Review on the Position of the Social Partners on Direct Participation

In international discussion on new developments in industrial relations at the workplace there is general agreement on the importance of direct employee participation in the oranization of work. This paper reports some of the results of a wide ranging study conducted as part of a project initiated by the Foundation in Dublin. It also analyses the position of the organised industrial relations actors in the fifteen countries of the European Union. Its focus is on how they understand the concept of direct participation and how they assess the impact of new participative programmes on company performance, work organisation and working conditions, and the established system of workplace industrial relations.