Rodriguez Contreras, Ricardo

Trade unions in many EU Member States face the issue of declining membership. This is a fundamental challenge for organised labour, but it is premature to speak about the redundancy unions: when it comes to important decisions affecting the workplace, restructuring being one, trade unions remain a powerful mechanism of employee voice. Latest data from Eurofound’s European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) confirms that the presence of a trade union in the workplace is associated with greater employee voice and involvement in decision-making on restructuring.

This report investigates the involvement of the national social partners in the design and implementation of reforms and policies in the context of the European Semester and countryspecific recommendations 2017–2018. In line with previous reports on the same theme, it also analyses the quality of the involvement of the social partners in elaborating the National Reform Programmes.

Previous Eurofound research has identified four key dimensions of industrial relations: industrial democracy, industrial competitiveness, social justice, and quality of work and employment. This report seeks to build a set of indicators to measure country performance in industrial relations in terms of these four dimensions and to develop a typology of industrial relations systems, enabling a cross-country analysis of trends.

The study looks at the articulation and the complex multi-level links between European and national levels of social dialogue. It examines the factors that facilitate as well as those that hinder the successful engagement of national social partners and their ability to promote their own interests effectively.

The workings of industrial relations are constantly evolving. In this blog piece, Eurofound authors Christian Welz and Ricardo Rodriguez Contreras discuss a tool that Eurofound has developed to enable this process of change to be monitored and analysed, enabling stakeholders in Member States to assess the functioning of industrial relations within their country and to compare it with others.

The latest European Semester cycle, covering the period 2016–2017, has highlighted a range of issues regarding the quality of involvement by the social partners in the elaboration of the 2017 National Reform Programme (NRP), as well as in the implementation of the country-specific recommendations (CSRs). This report looks at the different social dialogue practices across Member States and at the role played by the national authorities in enabling the involvement of employer organisations and trade unions in policy reforms.

Eurofound’s 2016 report Mapping key dimensions of industrial relations identified four key dimensions of industrial relations: industrial democracy, industrial competitiveness, social justice, and quality of work and employment. This report builds upon that earlier study, developing a dashboard of 45 indicators to assess how and to what extent the conceptual framework of these key dimensions can be applied at national level.

In the rapidly changing world of work, the traditional dichotomy of employee and self-employed is insufficient to capture the wide diversity of self-employed workers in Europe today. This report identifies five categories of self-employed, ...

This report provides an update on the role of national social partners in the European Semester process over the period 2015–2016, describing the main developments and changes compared with a previous Eurofound study on their involvement during the period 2011–2014.

The Foundation Seminar Series (FSS) is an opportunity for governments, trade unions and employers to share knowledge and experiences on the development of EU social, employment and work-related policies.