Employers' associations undergo restructuring

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In early 2000, new information has been published, shedding light on the little-researched subject of the structure and activities of employers' organisations in Portugal. At the same time, the possibility has been raised of a merger of a number of top-level employers' organisations.

In January 2000, the National Statistics Institute (Instituto Nacional de Estatística, INE) published the results of a survey of employers' association s in Portugal, an area which has previously received relatively little attention.

The INE survey was based on a questionnaire sent out to employers' associations, which received 422 responses in 1997 and 347 in 1998. Since it was mandatory to respond to the survey, with penalties for non-compliance, the INE considers the 347 employers' associations responding to the 1998 survey as being "active", and the remainder as being inactive.

Geographically, Portuguese employers' associations are dispersed. Although 53.3% of the respondents to the 1997 survey purported to be associations of national interest, in reality they largely represent regional or local interests, a fact which explains why 25.4% cover only one or a few districts. Around 24.5% of associations represent manufacturing enterprises, 22% represent the commerce sector, and 19.8% cover activities that are not clearly defined.

According to the legislation governing employers' associations, their aim is to sign collective agreements, lend assistance to affiliates or create bodies that do so, and defend the rights and interests of their members. The INE survey finds that training is the predominant type of activity carried out by employers' organisations. In 1997, 32,700 individuals received training through such organisations, while in 1998, this number rose to 63,500. Some 51% of the funding for this training came from the European Social Fund. The banking, commerce, transport and communications sectors were those most involved in training initiatives. Other activities pursued by employers' associations included the holding of seminars, conferences and exhibitions.

Employers' organisations must be registered with the General Directorate for Working Conditions (Direcção Geral das Condições de Trabalho) of the Ministry of Labour and Solidarity. In January 2000, 493 employers' organizations were registered, of which 478 were associations (associações), 21 were federations (federações), nine were unions (uniões) and six were confederations (confederações). The following patterns emerge from an analysis of the creation and cessation of activity of these organisations:

• since the beginning of the 1990s, trade unions have undergone a process of concentration. As a result, while 61 new unions have been created, 76 have ceased activities. The trend among employers' organisations has been the opposite. While 27 of these organisations have ceased to operate since 1990, 103 new ones have sprung up. In addition, in the last few years, three new confederations have been created, covering the agricultural sector, the tourism industry and micro-businesses; and

• the surveys from INE and the Ministry of Labour and Solidarity indicate that there is strong evidence that a significant number of registered associations are no longer active. For many years, a number of associations have not signed any type of collective agreement or held regular elections (PT9711147F).

In Portugal, there are two types of employers' organisations: those that represent economic interests and those that participate in collective bargaining. However, in the context of the forthcoming elections for the leadership of the Confederation of Portuguese Industry (Confederação da Indústria Portuguesa, CIP) - which represents industry in the Economic and Social Council (Conselho Económico e Social, CES) and is thus involved in bargaining - a number of comments made by its president, Ferraz da Costa, have indicated that changes may be on the way. Mr da Costa has suggested that:

• employers' organisations are going through a phase in which it has become clear that there should be only one voice to negotiate issues such as tax reform. Thus, he suggests a merger between the Portuguese Industrial Association (Associação Industrial Portuguesa, AIP) in Lisbon and the Business Association of Portugal (Associação dos Empresários Portugueses, AEP), headquartered in Oporto, which both represent only economic interests. The two would then merge with CIP, which would assume a leadership position; and

• the merger would then go on to include the Portuguese Confederation of Commerce (Confederação Portuguesa do Comércio, CCP), a social partner represented on the CES .

The positions of AIP and AEP on this issue are still not known. CCP has stated that it considers the idea of a top-level council of the peak employers' organisations to be a positive initiative in working toward the harmonisation of positions on general issues such as taxation, labour legislation, social security and reform of the public administration. However, it has also said that the organisation's different spheres of activity involve specific concerns that make the idea of a merger unsuitable.