EU system of industrial relations
A system of industrial relations at European level has specific features, which relate to current economic, political and social developments in the EU. These features include the European social dialogue, the European Employment Strategy, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, transnational coordination of collective bargaining, the macroeconomic dialogue and European Works Councils. Each of these processes and systems contributes to an EU system of collective industrial relations. For example, the EU Charter promotes an EU system of industrial relations by virtue of its including rights of association (Article 12), collective bargaining and collective action (Article 28), information and consultation (Article 27), and so on.
The different elements of the collective industrial relations in the EU can be mutually reinforcing. For example, the mutual reinforcement between different elements of the EU industrial relations system is already evident in the role of social dialogue in the EES. Both the framework agreements on part-time work and on fixed-term work explicitly refer to the EES in their Preambles, and aim to promote part-time working and provide security of employment for fixed-term workers.
The Commission’s High-Level Group on Industrial Relations, in its report of March 2002, identified six new challenges for industrial relations in Europe: globalisation, Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), enlargement, technological change and the knowledge economy, demographic trends, and changes in the labour market. It further highlighted three main issues: the interaction between European industrial relations and the national and local level, the interaction between bipartite and tripartite processes at European level, and the interaction between the sectoral and intersectoral levels.
These defining features of an EU system of industrial relations have developed only relatively recently. Though each is an important element in an EU system of collective industrial relations, they emerged independently and without consideration of the other elements. The strengthening of an EU system of industrial relations would require that these elements are at least consistent with each other and form, if possible, a coherent system.
See also: collective bargaining; employee representation; European social model; fundamental rights; information and consultation; solidarity principle; tripartite concertation.