Anne Dufresne

Transnational collective bargaining: Another (problematic) fragment of the European multi-level industrial relations system:

This article introduces the principal issues relating to the development of transnational collective bargaining. In particular, it summarizes the background and content of the juridical study undertaken for the European Commission, the so-called Ales Report, which suggested the mechanisms for an optional legal framework for transnational company agreements. We highlight four crucial questions: first, how to define, at transnational (company) level, the competent and legitimate workers’ representatives; second, how transnational company agreements can be effectively implemented; third, what systems and/or rules are suitable for the resolution of transnational labour disputes; and fourth, how transnational company bargaining can relate to other elements of the multi-level European industrial relations system. These same questions are addressed by other articles in this special issue, and we compare the answers they give with those provided by the Ales report. The lack of any legal form of internal regulation or external coordination seems to be the main feature of the upsurge in transnational company bargaining. This is likely to increase the already high degree of complexity inherent in the European industrial relations system: its multi-level governance model is characterized by task-specific jurisdictions, many jurisdictional levels and a flexible design.

Trade union support and political blockage: The actors’ viewpoint

This article focuses on the perspectives of unions and employers towards the new areas of opportunity provided by transnational collective bargaining. It examines how the emergence of European framework agreements prompted the European Trade Union Federations, and in particular the European Metalworkers’ Federation, to formalize their procedures to regulate the negotiation of such agreements. They also encouraged the European Trade Union Confederation to elaborate key conditions for a possible legal framework for transnational company agreement. Finally, the article highlights the political developments and blockages which affect transnational collective bargaining, and possible solutions.

Euro-Unionism and Wage Policy. The German Paradox: A Driving Force But Also a Brake?

The past 30 years have seen a massive redistribution of the income from wages towards capital.1 This raises the question of what could be done to promote a more equitable redistribution of wealth. In other words, what kind of trade union strategies could be developed at both national and supranational levels that would be able to counter the policy of wage restraint enforced in Europe since the beginning of the 1980s?