of interviews with key union representatives and academic experts in each country, together with the collection of a large amount of union documentation and background material. The book gives an account of trade unionism in each country, the main recent challenges that unions have faced, and responses in terms of recruitment and mobilisation; organizational restructuring; new approaches to collective bargaining; changing political strategies; and international activities. The analytical starting point is that trade unions are conservative institutions containing significant veto points to organizational change, but at the same time can display dynamism and innovation, and that external challenges can therefore stimulate important internal adaptation. The book engages with the debates of the past two decades on union modernization and revitalization, and more generally with theories of institutional change and with the literature on varieties of capitalism. The central theme is that while trade unions do not easily change identities and core practices, they are not locked into inertia. Trade unions are not unitary actors but are internally contested organizations, and internal conflict is itself a potential source of dynamism. The literature on "revitalization" has tended to divide between the over-optimistic and the over-pessimistic; this study presents a more nuanced and differentiated account. In particular, it attempts to identify some of the key internal and external conditions for effective strategic innovation. »--