Building social partnership? Strengths and shortcomings of the European Employment Strategy

2005 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 045-063 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernard H. Casey
Keyword(s):  
Trade Unions ◽  
Social Partner ◽  
Employment Policy ◽  
European Level ◽  
Social Partnership ◽  
Imple Mentation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Partners ◽  
Working Together ◽  
Partner Participation

The European Employment Strategy is now seven years old. Whilst its contribution to improving labour market performance has been evaluated, less attention has been paid to the manner in which the EES has worked, in particular the ways in which policy has been formulated and implemented. In particular, there has been little investigation of the extent to which one of the stated objectives of the strategy – the improved involvement of the social partners in the formulation and imple-mentation of policy – has been achieved. This paper argues that in many respects this objective has not been met. Even in countries where social partnership structures appear relatively well developed, the Luxembourg process has added little – in part because it is seen to be concerned with technical matters. Employment policy is ‘settled’ elsewhere. In addition, realisation of those elements of the strategy where social partner participation is most critical has often been frustrated by the lack of mechanisms to implement commitments made at the centre at places of work. Moreover, by subscribing to the strategy, social partners were also subscribing to a wider approach to economic policy – an approach that was scarcely compatible with the approach advocated by trade unions. Accordingly, the conclusion has to be that the Luxembourg process failed to develop social partnership. An exception might be the closer working together of the European-level social partner associations. However, their involvement in the strategy has been little noticed by their constituents, and it might even be argued to have encouraged elitism rather than to have promoted greater participation in policy-making.

The role of the social partners in the European employment strategy

1999 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 522-541 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Foden
Keyword(s):  
Trade Union ◽  
European Council ◽  
Employment Policy ◽  
European Level ◽  
The Core ◽  
Amsterdam Treaty ◽  
The Social ◽  
National Implementation ◽  
Social Partners

This article considers the part played by the social partners in the development of the European employment strategy over recent months, and in particular their role with reference to the European employment policy guidelines for 1999. The guidelines and national implementation reports are central to the "Luxembourg process" defined in the Employment Title of the Amsterdam Treaty (which has been in force since May 1999, though the Employment Title was largely implemented by political agreement from 1997 onwards). Much of the European-level debate on employment during 1999 has concerned the "European pact for employment", which was heralded by the Vienna European Council of December 1998, and which all the relevant actors were urged to support. Agreement on the pact was reached at the June 1999 European Council in Cologne. This article begins, therefore, by describing the different elements which constitute the pact. The role of the social partners in relation to these components, including the Luxembourg process where it is most developed, is set out in the core of the article, with greater emphasis on trade union than employer involvement. The concluding section provides an overview.

Social partnership as an approach to CSR: ‘traditional’ and ‘new’ actors, their roles and relations

2004 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 416-432 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikkel Mailand
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
National Level ◽  
Policy Transfer ◽  
Business Networks ◽  
Active Labour Market Policy ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
Social Partnership ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Partners

This article reports on research into social partnerships aiming at labour market inclusion that developed during the 1990s in Denmark, the UK and Spain. Some of these partnerships are directly related to corporate social responsibility (CSR initiatives in individual firms), whereas others are only indirectly related (for instance, active labour market policy initiatives at local, regional and national level). Developments such as new target groups for such policies, the weakening of the social partners, ideological change, policy transfer and budget constraints of the state have led to more partnerships taking a multipartite form, meaning that not only the public authorities and the social partners, but also new actors such as business networks, commercial operators and NGOs, participate. The involvement of new actors poses a challenge for the traditional actors – among them the trade unions. Whether the relations between traditional and new actors are best described by conflict or by cooperation cannot be explained by regime theories. The decisive factor seems to be the extent to which the new actors challenge the privileged positions of the traditional actors.

Schwäche der Tarifautonomie und Legitimitätsfragen im Arbeitsrecht und im Sozialrecht

2016 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-236
Author(s):  
Stephan Seiwerth
Keyword(s):  
Social Security ◽  
Minimum Wage ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
System Change ◽  
State Regulation ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Security Administration ◽  
Collective Agreements ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Partners

AbstractSocial partners have played a privileged role in German social security administration since Bismarckian times. In 2014, a new legislation empowered the social partners to set the level of the statutory minimum wage and to demand the extension of collective agreements. This article examines the interdependence of the trade unions’ and employer organisations’ membership numbers and their involvement in state regulation of labour and social security law. In case the interest in autonomous regulations is not going to increase, the state will have to step in with more heteronomous regulation. This would incrementally lead to a system change.

Collective working conditions for everyone?! – Collective provisions with erga omnes effect and statutory extension of collective agreements from a German law perspective

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 154-174
Author(s):  
Claudia Schubert ◽  
Laura Schmitt
Keyword(s):  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Minimum Wage ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
Legal Protection ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
Social Partnership ◽  
Collective Agreements ◽  
Legal Provisions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Partners

Not only in Germany but in many European states the level of coverage by collective agreements is declining. Since collective bargaining autonomy is based on the principle of voluntary membership, one of its weaknesses lies in the declining degree of organisation on both the employers’ and the employees’ side. In the long term, weak unions cannot ensure fair working conditions. As a result, collective bargaining agreements lose their inherent warranty of correctness. In the legal policy discussion, this has led to calls for the legislator. In response, in 2014 the German legislature passed the ‘Act to Strengthen the Autonomy of Collective Bargaining’ ( Tarifautonomiestärkungsgesetz) to lower the requirements for the extension of collective agreements and to introduce a national minimum wage. As this has not led to significant improvements, there are further-reaching proposals for the statutory extension of collective agreements. The extension of collective bargaining agreements to non-members does not strengthen the social partnership on the employee side. However, it is a legitimate means to avoid a race to the bottom in competing for the lowest social standard; extensions help in creating common labour standards as long as a sufficient margin is maintained for the social partners to negotiate sector-specific regulations and to shape working conditions. A legal system, which is based on rights of freedom and does not consider the freedom of association to be a solely goal-orientated right, offers limited options to strengthen the social partners through legislation. Extensions become increasingly difficult to justify, the higher the existing level of legal protection. Especially in countries with minimum wage legislation and a large amount of employee protection legislation the justification requirements increase. However, at least in Germany, to date the judiciary has not sufficiently considered these aspects. Even though international laws leave substantial freedoms to the states, all legal systems that are based on a strong and vital social partnership should be interested in obtaining and protecting the plurality of collective bargaining agreements. They should only lay down limits, where there are tendencies of eroding solidarity among workforces due to the parallel existence of several collective bargaining agreements. The associations themselves possess limited resources for extending their member base. Still, the more the individual can gain from association membership, the more likely employees and employers are to join their respective associations. Therefore, the state should demonstrate restraint regarding the regulation of labour conditions. However, such restraint will prove difficult for welfare states. Their governments will most likely opt to eliminate deficiencies through legislation, even at the price of further weakening collective bargaining autonomy. Compared to extensions, legal provisions have the disadvantage of being too general and less flexible because of the much slower adaptation process. Therefore, the main argument in favour of extensions is that they facilitate the differentiation of mandatory working conditions. To ensure their legitimation, a number of design options can be considered. Regarding this, neither European nor international law impose high requirements but existing differences between national legal systems demand custom-fit solutions.

scholarly journals Labor management and social and labor relations in the digital economy

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
pp. 00027
Author(s):  
Dmitry Desyatko ◽  
Boris Genkin ◽  
Viktoriya Rapgof
Keyword(s):  
Trade Unions ◽  
Labor Relations ◽  
Optimality Criteria ◽  
Digital Economy ◽  
Living Standards ◽  
Labor Management ◽  
Social Partnership ◽  
The Social ◽  
Scientific Results ◽  
Machine Systems

Social partnership is the most important type of social and labor relations in the modern economy, which is based on the active participation of trade unions in the enterprises management, payroll rate determination, and improvement of its conditions. In addition, in the framework of the conditions of extensive application of digital technologies the employees being outside the premises of the employer’s organization began to perform a significant part of the functions of many organizations, and for a certain category of employees, the possibility of their replacement with intelligent machine systems will become the reality in the near future. The paper shows that one of the optimality criteria for the parameters of the social system is the country’s living standards. The proposed criterion takes into account GDP per capita, the Gini ratio and the crime rate. The paper also shows that in the digital economy one of the main factors of the living standards growth is the application of new scientific results. The specific measures are proposed to create new forms of social and labor relations in the digital economy.

German pacts for employment and competitiveness Concessionary bargaining as a reaction to globalisation and European integration?

2005 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 026-044 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heiko Massa-Wirth ◽  
Hartmut Seifert
Keyword(s):  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
Institutional Factors ◽  
Collective Agreement ◽  
Work Organisation ◽  
Social Partnership ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Partners ◽  
Time Work ◽  
Works Council

This contribution deals with company-level pacts for employment and competitiveness (PECs) under the German collective bargaining system. Due to the introduction of collectively agreed opening clauses and the associated decentralisation of the collective bargaining system, the social partners at the company level now have greater opportunities to negotiate company-specific adjustments in the areas of compensation and working conditions. Currently, in return for – generally fixed-term – employer guarantees concerning location and job preservation, PECs have been negotiated in about one in four companies with a works council. The new ‘pacts’ increase internal flexibility in the firm by extending the leeway for a flexible adjustment of working time, work organisation and remuneration. A survey of works councils, conducted by the WSI, provides understanding of the economic and institutional factors which influence the spread and composition of these concessionary agreements. Alongside a commitment to social partnership on the management side, the presence of a sectoral collective agreement is an important prerequisite for ensuring, first of all, that the employer agrees to employment guarantees in exchange for the employee concessions and, secondly, that these management pledges are actually observed in practice.

Participation through the Lisbon strategy: comparing the European Employment Strategy and pensions OMC

2009 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Natali ◽  
Caroline de la Porte
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Social Partner ◽  
Lisbon Strategy ◽  
Limited Participation ◽  
Social Partnership ◽  
Open Method Of Coordination ◽  
Amsterdam Treaty ◽  
Social Partners ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
The Eu

The present article aims to shed light on the concrete implementation of the Lisbon strategy with regard to its governance framework and to participation (of social partners) in particular. The focus is on the European Employment Strategy (EES) (defined in the Amsterdam Treaty of 1997 and then integrated into the broader Lisbon strategy that emerged in 2000) and the open method of coordination on pensions (the process of soft coordination of pension reforms agreed at the Stockholm Council of 2001). While the EU discourse has a strong emphasis on social partnership, evidence from the two cases in this article shows limited participation. While social partner access varies considerably between coordination processes, it is evident that expectations concerning increased participation have not been fulfilled in the Lisbon strategy.

scholarly journals The roles of employers and trade unions in immigration and welfare state policymaking

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (5) ◽  
pp. 521-527
Author(s):  
Carlo Knotz ◽  
Flavia Fossati ◽  
Gemma Scalise ◽  
Gerda Hooijer
Keyword(s):  
Social Security ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Economic Integration ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Partners ◽  
Integration Of Immigrants ◽  
Research Problems ◽  
State Policymaking

Whether and under which conditions immigrants should be admitted and obtain access to employment and social security is an issue of continuously high political salience across the advanced democracies. Unions and employers, as traditionally influential actors in immigration and social policymaking, have important roles to play in this area, but their exact preferences, strategies and behaviour are theoretically difficult to determine and are still only partly understood. This article outlines a series of research problems regarding the roles of social partners in the social and economic integration of immigrants and discusses how the articles contained in this special issue address these problems.

The difficulty of reconciling flexibility and security in Spain: the paradigmatic case of part-time work

2004 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 248-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fernando Valdés Dal-Ré
Keyword(s):  
Employment Policy ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Partners ◽  
Time Work ◽  
Part Time ◽  
Time Part ◽  
The Government ◽  
High Degree ◽  
Part Time Work

The level of part-time employment in Spain tripled during the period 1984–93. The increased prevalence of part-time work reflected an employment policy during that period and beyond that aimed to establish maximum flexibility in the use of fixed-term contracts, whether fulltime or part-time. Part-time work was, and still is, to some extent, associated with a high degree of employment-related precariousness. This article examines the successive and not always consistent measures which since April 1994 have been adopted by the social partners and the government in order to improve the quality and security of part-time work. It assesses to what extent these measures have achieved their objectives.

scholarly journals Finnish incomes policy as corporatist political exchange: development of social capital and the social wage

2011 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 515-531 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaakko Kiander ◽  
Pekka Sauramo ◽  
Hannu Tanninen
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Social Partner ◽  
The Social ◽  
Incomes Policy ◽  
Social Partners ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
The Government ◽  
Social Wage ◽  
Welfare Reforms

This article deals with Finnish incomes policy as a special type of political exchange between the social partners and the government. The continuity of this political exchange requires a common ground of values and trust. In the article, these prerequisites are characterized in terms of the concept of social capital. The article also emphasizes the importance of centrally negotiated incomes policy agreements as an important institutional framework within which the Finnish welfare state has evolved. Owing to the traditionally close relationship between centrally negotiated incomes policy agreements and welfare reforms, the end of centrally negotiated incomes policy agreements declared by one social partner – namely, the Confederation of Finnish Industries – is likely to affect not only the manner in which wages are negotiated in the future but also the tradition of political exchange between the social partners and the government. Cet article traite de la politique finlandaise des revenus comme d’un type particulier d’échange politique entre les partenaires sociaux et le gouvernement. La continuité de cet échange politique requiert une base commune de valeurs et de confiance. Dans cet article, ces conditions préalables sont caractérisées en recourant au concept de capital social. L'article souligne également l’importance de la négociation centralisée des accords sur la politique des revenus, en tant que cadre institutionnel important dans lequel se poursuit l’évolution de l’État-providence finlandais. En raison de la relation traditionnellement étroite entre les accords de politique des revenus issus d'une négociation centralisée, d’une part, et les réformes de l’État-providence, d’autre part, la fin de ces accords de politique des revenus issus d’une négociation centralisée, proclamée par un partenaire social – la Confédération des industries finlandaises –, devait affecter non seulement la manière dont les salaires seront négociés dans l’avenir, mais aussi la tradition de l’échange politique entre partenaires sociaux et gouvernement. Der vorliegende Beitrag befasst sich mit der finnischen Lohn- und Gehaltspolitik, die auf einer besonderen Form des politischen Austausches zwischen den Sozialpartnern und der Regierung beruht. Die Konti-nuität dieses politischen Austausches setzt eine Basis gemeinsamer Werte und des Vertrauens voraus, die wir als “Sozialkapital” bezeichnen. Ferner wird darauf hingewiesen, dass die zentral ausgehandelten Abkommen über die Lohn- und Gehaltspolitik einen wichtigen institutionellen Rahmen bilden, in dem sich der finnische Wohlfahrtsstaat entwickelt hat. Traditionell besteht in Finnland eine enge Beziehung zwischen zentral ausgehandelten Lohnabkommen und sozialen Reformen. Die Erklärung eines Sozialpartners – des finnischen Arbeitgeberverbands – keine zentralen Lohnabkommen mehr auszuhandeln, wird somit nicht nur einen Einfluss auf die Lohnverhandlungsmodalitäten haben, sondern auch auf die Tradition des politischen Austausches zwischen den Sozialpartnern und der Regierung.

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