Representativeness of the social partners in the European cross-industry social dialogue

General aim and conceptual remarks

The aim of this EIRO representativeness study is to identify the relevant cross-industry national and European actors in the field of cross-industry industrial relations. The impetus of the series of representativeness studies arises from the goal of the European Commission to find, recognise and assess the representative European associations to be consulted under the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). Hence, this study is devised to provide basic information needed to support European social dialogue at cross-industry level.

Definition of cross-industry activities and associations

The scope of the study in terms of activities is the entire national economy, including both private and public sectors. The scope of the study in terms of actors is all cross-industry national and European associations on the two sides of industry.

Methodology

Representativeness studies have to address two main tasks. The first one is to identify the relevant national associations on both sides of industry. The second one is to analyse the relevant European associations of the two sides of industry. For this purpose, a combined approach is used for screening the relevant interest associations.

• Bottom-up screening: this starts with reference to the cross-industry national associations involved in cross-industry collective bargaining and/or direct bipartite or tripartite consultations, and then proceeds to the collection of data on their affiliation to any European associations.
• Top-down screening: this starts with reference to the current relevant cross-industry European interest associations and then looks at their affiliated members at national level. In the top-down approach, it should be stressed that the analysis focuses only on affiliates in the 28 Member States of the European Union. Members and affiliated associations in other countries are not considered in this study. Moreover, only social partner organisations are taken into consideration; other kinds of member associations with no role in industrial relations and individual enterprises are not covered by the present representativeness study, although they are important national affiliates of some of the relevant cross-industry EU-level organisations included here. It is also worth noting that the membership figures included in this study should be considered as a minimum for the EU-level social partner organisations, since data on membership of some of their national affiliates were not available at the time of compiling this overview report.

Since this study aims to investigate the representativeness of the social partners, the collection of quantitative data is essential. Needless to say, it is often difficult to find quantitative data on such issues as membership or collective bargaining coverage. If precise data are not available, estimates may be used which have been collected through the network of EIRO national centres. In many cases, where no official source is present, membership data and density rates are self-reported by the relevant national level organisations included in the study.

Patterns of domains with regard to the national economy

In the case of cross-industry industrial relations, there are only two conceivable patterns of representational domains of trade union confederations and employers’ associations with regard to the entire national economy:

• Congruence: the domain is all-encompassing and thus identical with the national economy;
• Sectionalism: the domain covers only part of the national economy.

If this distinction is valid in theory, it must be said that, when considering the whole economy, all representational domains tend to be sectional in practice for employers’ associations, since the private and the public sectors usually remain separate with distinct actors on the employer side. Such separation is linked notably to the peculiarities which often characterise employment within public administrations. The function and representation of public employers can be taken up directly by political authorities, special agencies or associations. This is also true if public employees are covered by collective bargaining rather than legislative provisions introduced unilaterally by the political authorities, as in the traditional model of public service organisations.

As a consequence, the two patterns of representational domains are of little relevance for employers’ associations in the context of the present study. It should be stressed, however, that the separation of the representation structures for public and private sectors involves essentially public administrations. It does not involve publicly owned enterprises or semi-state enterprises which operate in commercial or liberalised activities (as is often the case for many ‘general interest’ services) which may indeed be members of private sector employers’ associations.

Due to this situation, the comprehensiveness of the representational domains of employers’ associations – which remains an important dimension – will be measured in the present study by contrasting domains which encompass the whole of either the private or the public sector, as opposed to those which comprise only part of them.

Conversely, the distinction between ‘congruence’ and ‘sectionalism’ maintains its relevance for trade union organisations, many of which bring together unions active in both the private and the public sectors.

As a consequence, in the case of trade unions, ‘congruent’ all-encompassing domains will be distinguished from ‘sectional’ ones; in the case of employers’ associations, the distinction will be between ‘encompassing’ and ‘sectional’ domains. Encompassing domains cover the whole of either the private sector or the public sector, and the sectional domains refer to sections of these two broad sectors.

Relevant interest associations

For representativeness studies, a European association is a relevant cross-industry interest organisation if:

• it is on the Commission’s list of interest organisations to be consulted in matters of cross-industry social dialogue under Article 154 of the TFEU;
• and/or it participates in the cross-industry European social dialogue;
• and/or it has requested to be consulted under Article 154 of the TFEU.

A national association is a relevant cross-industry national interest organisation if it meets the following criteria:

• The association is
• either regularly directly or indirectly (through its member organisations) involved in cross-industry collective bargaining (or employment regulation) or directly involved in bipartite/tripartite consultations on cross-industry labour market and industrial relations issues (bottom-up screening);
• and/or affiliated to a relevant European interest association (top-down screening);
• The association’s domain relates to
• either more than one sector of the economy (at least two sections under the NACE Rev.2 classification system – that is one-digit sectors), thus including associations with a general membership domain;
• or a group of enterprises or organisations (such as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), cooperatives and public-owned enterprises) across the economy, in the case of employers’ organisations, or a category of employees (such as white-collar workers, blue-collar workers or academics) across the economy, in the case of trade union confederations.

In general, such associations will also be peak-level organisations and thus formally independent, in that they are not subordinate members of another organisation at national level. There may be cases where a plurality of social partner organisations participate in cross-industry industrial relations and are actually cross-industry associations, according to the two criteria illustrated above. In these cases, to provide an accurate picture of the national representational landscape, even organisations which are members of higher-level associations will be included.

This happens, for instance, for the employers’ organisations in Romania which actively participate in cross-industry tripartite consultations and are members of the Alliance of Romanian Employers’ Confederations (ACPR). If inclusion in the study was limited to peak-level organisations, only the ACPR would have been mentioned in the present study.

It should be clear that ‘national’ relevant interest associations do not need to cover the entire national territory. There might in fact exist national peak associations which organise only some parts of the national territory, such as particular regions or territories, as in the case of the Basque trade union ELA-STV or the Belgian non-profit sector employers’ association UNIPSO which organises members in Wallonia and in the French- and German-speaking communities. Similarly, cross-industry collective bargaining/employment regulation need not cover the whole national territory and may concern only certain regions or territories.

In this study, ‘collective employment regulation’ refers to the situation whereby trade union confederations, when formally excluded from the right to collective bargaining in a genuine sense in certain areas of the economy (mostly public administration or part of it), may nevertheless exert a significant influence over the regulation of employment terms through a recurrent practice of either de facto negotiations or consultations.

In practice, this study subsumes genuine collective bargaining, de facto negotiations and consultations under collective employment regulation. Any national peak-level or cross-industry trade unions and employers’ associations involved in cross-industry collective employment regulation are thus part of this study.

National level of interest representation

The national level analysis of interest representation will focus on:

• membership of organisations;
• their role in cross-industry collective bargaining/employment regulation;
• their role in public policy-making through involvement in bipartite or tripartite consultations on cross-industry labour market and industrial relations issues.

The membership and relative strength of the various organisations covered by this study will be identified according to the following indicators, which were collected through the EIRO network of correspondents:

This study will concentrate on membership figures in order to provide indications of the relative representativeness of the various organisations included in the study. Density figures of individual organisations are presented in the national reports, when available.

European cross-industry social dialogue

Social dialogue is a key element in the action of the European Union in the fields of social policy and industrial relations, as the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) provides that ‘The Union recognises and promotes the role of the social partners’ and it ‘shall facilitate dialogue between the social partners, respecting their autonomy’ (Article 152). In particular, Articles 154 and 155 TFEU introduce a procedure which establishes the involvement of ‘management and labour’ organised at European level in the process of devising new pieces of European legislation.

Article 154(2) indicates that ‘before submitting proposals in the social policy field, the Commission shall consult management and labour on the possible direction of Union action’. Following such consultation, the Commission decides whether further action is advisable and, if so, it consults with management and labour on the specific content of the proposal.

On their side, European-level representatives of management and labour shall submit to the Commission an opinion or a recommendation concerning the content of the proposal. Alternatively, the social partners ‘may inform the Commission of their wish to initiate the process provided for in Article 155’: that is, they may enter into contractual relations and conclude an agreement on the content of the proposal.

Should dialogue between the representatives of management and labour at European-level lead to an agreement, they can opt for implementation ‘either in accordance with the procedures and practices specific to management and labour and the Member States or, in matters covered by Article 153, at the joint request of the signatory parties, by a Council decision on a proposal from the Commission’. If the social partners do not reach an agreement, the Commission maintains the possibility to carry on the initiative through the ordinary legislative procedure.

Article 155 also recognises the joint actions of the European social partners independently of the initiative of the Commission, so that they can develop bipartite autonomous social dialogue and conclude agreements.

Representativeness criteria

Due to the importance that social dialogue can play at European level, as illustrated above, the issue of the identification of the relevant social partner organisations which shall be consulted and may act autonomously according to Articles 154 and 155, at both cross-industry and sectoral levels, is crucial. The European Commission has addressed this issue, notably in its Communication concerning the application of the Agreement on Social Policy (1.1 MB PDF) (COM (93) 600 final, Brussels, 14 December 1993) which identifies a set of criteria to assess the representativeness of social partner organisations. In particular, organisations should:

• be cross-industry or relate to specific sectors or categories and be organised at European level;
• consist of organisations which are themselves an integral and recognised part of Member State social partner structures and with the capacity to negotiate agreements, and which are representative of all Member states, as far as possible;
• have adequate structures to ensure their effective participation in the consultation process.

The Commission maintains and regularly updates a List of European social partners’ organisations consulted under Article 154 TFEU (169 KB PDF) which comply with these criteria. The latest version of this list, dated November 2013, includes 88 organisations which are divided into five groups:

• general cross-industry organisations (BUSINESSEUROPE, CEEP, ETUC);
• cross-industry organisations representing certain categories of workers or undertakings (CEC, EUROCADRES, UEAPME);
• specific organisations (Eurochambres);
• sectoral organisations representing employers (65 organisations); and
• sectoral European trade union organisations (16 organisations).

The present representativeness study covers social partners involved in European social dialogue at cross-industry level. According to the list presented above, the cross-industry bipartite European social dialogue takes place between the ‘general cross-industry organisations’ (CEEP, ETUC, BUSINESSEUROPE) and the ‘cross-industry organisations representing certain categories of workers or undertakings’ (EUROCADRES, UEAPME, CEC). In particular, EUROCADRES and CEC ‘participate in this dialogue as part of the ETUC delegation’ (see the European Commission’s web page on cross-industry social dialogue) and UEAPME is integrated in the cross-industry bipartite European social dialogue as a result of a cooperation agreement with BUSINESSEUROPE. These six organisations are the relevant EU-level social partners who have been considered in the ‘top-down screening’.

Relevant EU-level social partner organisations

BUSINESSEUROPE organises national cross-industry employer confederations and represents companies of all sizes – small, medium and large (source: BUSINESSEUROPE website). Members include both employer and business associations.

CEEP (European Centre of Employers and Enterprises providing Public services) organises and represents both associations and enterprises and notably ‘enterprises and employers’ organisations with public participation and enterprises carrying out activities of general economic interest, whatever their legal ownership or status’ (CEEP website). CEEP is organised in national sections, which cover both associations and enterprises (see Annex Table H1 for the complete list of members). CEEP also has a number of European associations among its members. Since the representativeness studies take into consideration only associations and not individual enterprises, this overview includes only CEEP’s member employers’ associations at national level. Member enterprises, which are often quite important national employers, have been excluded, since they do not usually participate in cross-industry industrial relations, which is the focus of the present analysis. However, if some of the member enterprises participate in national-level cross-industry industrial relations (either in collective bargaining or in consultations), this will be noted in the text and/or in the appropriate tables.

UEAPME (the European Association of Craft, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises) organises ‘national, cross-sectoral organisations representing craft activities and/or SME businesses in the different sectors of the economy within the European Union’ (UEAPME website). UEAPME includes a number of European sectoral organisations among its associated members.

The members of the ETUC (European Trade Union Confederation) include national trade union confederations, which will be considered in this representativeness study, as well as European trade union federations. ETUC represent workers in all sectors of the economy (source: ETUC website).

EUROCADRES (Council of European Professional and Managerial staff) represents ‘employees holding professional or managerial positions […] in all sectors of business, in industry as well as in the civil and public services’ (EUROCADRES website); it is a cross-industry social partner and is affiliated with ETUC. This means that a significant overlap between the two organisations should be expected. This is rather uncommon since, usually, organisations covered by representativeness studies tend to be alternatives in the respective representational domain and it is difficult to find multiple affiliations. Indeed, the formal members of EUROCADRES are mostly national confederations. Only a small number of sectoral member organisations are affiliated to the European industry federations, which are members of EUROCADRES rather than to ETUC. However, this second type of trade union is not covered by this study since they are not cross-industry organisations. As a consequence, within the remit of this study, EUROCADRES shares the same members as ETUC. The only exceptions are those national confederations which are not active within EUROCADRES since they do not organise professional and managerial workers. Among its active members, EUROCADRES includes a number of national federations of professional and managerial workers which cannot be considered in this report because they are not party to cross-industry industrial relations. However, a list of these federations is provided in the Annex (Table G1). To give some indication of the number of professional and managerial staff represented by the members of EUROCADRES, the same table includes membership data for professional and managerial staff provided by affiliated organisations for the 2013 Congress of EUROCADRES.

CEC (European Confederation of Managers) is made up of national and European sectoral federations and represents managers (source: CEC website).

As mentioned in the explanation of the methodology of this representativeness study, in the top-down approach we are considering members and affiliated associations in the 28 Member States of the European Union only. Therefore all figures and tables included in the study exclusively refer to EU28 countries. Since all the six relevant EU-level organisations included in this study have members outside the European Union, it should be clear that we are focusing on a particular section of their membership. There are two other reasons for considering only part of the membership and affiliated association of the relevant EU-level organisations.

First, for the purpose of this representativeness study, only national associations are covered and sectoral organisations remain outside the scope of the analysis, although they are present in the cases of CEEP, UEAPME, CEC, ETUC and EUROCADRES.

Secondly, the study focuses on employers’ associations and peak level organisations of labour and management and therefore excludes individual enterprises (as already explained for CEEP) and other kinds of affiliated organisations, such as interest associations with no role in industrial relations. This refers, for instance, to the German BDI, which is a member of BUSINESSEUROPE, but it is not active in industrial relations.

Complete membership details for the six relevant EU-level social partner organisations considered in the ‘top-down screening’ can be found on their individual websites, at the links indicated above.

Finally, a couple of remarks should be stated at this point. First, in the bottom-up approach, where a plurality of social partner organisations participate in cross-industry industrial relations, cross-sector organisations that are members of higher-level associations will be included in order to provide an accurate picture of the national representational landscape.

Secondly, since EU-level associations can also organise or be affiliated to European sectoral federations (as in the cases of CEEP, UEAPME, CEC, EUROCADRES and ETUC), when national associations are members of both the European cross-industry organisations and European sectoral federations, only the former will be considered in the summary tables included in the main text. However, the complete list of affiliations will appear in the detailed tables in the Annex. If national organisations are only members of the European sectoral federations affiliated to the cross-industry associations, membership will be considered as ‘indirect’ and this will be indicated in the summary tables included in the main text.

Outcomes of the European cross-industry social dialogue

European social dialogue at cross-industry level takes place within the Social Dialogue Committee. Established in 1992, the committee:

• is ‘the main body for bipartite social dialogue at European level’;
• meets three to four times a year to discuss employer/worker views on various topics, adopt texts negotiated by both parties and plan future initiatives;
• consists of maximum 64 representatives of the social partners, equally divided between the employers’ and the workers’ representative organisations, and including the EU Secretariats of the cross-industry social partners and representatives from the national member organisations on each side;
• can set up technical working groups to discuss various issues such as labour market challenges and the reconciliation of working and family life;
• adopts and follows up the results of negotiations between employers’ and workers’ representative bodies;
• takes part in social dialogue summits – high-level meetings chaired by the President of the Commission.

The social dialogue texts database maintained by the European Commission contains more than 70 texts produced by cross-industry dialogue. Among the intersectoral agreements, which were either transposed through directives or through the autonomous route, a few specific examples can be mentioned:

• Council Directive 96/34/EC of 3 June 1996 on the framework agreement on parental leave concluded by UNICE, CEEP and ETUC. In 2009, the European social partners agreed on a revision of the parental leave agreement (EU0907029I).
• Council Directive 97/81/EC of 15 December 1997 concerning the framework agreement on part-time work concluded by UNICE, CEEP and ETUC.
• Council Directive 1999/70/EC of 28 June 1999 concerning the framework agreement on fixed-term work concluded by ETUC, UNICE and CEEP.
• A framework agreement (1.36 MB PDF) on telework was signed in 2002. This was the first time that the signatory parties implemented an agreement in accordance with the procedures and parties specific to the social partners in the Member States.
• A framework agreement on work-related stress (2004).
• A framework agreement on harassment and violence at work (2007).
• A framework agreement on inclusive labour markets (2010) (863 KB PDF).

National cross-industry industrial relations

In the bottom-up approach, it is important to consider which national organisations take part in cross-industry industrial relations within each country covered by this study. In fact, as indicated in the previous section, the representativeness of European-level organisations will depend on the fact that they ‘consist of organisations which are themselves an integral and recognised part of Member State social partner structures and with the capacity to negotiate agreements’. As a consequence, the higher the number of national organisations engaged in national cross-industry industrial relations that are members of EU-level social partners, the higher will be the representativeness of those social partners.

Industrial relations at cross-industry level essentially involves two types of relationship between the social partners and the political authorities, as it is possible to distinguish between contractual relations and agreements on the one hand, and consultations over the introduction of social and economic policies on the other. Alternatively, agreements and consultations can also take place in bipartite or tripartite settings, and consultations can be carried out on an ad hoc or regular basis.

Contractual relations and agreements

The analysis of the national reports shows that cross-industry contractual relations are present, in different forms, in 18 countries out of the 28 (see Annex, Table 2 and Tables D1 and D2). Indeed, the main level of collective bargaining in the European Union is at industry (sectoral) level (Annex, Table F1). However, there are increasing signs of a progressive decentralisation, with a growing emphasis on the definition of important elements of employment and work relationships through decentralised bargaining, particularly at company-level.

It should be pointed out that intersectoral agreements could be quite common, if we opt for a narrow definition of NACE sections (for instance, at two digits), since the demarcation of collective agreements rarely corresponds to specific two-digit NACE codes. As a consequence, in this study, our definition of cross-industry industrial relations includes intersectoral agreements which cover macro-sectors, such as the whole private economy or public administrations, while economy-wide agreements are considered to be only those which cover both private and public sectors.

Economy-wide agreements are the exception, as substantive employment matters are usually regulated separately for private and public sectors, since the representation system of public administrations tends to remain distinct even when collective bargaining takes place. Only general regulatory or ‘normative’ agreements that put in place general rules may, in some cases, cover the whole economy.

The analysis of the national reports shows that only in Belgium and Finland do ‘framework collective agreements’ encompass the whole of the private economy and set a number of constraints and guidelines for lower-level industry-wide agreements. More common are agreements on minimum wages, present in Bulgaria, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia and Slovenia. However, these agreements present a different degree of general effectiveness since, in some circumstances, the government remains responsible for the final implementation of minimum wages. The social partners only agree on recommendations which are presented to the political authority.

In the public sector, intersectoral agreements on economic matters are more widespread, although they may in fact cover subgroups of administrations such as central government or local and regional authorities, or special categories of public workers as they do in Denmark (graduate workers) and Estonia (cultural workers). Agreements covering the entire public sector and its various sections can be found in Croatia, Ireland, Malta, Slovenia, and Spain.

General normative agreements can be found in a relatively small set of countries which seem to rely on a diffuse form of social concertation to address issues of general relevance. It is worth repeating that this study refers only to agreements, rather than joint positions or recommendations, which could in fact be common in a broader set of EU countries.

In Austria, such regulatory agreements, while rare, do exist. For instance, they set out the implementation of the reduction of the working week to 40 hours in 1969, and in 1978 detailed the calculation of holidays after the Holiday Act came into force.

In Luxembourg, cross-industry agreements can define specific rules on employment relations or the transposition of European directives; they can also cover the implementation of European voluntary agreements. Examples include the framework agreement on an inclusive labour market (February 2012), the agreement on telework (July 2011), and the agreement on harassment and violence at work (June 2009).

In Italy, France and Spain, intersectoral regulatory agreements seem more common and even in recent years they have covered issues such as employment, competitiveness and industrial relations. It is important to stress that these agreements are generally made in the private sector. They are bilateral and are not of the same kind as ‘social pacts’ which characterised the experience of many EU countries in the 1990s, but which have become less common lately.

In the public sector, only in Italy was an agreement signed on the system of industrial relations and collective bargaining. Conversely, economy-wide agreements require by definition the involvement of the government and can correspond either to general agreements on industrial relations, where the government acts as the public sector employer (as in the case of Italy’s January 2009 agreement on the reform of the bargaining system) or to social partnership agreements, where the government gives its political backing (as with Latvia’s 2004 tripartite agreement on socio-economic partnership).

* The government is responsible for the final decision and implementation of the minimum wage.

Source: EIRO (2013)

Consultation on social and economic policies

The second dimension of cross-industry industrial relations, consultation on social policies, is far more common. It involves almost all countries covered by this study, even if we consider only formal and institutionalised consultation settings embodied in bipartite or tripartite structures (Annex, Table 3 and Table E1). In this analysis, social partner representation is not considered in a number of bodies responsible for running public services or within pension and insurance funds, although it is quite important. The study aims to identify the national social partner organisations which are involved in policy consultations, rather than those which have been assigned a formal ‘guarantee’ and supervisory role in certain services or elements of the public administration.

Even with the adoption of this stricter definition of formal consultations, the only exceptions are Austria and Sweden, where consultations are regular but informal and bilateral, and Estonia, where bilateral talks are held between the government and the social partners on cross-industry issues on an ad hoc basis.

The systems of consultation are quite different across countries, but tripartite forums largely prevail. Bipartite bodies are the only reference for consultations in Belgium and Slovenia. Another notable example of a bipartite body which has a key position in the national industrial relations system is the Labour Foundation in the Netherlands. Other bipartite bodies have a consultative and quite general social representation role in Greece (the Economic and Social Council of Greece, OKE) and Italy (the National Council for Economic Affairs and Labour, Cnel, which includes civil society representation). Table 3 shows that single cross-industry consultative bodies are present in seven countries (Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Portugal and Slovakia). In nine countries, the system is rather complex because it involves at least four specialised bodies (Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece and Spain).

Source: EIRO (2013)

National-level organisations

Following the analysis of national cross-industry industrial relations illustrated in previous section (‘bottom-up’ screening) and considering the members of EU-level organisations (‘top-down’ screening), a total of 108 trade union organisations and 134 employers’ associations have been included in the present study. This analysis was carried out according to the selection criteria discussed in the section above ‘Relevant interest associations’ on the basis of the information collected by the EIRO national centres and the feedback received from European social partner organisations. Tables 4 and 5 present some summary indicators about such national organisations.

National cross-industry trade unions

In almost all countries it is possible to find more than one trade union organisation involved in cross-industry industrial relations. The only exceptions are Latvia and Ireland, where the Free Trade Union Confederation of Latvia (LBAS) and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) are the only trade union confederations to be part of cross-industry negotiations and consulted on cross- sector policies and issues.

The remaining countries present different levels of union pluralism. The highest numbers of trade union organisations covered by this study can be found in Italy (12), Slovenia (7), Spain (7), France and Hungary (6), and Croatia and Romania (5). Such pluralism is due to the following factors: the presence of traditional ideological cleavages between the main trade unions (in Italy and France); the process of trade union renewal in central and eastern European countries after the transition to democracy and a market economy since the 1990s (Slovenia, Hungary, Croatia and Romania); the inclusion in cross-industry negotiations of autonomous trade union confederations (Italy); and the inclusion of occupational unions (Italy) and regional unions (Spain).

Of the 108 trade unions considered in this study, 56% are economy-wide, all-encompassing organisations which cover the whole of the private and public sectors. The remaining 44% have a representational domain which is limited to some subsectors (generally the private or the public sectors), certain occupations (blue- or white-collar unions, technicians, and managers – and it should be noted that the sectional representation of professionals and managers is a constituent part of the membership of CEC), or certain regions.

Notes:

MS CB = multi-sector collective bargaining; the union takes part directly or through its affiliates in collective bargaining in at least two different sectors.

CI CB = cross-industry collective bargaining, the union participates directly in cross-industry collective bargaining.

*All-encompassing, including both the private sector and the public sector.

**Only formal tripartite and bipartite bodies as for Table E1.

Source: EIRO (2013)

It is important to note that while many unions may not cover the whole economy, the majority engage in multi-sectoral collective bargaining (separate collective bargaining in at least two different sectors, 105 unions or 97%) and are effectively integrated in the cross-industry industrial relations systems. Some 55% of unions (59 unions) are involved in cross-industry bargaining and almost 90% (97 unions) in consultations. This is usually carried out in formal tripartite bodies (70 unions or 65%), while a minority participate in bipartite structures (15 or 14%). As mentioned above, this reflects that fact the national industrial relations systems usually rely on tripartite fora to organise formal social dialogue on social and economic policies. The remaining 12 organisations (11%) are involved in consultations in bilateral talks, generally on an ad hoc basis.

National cross-industry employers’ associations

For the 134 employers’ associations mapped in this study, as with unions, pluralism is the rule. In all countries there are at least two employers’ organisations. Italy and Romania have the highest number of employers’ organisations (15 and 14 respectively). Other countries with a relatively high number of organisations are Hungary (7), Sweden and France (6) and Belgium (5). Representation pluralism is usually linked to sectional representation, which typically includes specialised associations for the private and public sectors, for large and smaller enterprises, and for special types of firms such as crafts or cooperatives. Ideological or traditional cleavages within the same representational domain can further complicate the picture, as in the case of Italy.

While membership in the vast majority of employer associations is voluntary for employers, in the case of a few organisations membership is mandatory. The latter includes public sector organisations and some specialised agencies, as well as the system of chambers of commerce, especially for SMEs, and notably Austria with its Federal Economic Chamber (WKÖ).

Employers’ associations, even peak organisations, tend to be focused on specific interests and this often encourages relatively narrow representational domains. This is reflected in the prevalence of sectional domains, so that just around 40% of the employers’ associations included in the study have encompassing domains (covering the whole private or public sector). About 60% of the associations concentrate on sections of the production system. Despite this, involvement in multi-sector bargaining (separate collective bargaining in at least two different sectors), directly or through members, is almost universal (89% and 119 associations). Participation in cross-industry collective bargaining is also significant (34% or 45 organisations). Again, the great majority of organisations are involved in consultations about public policy concerns (90% or 120 associations), which generally takes place within tripartite bodies (57% or 76 organisations), with a direct link to the evidence about trade unions, since by definition the two sides of industry participate together in tripartite consultations and social dialogue.

Notes: Mand. = Mandatory Encom. = Encompassing membership, that is, including the whole private sector or public sector; Sect. = Sectional; MS CB = multi-sector collective bargaining; the employers’ association takes part directly or through its affiliates in collective bargaining in at least two different sectors; CI CB = cross-industry collective bargaining; the employers’ association participates directly in cross-industry collective bargaining; Consul. = Consultation.

*Only formal tripartite and bipartite bodies (Annex, Table E1)

Source: EIRO (2013)

EU-level organisations

Table 6 shows the general picture regarding the affiliation of the national organisations. The social Partner organisations that are currently part of the EU-level cross-industry dialogue confirm their relevance.

EU-level cross-industry trade unions

ETUC, EUROCADRES and CEC together represent almost 80% of all listed national trade union organisations. On the employee side, a certain number of organisations are affiliated to no EU-level organisations (12 unions or 11%). Other organisations not included in the current list of EU-level social partner organisations to be consulted at cross-industry level have eight affiliated national organisations (7%) in seven countries.

Notes:

E C = EUROCADRES; B.E. = BUSINESSEUROPE; O = Other

* All members of EUROCADRES included in this study are members of ETUC.

** Organisations affiliated exclusively to other EU-level associations.

*** BUSINESSEUROPE and UEAPME have two common members.

**** UEL is not included in this table, because it is a joint organisation of a number of employers’ associations covering the private sector including clc, Fedil, FDA and CDM, which are individually covered by this study and have different or no EU affiliations. For more details on UEL, see Annex Table C3 note, and the national report.

Source: EIRO (2013)

These features stand out more clearly if we analyse the distribution of national organisations across the social partners considered in this study.

As indicated in Table 7, ETUC is by far the peak level trade union organisation which associates more national organisations (70 out of 108, or 65%) with comprehensive representational domains (48 out of 61, or 79%) and those which are more prominent in national cross-industry industrial relations (38 out of 59 in collective bargaining – 64% – and 68 out of 97 in consultations – 70%).

EUROCADRES’ member associations, as mentioned above, are a subsection of ETUC’s members and therefore are often all-encompassing unions.

CEC, which is independent of ETUC although it participates in cross-industry social dialogue within the ETUC delegation, presents only sectional representational domains.

Data on trade union membership is available for three-quarters of the surveyed organisations (83 out of 108). Some 36.2 million active workers are affiliated to the unions included in this study for which membership data were available.

According to this data, at least 32.4 million workers are members of ETUC through its national affiliates in the EU28 (data on 59 national trade union organisations out of 70 affiliates). This corresponds to almost 90% of the overall membership included in this study.

EUROCADRES has similarly high membership because its members are a subsection of the same trade union confederations affiliated to ETUC. Member organisations of CEC have at least 600,000 affiliated workers (data for nine cases out of 13) or 2% of the overall membership.

Other European organisations not included in the study give total membership figures of 1.8 million (5% of the total). This figure refers essentially to CESI, but its membership is concentrated in two of the three organisations for which data are available (of the seven surveyed in this study) in Italy (Confsal) and Romania (CSN Meridian).

As a general indication of professional and managerial staff membership in EUROCADRES’ affiliated trade unions, self-reported data provided for the 2013 Congress indicate a total of some 4.1 million workers (Annex, Table G.1).

National organisations affiliated to the EU relevant social partners are in some cases also affiliated to other European associations, usually of a regional character such as the Council of Nordic Trade Unions (NFS), the Baltic Sea Trade Union Network (BASTUN), and the Baltic Trade Union Council (BTUC). This involves ETUC affiliates in eleven cases.

Notes: Sect. = Sectional; MS CB = multi-sector collective bargaining, the union takes part directly or through its affiliates in collective bargaining in at least two different sectors; CI CB = cross-industry collective bargaining, the union participates directly in cross-industry collective bargaining; Cons. = Consultation; Tri. = Tripartite; Bi = Bipartite; % Memb. = % of total members as for data collected for this study; N = number of cases included in the calculation of membership

*All-encompassing, that is including both the private sector and the public sector

** Including two indirect members: PERGAM in Slovenia, through UNI Europa and IndustriALL, and NIC ICTU in Northern Ireland, through ICTU

Source: EIRO (2013)

EU-level cross-industry employers’ associations

The three current EU-level cross-industry employers’ associations, BUSINESSEUROPE, UEAPME and CEEP, represent almost 70% of all national-level organisations. The area of non-affiliation concerns 17% of all national employers’ associations (23 organisations). EU-level organisations other than those covered by this study affiliate 12 national organisations (9%).

Among these other EU-level associations, those which have members in more than one country are often sectoral organisations, rather than competing peak-level cross-industry organisations, as well as the international system of the Chambers of Commerce. These include Eurocommerce (three exclusive members in three countries) and Eurochambres (two exclusive members in two countries).

BUSINESSEUROPE, UEAPME, and CEEP are the EU-level employers’ associations which affiliate most of the national organisations involved in national cross-industry industrial relations (Table 8). BUSINESSEUROPE tends to have a broader representational domain, whereas UEAPME and CEEP have members which tend to have sectional representation; UEAPME is focused on SMEs and CEEP on public services.

Data on membership of the employers’ organisations included in this study (134 organisations) are available for 106 organisations in the case of firms (79%) and for 82 organisations in the case of employees (61%). In total, the national organisations included in this study for which data are available group at least 11.9 million affiliated firms, which employ at least 107.8 million workers.

At least 3.8 million firms (32%) are affiliated with BUSINESSEUROPE through its national members (data for 26 cases out of 29); they employ at least 60.1 million workers (56%, data for 22 cases out of 29).

UEAPME affiliates through its national members (data for 27 cases out of 36) at least 6.1 million firms (52% ) with at least 16 million employees (15%, data for 16 cases out of 36).

CEEP affiliates at least 193,000 firms (2% ) – which in this case can actually be public sector administrations in accordance with its representational domain – through its national members (data for 27 cases out of 29); these administrations and enterprises together have at least 19.7 million employees (18%, data for 24 cases out of 29).

These differences reflect the distinct membership bases, and notably the focus of UEAPME on small firms and of CEEP on public services. In particular, CEEP covers public administrations, services of general interest including network services, and publicly owned firms. These organisations are usually among the largest employers in each country and can group, under one single formal organisation, a very large number of local branches and establishments. For instance, the UK section includes 22 organisations covering five million employees.

The other EU-level organisations not expressly included in this study affiliate 10% of firms through their national affiliates (data for 11 cases out of 12) covering 6% of employees (data for 8 cases out of 12, 67%). As in the case of trade unions, most of the firms and employees covered by other organisations are in fact concentrated in one (Eurocommerce) and in a very small number of cases: three cases for firms and two cases for workers, and two in particular (Confcommercio in Italy and CCP in Portugal).

As with trade unions, some national members of the relevant EU social partners are also affiliated to other European organisations, including Eurocommerce and Eurochambres, and the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR). This involves members affiliated to BUSINESSEUROPE (one case), UEAPME (three) and CEEP (six).

Notes: Mand. = Mandatory membership; Encom. = Encompassing membership, that is including the whole private sector or public sector; Sect. = Sectional; MS CB = multi-sector collective bargaining, the employers’ association takes part directly or through its affiliates in collective bargaining in at least two different sectors; CI CB = cross-industry collective bargaining, the employers’ associations participates directly in cross-industry collective bargaining; Cons. = Consultation; % Firms = % of total firms as for data collected for this study; % Emp. = % of total employees as for data collected for this study; N.F = number of cases included in the calculation of membership in terms of firms; N.E = number of cases included in the calculation of membership in terms of employees

* Includes UEL of Luxembourg (not applicable), see note to Table 6

Source: EIRO (2013)

Finally, it should be noted that ETUC and BUSINESSEUROPE are the only organisations with affiliated members in each country.

Capacity to negotiate

Another important criterion of representativeness at European level is the organisations’ capacity to negotiate on behalf of their members. All of the EU-level organisations considered in this study have specific procedures to define the positions to be presented within the European social dialogue framework.

For BUSINESSEUROPE, the mandate to negotiate agreements within the European social dialogue is decided by the Council of the Presidents, with a quorum of two-thirds of members affected by the agreement and a qualified majority of 80%. The mandate is entrusted to a negotiating team comprising a representative from each affected federation. The team reports to the Social Affairs Political Committee which designates the employers’ chief negotiator. The decision on the outcome of the European Social Dialogue is also taken by the Council of Presidents. A consensus of all members with voting rights and whose country is affected by the agreement in question is required for approval of an agreement negotiated with trade unions at EU-level.

Within CEEP, the mandate for the European social dialogue is approved by the General Assembly, which is the competent decision-making body. The General Assembly can decide on these matters with a qualified two-thirds majority if at least half of its sections are present. The CEEP’s Social Affairs Board then takes part in the negotiations. The outcome of the European social dialogue must again be approved by the General Assembly with the same procedure and voting requirements.

Similarly, in UEAPME the mandate for the European social dialogue is approved by the General Assembly which is the competent decision-making body. The General Assembly decides on these matters with a simple majority. The mandate is entrusted to the UEAPME Social Affairs Committee. The outcome of the European social dialogue must be approved again by the General Assembly with the same procedure and voting requirements.

On the employee side, ETUC’s Executive Committee approves a mandate for the European social dialogue with a two-thirds majority and decides the composition of the social dialogue delegation. The negotiating party for ETUC is the Secretariat, which operates in close consultation with the affiliated national trade union confederations and European Industry Federations. The Executive Committee decides both the draft agreement and the outcome of the social dialogue procedure. A two-thirds majority is needed for the adoption of a final agreement.

For EUROCADRES, its Executive Committee has overall responsibility for all activities and policies, and it approves matters concerning the European social dialogue. The President, in cooperation with the Vice-Presidents and the Executive Officer, represents EUROCADRES.

For CEC, its Steering Committee is its executive body and it decides the positions to be adopted in the European social dialogue. These decisions are executed by the President (legal representative), the Secretary General (as operative officer) and the Deputy Secretary General (in cooperation with the Secretary General).

Developments since the earlier representativeness studies

This section briefly presents relevant developments that have occurred since the previous studies on the representativeness of the social partners included in this one were carried out.

The organisations included in the present study were the subject of two different reports prepared at the end of the 1990s by the Institut des Sciences du Travail – Université Catholique de Louvain: the first report dealt with European social partner organisations at cross-industry level, excluding trade unions for professional and managerial workers – these were covered in the second report.

The 1999 study on European social partner organisations at cross-industry level is significantly different from the present study. This is primarily because it set out to cover all potential EU-level organisations representing labour and management, beginning with a top-down approach, so that in practice it considered many more organisations.

The present study, as described in the introduction and methodology section, adopts a top-down approach only in the case of the presently recognised EU-level organisations. It is firmly rooted in a bottom-up approach, which assigns particular importance to representative national organisations, through the identification of trade unions and employers’ associations which take part into cross-industry collective bargaining and consultations at national level. This approach highlights a fundamental element of representativeness: the fact that EU-level social partners ought to ‘consist of organisations, which are themselves an integral and recognised part of Member State social partner structures and with the capacity to negotiate agreements’. In other words, they should bring together organisations which are recognised as representative at national level, even though this may be according to different criteria such as density rates, elections results for representative bodies (essentially for unions) or even mutual recognition. The practical consequence of this methodology is to concentrate attention on the organisations which have the broadest membership. As illustrated by the results of this study, this presently holds for the currently recognised EU-level cross-industry social partner organisations, since no other relevant EU organisations were identified through the bottom-up approach.

The second difference concerns the enlargement of the EU that has taken place since the late 1990s from 15 Member States to the current 28. This makes the comparison of data particularly complex. Membership data are not always available, and if present, they are sometimes general estimates. Problems with data were also raised in the previous studies and data availability and reliability does not seem to have improved significantly in the meantime. If anything, the broadening of the reference basis to 28 countries has made the collection and validation of data more complex. For this reason, no direct comparison of the membership levels of the organisations can be performed on a methodologically sound basis.

Despite these difficulties, the indicators identified by the previous studies are to a large extent comparable, since they also included the identification of national members, the scrutiny of their role in cross-industry collective bargaining and in cross-industry consultations, and the collection of available data on membership.

Taking into consideration these basic indicators, the present study substantially confirms the results of the previous ones. ETUC and BUSINESSEUROPE (then UNICE) remain the organisations with affiliated members in all Member States, with comparatively more national affiliates participating in cross-industry collective bargain and consultations and with the largest membership.

CEEP, despite the changes introduced by liberalisation processes, maintains an important role as the EU-level association of public service employers, especially where civil servants are covered by collective bargaining rather than unilateral regulation by public authorities, and where public sector bodies are organised in associations or agencies rather than being represented directly by political authorities such as central government ministries. Important publicly owned firms, which mostly operate in public utilities and services of general interest, are also among CEEP’s members. In the latter case, the firms may also have membership in employers’ associations which represent private sector firms, but such situations cannot be identified without further research. This type of overlap may be of limited relevance for the assessment of the representativeness of CEEP, since it could denote the specific interest representation of public-owned enterprises in these particular sectors.

EUROCADRES and CEC were covered in the second of the earlier afore-mentioned studies. EUROCADRES continues to be characterised by a combination of national confederations as formal members and a number of active members, often national sectoral federations. The representativeness of EUROCADRES remains linked to its representation of professional and managerial staff within a broader membership. If the presence of the main national confederations among its members may be regarded as strengthening EUROCADRES’ representativeness, it means that the role of professional and managerial staff, both at national and European level, depends on the capacity to bring forward their interests in the framework of general collective bargaining and consultations. In this sense, the inclusion within the employees’ delegation of a representation of professional and managerial staff fulfils the objective of ensuring a specific consideration of the interests of this section of the workforce. CEC maintains representation of professional and managerial staff in a number of EU Member States and this confirms its relevance at EU-level.

Conclusions

The data collected for this study show that the European social partners currently involved in cross-industry social dialogue affiliate the great majority of national organisations which have a role in cross-industry industrial relations in the EU28 Members States and cover about 90% of member employees and firms. Specifically, the national members of ETUC, EUROCADRES and CEC organise 91% of all employees and the national affiliated organisations of BUSINESSEUROPE, UEAPME and CEEP organise 85% of firms which employ 89% of workers.

On the employee and the employer sides, ETUC and BUSINESSEUROPE are respectively the organisations with the more encompassing representational domains, the most prominent role in cross-industry collective bargaining and tripartite consultations, as well as the highest membership share in terms of employees. They are also the only two organisations with members in each of the 28 countries covered by this study. CEEP represents public employers (where it remains the only general cross-industry organisation) and providers of services of general interest. In this field, national members are relevant players in cross-industry industrial relations in EU Member States.

UEAPME represents craft enterprises and SMEs. In this field, national members are relevant players in cross-industry industrial relations in EU Member States.

EUROCADRES and CEC are relevant social partner organisations for managerial and professional staff with national affiliated members that have a clear role in cross-industry bargaining and consultations. In this respect, EUROCADRES certainly benefits from sharing members with ETUC.

Together, ETUC, EUROCADRES, CEC and BUSINESSEUROPE, UEAPME, CEEP cover three-quarters of the national social partner organisations which participate in cross-industry industrial relations across the EU. They also affiliate through their national members the great majority of unionised workers and firms affiliated to employers’ associations. With their specificities in terms of representation, according to the result of this study, they are to be regarded as the most important EU-wide representatives of the labour and management at cross-industry level.

Roberto Pedersini, Università degli Studi di Milano, and Christian Welz, Eurofound

Annex

* ‘Economy-wide’ refers to all-encompassing representational domains, that is including both the private sector and the public sector

Source: EIRO (2013)