Edoardo Ales

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.

The Italian Reform of the Labour Market in a Growth Perspective

At the beginning of April 2012, the Monti Government presented to the Italian Parliament a draft act concerning the “Reform of the labour market in a growth perspective” (hereafter the Reform). This is part of a comprehensive strategy, launched already in 2011 when the Government took office, to adapt Italian labour and social security law system to the challenges of the economic and debt crisis. At present, the Reform has been approved by the Senate, following a vote of confidence asked by the Government to speed up the procedure. The Reform is likely to approved as it is by the Lower Chamber following the same procedure. Therefore, waiting for the final approval of the act, it is already possible to draw a general and synthetic picture of the main axes of the Reform.

Protecting Work in the Digital Transformation: Rethinking the Typological Approach in the Intrinsically Triangular Relationship Perspective

The aim of this essay is to analyse, from the perspective of the labour lawyer, how digital transformation and digitalization will affect workers’ protection. The main idea is that they will put into question the heuristic capacity of the consolidated notions of employment and self-employment and, as a consequence, the effectiveness of the typological approach as we know it. The author suggests revising that approach in order to focus it on the way work interacts with the organization profiting from it. Coordination as third typology seems to be a promising solution since it highlights a condition in which work may be performed in a framed autonomous way. On the other hand, digital transformation and digitalization are likely to stimulate the emergence of intrinsically triangular work relationships by introducing the consumer or even the prosumer into the traditionally bilateral setting of employment and self-employment.

The European employment strategy twenty years on: risks, challenges and opportunities

Twenty years after the introduction of the Employment Chapter within the Amsterdam Treaty, this Special Issue of the European Labour Law Journal aims at proposing a ‘fitness check’ of the very idea of having national employment policies coordinated at EU level. In their opening articles, Weiss and Ales, look at the two sides of European social commitment coin, emphasising, in a sort of mirror effect, the relevance of hard and soft law, respectively, within the EU discourse. However, while Ales is inclined to recognise the importance of soft law within the construction of a Social Europe, Weiss regrets the fact that no more hard law seems to be at stake in the social field. These are, of course, not incompatible perspectives, since Ales’ approach is mainly aimed at underlining the fact that also a political commitment, supported by adequate and mandatory investment at EU and at national levels (what he calls enhanced coordination), may fit the purpose of reaching the social goals as ambitiously laid down by the Treaties. On the other hand, both Weiss and Ales agree on the fact the Employment can be regarded, within the EU discourse, as a holistic concept, encompassing the whole spectrum of the EU and national social commitment. A sort of synecdoche in which a part identifies the whole. Not casually, both articles touch upon almost all the relevant aspects of work at EU and at national level, advocating for a more Social Europe. Still, rather than the instruments, hard or soft, used by the European Institutions, the problem seems to lie in the content of the social commitment, as recommended by the (non-legally binding) Employment guidelines, which follow the flexicurity approach, as proposed within Commission’s communications. All the contributors to the issue who have been called to analyse the way in

The European Employment Strategy as Enhanced Coordination: A holistic approach to the EU social commitment

The article proposes a holistic approach to the European Employment Strategy, from a conceptual, structural and functional point of view, within the framework of what the Author calls the Enhanced Coordination of EU and national Employment policies. The holistic approach encompasses all the stages of life of the human being, from education to retirement, in the perspective of guaranteeing social inclusion through work, focusing on the flexicurity pathway. In order to do this, the Author advocates for the need of earmarking investment at EU and national levels in favour of inclusive growth within the Stability Pact.