European social dialogue
The notion of European social dialogue is both an open and an ambiguous one. In their declaration of December 2001, the European social partners clarified, from their point of view, the conceptual differences between tripartite concertation, consultation and social dialogue:
- tripartite concertation indicates exchanges between the social partners and European public authorities;
- consultation of the social partners refers to the activities of advisory committees and official consultations in the spirit of Article 153 TFEU;
- social dialogue is bipartite work by the social partners, whether or not it is prompted by the Commission’s official consultations based on Article 153 and 154 TFEU.
Thus, the European social partners use a very narrow definition, since they reserve the notion of social dialogue for their bipartite, autonomous work. Whenever European public authorities are involved, the social partners prefer to speak of tripartite concertation.
A broader definition is adopted by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva, which defines social dialogue as including ‘all types of negotiations, consultation or simply exchange of information between, or among, representatives of governments, employers and workers on issues of common interest in relation to economic and social policy’. Thus, the ILO has a mainly tripartite vision of the concept of social dialogue, which encompasses different degrees of dialogue, such as information, consultation and negotiation, and as such is almost synonymous with a system of industrial relations.
The European Commission sees social dialogue as encompassing both the bipartite and the tripartite processes between the European social partners themselves and between the two sides of industry and the Commission. These processes are rooted in Articles 154 and 155 TFEU and may lead to legally or contractually binding agreements. At European level, social dialogue takes two main forms: a bipartite dialogue between the European employers and trade union organisations, and a tripartite dialogue involving interaction between the social partners and the public authorities.
For this reason, it represents an important pillar in an ever-developing system of European industrial relations. Social dialogue ensures that the European social partners – BUSINESSEUROPE, CEEP (Centre européen des entreprises à participation public et des enterprises d’intérêt économique général – the European Centre of Enterprises with Public Participation) and ETUC (European Trade Union Confederation) – not only have the possibility to conclude European agreements ‘in the shadow of the law’, but the right to be consulted on pending legislation.
The emergence of European social dialogue in the 1980s was the outcome of a crucial initiative taken by Jacques Delors, the incoming President of the Commission, in January 1985. Delors believed that the launching of the Single European Market programme should go hand in hand with the organisation of a European social area, with social dialogue accorded a central place. Delors invited the chairpersons and general secretaries of all the national organisations affiliated to UNICE, CEEP and ETUC to meet at the castle of Val Duchesse outside Brussels on 31 January 1985. At this historic meeting, these organisations agreed to engage in furthering the European social dialogue.
Legal basis
Although European social dialogue received its first formal recognition through the insertion into the EC Treaty by the Single European Act 1986 of a new Article 118B EC, negotiations in Maastricht and Amsterdam helped to further establish the legal significance of the European social partners. In Maastricht, the Treaty of the European Union included a protocol incorporating an Agreement on Social Policy, the result of negotiations between the European social partners. The agreement, adopted by all 11 Member States with the exception of the United Kingdom, outlined the procedure for European social dialogue. The signing of the Treaty of Amsterdam in June 1997 resulted in the Agreement on Social Policy being incorporated into a revised Social Chapter of the EC Treaty.
Today, Articles 154 and 155 TFEU provide a procedure that combines the consultation of the social partners by the Commission with the option to leave social regulation to bipartite agreement between management and labour organised at European level. According to Article 154 TFEU, the Commission, before submitting proposals in the social policy field, has to consult management and labour on the possible direction of that Community action. Moreover, if, after such consultation, the Commission considers Community action advisable, it is obliged to consult management and labour on the content of the envisaged proposal. In the course of the consultation, the social partners also address the question posed by Article 154 (4) TFEU: whether they wish to initiate the process provided for in Article 155 TFEU – the bipartite social dialogue – which may lead to contractual relations, including agreements.
The forms and content of the responses of the social partners in this consultation phase may be very different. The Commission suggests that the ‘formal consultation of the social partners provided for in Article [154(3) TFEU] may lead to the adoption of opinions, recommendations or agreement-based relations (including agreements) within the social partners’ sphere of competence’. If the social partners ask to deal with the issue by bipartite social dialogue, known as the autonomous route, the Commission will suspend its legislative initiative. An autonomous agreement is guided by the principle of subsidiarity, empowering national affiliates with the task of implementing such an agreement in line with national procedures and practices. Alternatively, Article 155(2) TFEU allows social partners to request that the Commission take a proposal to the Council, which leads in practice to implementation by Council directive, including all legal consequences specific to the instrument of a directive. However, should the social partners fail to reach an agreement, a fallback position exists which allows the Commission to address the issue via the normal legislative procedure, as famously occurred in the case of the European Works Council Directive in 1994.
European social dialogue has led to both intersectoral and sectoral European collective agreements. Certainly, its outcomes are modest if compared to national systems of collective bargaining and social dialogue. However, it needs to be recognised that European social dialogue has helped to raise the profile of a European social policy sphere, the very intention of the former President of the Commission, Jacques Delors.
Intersectoral social dialogue
According to the Commission’s definition, intersectoral ‘covers the whole economy and labour market’ and its ‘purpose is to promote dialogue between trade unions and employers’ organisations in key areas common to all fields of employment and social affairs’. The existence of the Social Dialogue Committee (SDC) is central to this process. Founded in 1992, the SDC brings together employee representatives (ETUC, Eurocadres and the European Federation of Executives and Managerial Staff) and employer bodies (BUSINESSEUROPE, UEAPME and CEEP) to discuss key employment-related issues. The social partners have produced a number of notable intersectoral agreements, which were either transposed via directives or via the autonomous route. These include:
- Council Directive 96/34/EC of 3 June 1996 on the framework agreement on parental leave concluded by UNICE, CEEP and ETUC. In 2009, the European social partners agreed on a revision of the parental leave agreement.
- Council Directive 97/81/EC of 15 December 1997 concerning the framework agreement on part-time work concluded by UNICE, CEEP and ETUC.
- Council Directive 1999/70/EC of 28 June 1999 concerning the framework agreement on fixed-term work concluded by ETUC, UNICE and CEEP.
- A framework agreement on telework was signed in 2002. This was the first time that the signatory parties implemented an agreement in accordance with the procedures and parties specific to the social partners in the Member States.
- A framework agreement on work-related stress (2004).
- A framework agreement on harassment and violence at work (2007).
- A framework agreement on inclusive labour markets (2010).
Sectoral social dialogue
European sectoral social dialogue is an instrument of EU social policy and industrial relations at sectoral level. It consists of negotiations between the European trade union and employer organisations of a specific sector of the economy. The Commission, in its Communication on ‘The European social dialogue, a force for innovation and change’, has expressed the view that the sectoral level ‘is the proper level for discussion on many issues linked to employment, such as working conditions, vocational training and industrial change, the knowledge society, demographic patterns, enlargement and globalisation’ (COM (2002) 341 final of 26 June 2002). For this reason, the Commission is committed to establishing more committees in order to ensure that all the main sectors are covered. In September 2010, there were 40 sectoral social dialogue committees, which have produced a variety of joint texts and agreements, covering 145 million workers in a range of sectors. The most recent social dialogue committee to be launched was in the education sector in June 2010 (EU1006081I). A report by Eurofound on the dynamics of European sectoral social dialogue (2008) concludes that the growing number of committees is in itself an indication of the social partners’ increasing interest in European sectoral social dialogue. In terms of outcomes, the number of texts adopted in the committees is extremely stable. With regard to the topics covered, an analysis of the texts shows the diversity of themes discussed, many of them directly related to the EU agenda. Overall, the analysis of European sectoral social dialogue highlights a variety of documents unevenly spread over the years but nevertheless increasing in number. The majority are ‘common positions’ addressed to the European institutions with a view to influencing EU policymakers. In other words, one important function of social dialogue involves the joint lobbying of the EU by the social partners. From a quantitative perspective, the conclusions are clear: less than 2% of the texts adopted at sectoral level are agreements with a binding effect, while fewer than 10% are expected to have some impact at national level. The sectors that have concluded process-oriented texts, which could also be described as ‘soft law’ (23 of the 36 committees analysed have signed such texts in the past 10 years), are all facing the same problems regarding how these texts should be implemented nationally and monitored at EU level, as well as what linkage should occur between the European and national sectoral levels.
See also: European collective agreements; European social model; European social dialogue and implementation of agreements; European social dialogue via Articles 154-155 TFEU; European social partners; EU system of industrial relations; tripartite concertation.