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No one denies that the institution of collective bargaining between workers and employers has been a powerful tool for social dialogue. Without our history of effective collective bargaining there would be no mutual understanding, no industrial peace, no constructive cooperation between social partners. Yet there is a feeling today that this history has drawn to a close; that our post-industrial world demands something different, something our tradition of collective bargaining and collective agreements cannot give us. What information and insight can we gather to verify or challenge this feeling? This was the first major question addressed by the distinguished delegates to the twenty-seventh World Congress of Labour and Social Security Law held at Montevideo, 2'5 September 2003. The aim of the conference was to discover current problems regarding the existing structures and functions of collective bargaining in industrialized countries today'problems readily identifiable in the context of economic globalization, falling union density, the increase in atypical and knowledge-based workers, and the 'tertiarization' or declining economic importance of manufacturing-based industry. This bulletin contains some of the most important papers devoted to this major theme of the conference. It presents twenty national reports, each written by a scholar well-versed in the law and practice of collective bargaining in the country covered. Two introductory reports deal with such general issues as the varying competences of representatives under different legal systems, labor union representation within the public sector, the development of collective bargaining in EC law, the levels and structures of collective bargaining practice, and the widening gap between the relevant legal norms and real situations. The national reports were drafted on the basis of a questionnaire, which appears as an annex. This allows the reader to easily compare the solutions set forth for consideration in the various countries under review. The Actors of Collective Bargaining will be of great value for all practitioners and academics in the field of industrial relations.
This book offers a unique contribution that examines major recent changes in conflict, negotiation and regulation within the labour relations systems and related governance institutions of advanced societies. The broad scope of analysis includes social welfare institutions, new forms of protest including judicialisation, transnational structures and collective bargaining itself. As the distinguished group of participating authors shows, the accumulation of numerous crucial changes in the interactions of unions, employers, political parties, courts, protestors, regulators and other key actors makes it imperative to reframe the study of collective bargaining and related forms of governance. The shifting dynamics include the growing relevance of multi-level interactions involving transnational entities, states and regions; the increasing tendency of workers and unions to turn to the courts as part of their overall strategy; new forms of solidarity among workers; and the emergence of new populist and nationalist actors. At the same time, sectors of the workforce that feel under-represented by existing institutions have contributed to new types of protest and 'agency'. Building on classical debates, the book offers new theoretical and practical approaches that insert the study of collective bargaining into the analysis of governance, solidarity, conflict and regulation, as they are broadly construed.
How has the status and practice of collective bargaining evolved since the end of the 1970s? What changes are noticeable in the behaviour of actors? The six countries included in this study - Germany, Spain, France, Great Britain, Italy, Sweden - have original industrial relations systems. Economic and social disruption is driving changes, at the same time that Europe is under construction. The difficulties arising from the prolonged economic crisis neither deconstructs these systems, nor eliminates their diversity. The actors are adaptable and play on a historically based social acceptance to maintain their influence. They invest in new areas and new spaces for exchange (European Works Councils, social pacts). Indeed, in an apparently rational and effective response to the crisis, collective bargaining sees its status somewhat enhanced and its remit intensified - in the Continental European countries. Great Britain is the exception; the head-on challenge to the collective bargaining system and union power is in contrast to the common trend in the other countries. Progressively, collective bargaining is regarded as being at the core of industrial relations; collective actors identify with their role as negotiators. The dissolution of old alliances between unions and parties has started a movement which is little discussed; the depoliticization of the union project and a recentring within the industrial relations space. With the 21st century, contradictions emerge. The actors, both employer and union, lose their power of representation and integrative capacity. Negotiating systems lose their effectiveness; states bypass them as well as their actors in order to bring about social changes. More than a system crisis, we are dealing with a crisis of actors. For the unions, it raises the question of revitalizing their ties with their members, through such means as building new alliances.