Role of collective bargaining in the public services sector

At its social dialogue and collective bargaining conference at the end of November 2006, the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU) discussed key issues in relation to collective bargaining at both European and national levels. The conference continues to play a role in EPSU’s ongoing efforts to build its collective bargaining network and to coordinate policy on a number of key areas, such as young workers, migrant workers and older workers.

Conference on collective bargaining

At a two-day collective bargaining conference commencing on 30 November 2006 and attracting 114 participants from 24 countries, members of the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU) discussed strategies on collective bargaining and social dialogue across Europe. EPSU has 215 affiliated organisations in 37 countries and organises its activities in four main sectors – national administration, regional and local government, health and social services, and public utilities. Although it does not have a permanent collective bargaining committee, in 2003, under the leadership of the European Metalworkers’ Federation (EMF), a collective bargaining network was set up – epsucob@ – to improve the flow and exchange of information within the organisation.

The collective bargaining conference does not have a formal status within the EPSU structure but has an advisory role, allowing the federation’s affiliates to discuss a range of draft policies that may then be developed and submitted to its executive committee for formal adoption. Some of the conference documents are publicly available, including those on older, younger as well as migrant workers.

The 2006 conference began with two general presentations on developments in social dialogue and collective bargaining. Deputy General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), Maria Helena André, opened the conference by looking back over 12 months of social dialogue at the intersectoral level and underlined the challenge facing the trade unions in making any kind of positive and practical progress with the employers. Senior researcher at the European Trade Union Institute for Research, Education and Health and Safety (ETUI-REHS), Maarten Keune, then gave participants an overview of collective bargaining across Europe based on ETUC’s annual survey of national confederations. Mr Keune also gave an update on the latest debates on flexicurity and the European Commission’s proposed legal framework for transnational collective agreements.

Key themes

Following this, participants took part in a session on collective bargaining specifically in the public services. This session focused on a number of key themes for EPSU, such as collective bargaining rights, negotiating for low-wage employees, the impact of outsourcing on collective bargaining and working time.

Recruitment of young workers

A draft policy document considered how collective bargaining could be used to improve the recruitment and retention of young workers. The document underlined the challenge facing both public service employers and trade unions in this regard. It argued that collective bargaining could help the recruitment process by achieving real improvements for young workers in terms of pay and working conditions.

However, Detlef Raabe, former youth officer and now responsible for collective bargaining within the United Services Union (Vereinte Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft, ver.di) in Germany, gave a presentation which challenged this idea, arguing that trade unions had to explore a range of different initiatives to win more young members. He argued that unions needed to try to recruit young people as members at an early age, for example at vocational schools and in their first jobs. Several participants also argued that elements of the draft policy, such as the impact of temporary work, were relevant to other groups of workers and not just to young workers.

Policies for older workers

With the pressures of demographic change, many public service employers are hoping to end the trend towards early retirement and even to retain some employees beyond the normal retirement age; thus, the conference also considered how affiliates could negotiate policies aimed at older workers. This is an area of work that EPSU plans to develop during 2007. As a first step, EPSU representatives proposed to ask national affiliates to provide examples of collective agreements with specific policies on older workers.

Work–life balance

On the second morning of the conference, three working groups discussed work–life balance issues in light of the European Commission’s recent consultation over reconciling work with private and family life. The various debates underlined the need for action at European level in terms of legislation and information from affiliates.

Migrant workers

The final main theme addressed at the conference was that relating to migrant workers. A short debate took place on a draft policy, covering ways in which affiliates could negotiate collective agreements to help address the challenges facing migrant workers in the EU, particularly in terms of integration into their new job and new society.

Sonia McKay, Working Lives Research Institute