European social dialogue
The European Parliament has published a study on cross-border collective bargaining and transnational social dialogue
July 2011
The European Parliament has recently published a study analysing the impact of cross-border collective bargaining and transnational social dialogue across the European Union. While cross-border collective bargaining still plays only a minor role (the concept is narrowly defined and encompass only agreements on wages and working conditions, and the mechanism misses the commitment of the employers who want to continue to benefit from lower production costs in certain countries), transnational social dialogue has been developing significantly during recent years, in particular thanks to the development of the European Works Councils. Nevertheless, transnational agreeements (i.e. International or European Framework Agreements) are not legally binding and thus have not yet the same impact than collective agreements negotiated at national level. Most of the initiatives coming from this sort of bargaining have a voluntary nature.
| Although the European institutions tried to set up a legal framework for transnational collective bargaining, each attempt of regulation in this area has failed so far. Therefore, in this report the European Parliament identified six key recommendations which could pave the way to a future legislative framework: Finally, this study shows that the system of industrial relations still differs from Member State to Member State, resulting in a great diversity of collective bargaining systems in Europe. |  |
The European Social partners publish the results of a survey on the achievements and the challenges for the European social dialogue
June 2011
In the context of the EU social dialogue work programme 2009-2011, the European social partners conducted a survey amongst their national members, aiming at assessing the outcomes of 15 years of social dialogue at European level and sharing their views on future challenges. The results of this survey have been recently published.
 | Among the conclusions of this report, we can stress four main ideas: Finally, with regards to the still visible consequences of the economic and financial crisis, this report shows that both trade unions and employers' organisations call for strengthening the European social dialogue, especially through the strength of national social dialogue. Stronger focus on concrete results, support for capacity-building and exchange of experience, and closer link between cross-sectoral and sectoral social dialogue are possible ways of progress. |
Introducting European social dialogue
Thanks to the system of European social dialogue (as set by the articles 153 and 154 of the EC Treaty) the organizations committed to the representation of both workers and employers are directly involved in all labor negotiations and legislation through a mechanism of continuous consultation. A distinction can be made to distinguish between cross-sectorial and sectorial dialogue: The former covers a specific labour issue, such as safety or working time, affecting all the different industry areas, and has therefore a more generalist approach and a stronger political meaning. The latter refers to a specific sector, dealing with more technical and category-related issues.
Both forms of social dialogue have contributed greatly to the establishment and the reinforcement of the European social model. In fact, they not only provide a permanent institutional framework for discussion and dialogue between social forces, which helps reduce frictions and prevent harsh social confrontation, but they also represent a powerful "soft law" instrument that has produced more than 300 legally-binding agreements.