Evelyne Léonard

Industrial Relations and the Regulation of Employment in Europe

Employment has been at the core of numerous bipartite and tripartite bargaining processes across Europe since the early 1990s. This focus on employment has caused changes in bargaining processes and in the content of collective agreements. This article examines the impact of the adoption of employment as a priority in collective bargaining in the Member States of the European Union. It argues that, in the context of the European integration, industrial relations play an increasing role in the regulation of employment issues, but that collective bargaining on these issues is more and more shaped by external political and economic constraints.

European sectoral social dialogue: an analytical framework

The European sectoral social dialogue involves complex relationships between the players directly or indirectly involved, and between the European level and the member organizations in national industrial relations systems. This article proposes a synthetic analytical framework to highlight these relationships, showing that the sectoral social dialogue constitutes a very specific `system of action.

Whatever Happened to Social Dialogue? From Partnership to Managerialism in the EU Employment Agenda

There has been a major bifurcation in the level and form of social dialogue between employers and unions within the EU. The intersectoral and sectoral social dialogue launched by the Val Duchesse process in 1985 now runs in parallel with domestic forms that are merely reacting to agendas established by the Commission and the Council. This article, based on interviews with employer, union and government representatives across six EU member states, argues that the European Employment Strategy is converting social dialogue into a managerialist process by decentralizing it to national level and co-opting the social partners into taking responsibility for meeting employment targets over which they have had no influence.

Sustainable work and the ageing workforce

Socioeconomic conditions: Around 40% of women and 10% of men aged 55–59 work part time, a slightly higher number than among those aged 50–54. Among those over 50, 10% of men and 15% of women have fixed-term contracts, and a quarter have less than five years’ seniority in their current organisation. Feelings of job insecurity increase among women during their 40s and among men between 45–49 and 50–54.

Governance and Concerted Regulation of Employment in Europe

This article analyses the changes and challenges involved in the governance of employment in the EU-15 over the past decade. Several interrelated changes are examined: the European Employment Strategy; social pacts at national level; and bipartite bargaining covering employment issues. One can argue that raising employment levels currently constitutes a consensus-making factor at European level and within countries, but that there is a progressive shift in the rules of the game: we are witnessing both procedural and substantive changes in the governance of labour markets.

European sectoral social dialogue and national social partners

In 1998, the European Commission decided to institutionalize European sectoral social dialogue (ESSD) committees under a new harmonized form. As of 2010, there are 40 sectors with a sectoral committee. A recent Commission assessment suggested that there is a direct correlation between the effectiveness of ESSD and that of social dialogue on a national level. This article analyses in greater detail the relationships between the European committees and national-level social partners, showing that these relationships play a decisive role in the ability of ESSD to work efficiently. The article examines four dimensions of this ‘vertical coordination’: the representativeness of the European social partners; the Europeanization of interests; national players’ involvement in the ESSD committees and, finally, the implementation of joint texts. As these four dimensions are by no means autonomous, the article briefly examines their interaction in its last section, showing that this can fuel either a vicious circle hindering ESSD or, by contrast, a virtuous circle facilitating it. En 1998, la Commission européenne a décidé d’institutionnaliser sous une nouvelle forme harmonisée les comités du dialogue social sectoriel européen (DSSE). En 2010, 40 secteurs possèdent un comité sectoriel. Une récente évaluation de la Commission a suggéré l’existence d’une corrélation directe entre l’efficacité du dialogue social sectoriel européen et celle du dialogue sectoriel au niveau national. Le présent article analyse plus en détail les relations entre les comités européens et les partenaires sociaux au niveau national, en montrant que ces relations jouent un rôle décisif dans la capacité du dialogue social sectoriel européen à fonctionner efficacement. L’article examine quatre dimensions de cette « coordination verticale »: la représentativité des partenaires sociaux européens; l’européanisation des intérêts; l’implication des acteurs nationaux dans les comités du dialogue social sectoriel européen; la mise en œuvre de textes conjoints. Comme ces quatre dimensions ne sont en rien autonomes, l’article examine brièvement dans sa dernière partie leur interaction, en montrant que celle-ci peut engendrer un cercle vicieux faisant obstacle au dialogue social européen ou, au contraire, un cercle vertueux qui facilite ce dialogue. 1998 beschloss die Europäische Kommission, den sektoralen sozialen Dialog auf europäischer Ebene in einer neuen harmonisierten Form zu institutionalisieren und entsprechende Ausschüsse einzurichten. Im Jahr 2010 gab es 40 solcher Ausschüsse. In einer neueren Bewertung der Kommission wird darauf hingewiesen, dass die Wirksamkeit der Ausschüsse für den sektoralen Dialog und des sozialen Dialogs auf nationaler Ebene direkt miteinander korrelieren. Dieser Beitrag analysiert die Beziehungen zwischen den europäischen Ausschüssen und den Sozialpartnern auf nationaler Ebene und zeigt, dass diese Beziehungen für die Fähigkeit der Ausschüsse, effizient zu arbeiten, von maßgeblicher Bedeutung sind. Untersucht werden die vier Dimensionen dieser ,,vertikalen Koordinierung‘‘: die Repräsentativität der europäischen Sozialpartner, die Europäisierung der Interessen, die Beteiligung der nationalen Akteure in den Ausschüssen für den sektoralen Dialog auf europäischer Ebene und schließlich die Umsetzung gemeinsamer Texte. Diese Dimensionen sind aber keine eigenständigen Bereiche. Im letzten Teil des Beitrags wird deshalb kurz ihre Wechselwirkung aufeinander untersucht und gezeigt, dass diese sowohl zu einem Teufelskreis beitragen kann, der den sektoralen sozialen Dialog auf europäischer Ebene behindert, als auch zu einer positiven Dynamik, die diesen Dialog erleichtert.

The European Sectoral Social Dialogue: Questions of Representation and Membership

In the debates on the European social dialogue as a potential level of supranational industrial relations, the key questions of representations and mandates are often neglected. To what extent can the European sectoral social dialogue act for national constituencies across 27 Member States in the perspective of collective action by European associations? This article addresses this question by the means of three dimensions: the representation of heterogeneous members, the various degrees of national players commitment in the European committees and finally, the definition of a common agenda among members.

Soft procédures for hard impacts: the European sectoral social dialogue's potential for regulation

Over the short history of European integration, the European institutions and social partners have set up structures where social dialogue takes place, at cross-industry, sector and company level. When compared to collective bargaining bodies in each national system of industrial relations, it is clear that these European structures do not have the same role. However, they formally hold a capacity to define joint rules that can be implemented in the Member States. To what extent does this capacity lead in practice to regulation of employment relations, or at least to potential for regulation? The article addresses these questions by the means of close examination of the European sectoral social dialogue. It shows that the potential for regulation at this European level not only depends on institutional settings but, rather, that it largely depends on ‘vertical relations’ between the European-level bodies and national social partners.

Multinational corporations as political players

This introductory article to the special issue insists on the need to examine the specific processes and means by which transnational corporations are currently establishing and increasing their power in society. Understanding power and politics in and around multinational corporations requires conceptual and empirical approaches able to address their transnational character, with their action embedded in multiple institutional environments, with hierarchies linking distant headquarters and subsidiaries and involving numerous actors with diverse interests, and with differing industrial relations contexts. Articles in this issue address three key questions: how do transnational corporations leverage their characteristics and organization in support of their own power? How do they interact with the different institutional environments in which they operate, and what power relations do these interactions imply? To what extent do they have the capacity to determine and apply their own rules, independently of established institutional regulations?

[Claude Didry and Arnaud Mias, Le moment Delors, Les syndicats au cœur de l'Europe sociale, P.I.E.-Peter Lang, Bruxelles (2005) (349 pages).]

Quoi qu’en disent certaines denonciations, parfois a l’emporte-piece, des derives neoliberales de l’integration europeenne, il existe bien une Europe sociale ou, plus precisement, un modele social europeen. Le projet de Claude Didry et Arnaud Mias est d’en analyser les developpements depuis l’origine, liee a la fondation meme de la communaute europeenne avec le Traite de Rome en 1957. Les auteurs retracent les etapes de la formation des normes qui forment «xa0l’acquis communautairexa0» en les art...