The Europeanisation of Industrial Relations

National and European Processes in Germany, UK, Italy and France

Wilhelm Eberwein, Jochen Tholen, Joachim Schuster

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781138727403
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351750370
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: International Economics
• Index: Economics

This title was first published in 2002: Although the economic integration of the European Union is far-advanced, its social dimension remains under-developed. Often there is uncertainty about, and lack of information on, the economic, social and legal situation of employees in the other EU countries. This study investigates this situation. It acknowledges the term "Europeanization" as being in no way clearly defined, but offers an interpretation of the Europeanization of industrial relations as a socio-political process, with the main focus the change within the plant and organization. Industrial relations in Germany are used as a point of reference against which selected aspects of industrial relations in France, the UK, and Italy are compared and contrasted. Specific areas of study include: workplace and company organization; collective bargaining; trade unions and employers' associations; and government regulations and legislative standardization.

1. Introduction: A comparative study on the development of industrial relations in Germany, France, Great Britain and Italy

The concept of the study

Although the economic integration of the European Union is far-advanced, its social dimension remains underdeveloped. This is particularly so in industrial relations where far-reaching economic developments are leading to major changes. For example, the establishing of the European Monetary Union may have lasting effects on industrial relations. As long as there is no effective co-ordination of national economic policies, collective bargaining policy and industrial relations will take on a special importance as the participating countries adapt to the different economic developments.

The implementation of the EU directive on European Works Councils in September 1996 provided a new impetus to the potential Europeanisation of industrial relations. But it is still early days and a whole host of questions remain to be answered.

Whatever future developments emerge, employees are going to be affected – directly or indirectly – positively as well as negatively. Often there is considerable uncertainty about and lack of information on the economic, social and legal situation of employees in the other EU countries; whether there is a “Europeanisation” of industrial relations at all; and what is the potential for co-operation and co-determination of worker representation in the plant and from the trade unions etc.

These and further questions were the reason for conducting a study on the development of industrial relations in selected countries, to be able to identify the different national trends as well as the possible interaction between national and European levels. For this purpose, we interpret Europeanisation of industrial relations as a socio-political process, that is: it is based on representation of different interests and therefore requires political regulation – and it is also socially based, and therefore presenting a specific interrelation of inter-action.

Industrial relations in Germany are used as a point of reference against which selected aspects of industrial relations in France, Great Britain and Italy are compared and contrasted. Industrial relations in these four core EU countries vary in specific ways and provide plenty of opportunity to compare and contrast the different systems.

Our general interpretation of the term industrial relations in the first instance is that it covers:

• economic exchange processes;

• the social relationships and conflict between capital and labour; and

• the contracts, norms and institutions issuing from these social relationships.

Specific areas of study include:

• workplace and company organisation;

• collective bargaining;

• trade unions and employers’ associations; and

• government regulations and legislative standardisation.

The main focus of the study lies in the changes within the plant and the company. Collective bargaining, employers’ associations and legislative regulations are considered, but only in so far as they are of importance at plant and company levels. In addition, placing the main emphasis on different aspects, we concentrated on the five differently structured sectors of industry – the metal industry, chemicals, food, construction, trade and insurance. By having this spread of industries we can highlight the potential features specific to each but also reach more general conclusions.

The fundamental approach of the project revolves around the concept of a process of Europeanisation, which is by no means clearly defined. In the political as well as with the technical discussion, there were conflicting interpretations:

Does the Europeanisation of the working community and the interaction between the national and European levels of industrial relations lead to a conformity of industrial relations in the individual countries of the European Union (convergence)?

Or, do the national models remain more or less untouched by the developments already mentioned (divergence)?

Or, do industrial relations in the European Union develop into a complex interrelation of international and supranational arrangements, which differ fundamentally from the traditional united state as well as also from standard supranational regulations?

For each of these assumed paths of development, there are theoretical and empirical arguments which confirm as well as refute them. It is not our intention to go into these at this point. At the present time the Europeanisation of industrial relations seems to us to be a process whose form and outcome remain to be determined and within which respectively standardising, exaggerated, yet opposing development trends are possible:

1. According to the intensity of the standardisation, the development process of labour relations will follow a course between harmonisation (alignment) and heterogenisation (differentiation).

2. According to the degree of legislative standardisation, the Europeanisation of industrial relations will be influenced by the partly contradictory processes of regulation as well as de-regulation.

3. According to the form of the dialogue and the way in which the conflict is dealt with, the Europeanisation of industrial relations will swing between the conflict model and co-operation model.

4. Finally, the Europeanisation of industrial relations with respect to the relationship of company and worker representation in the area of conflict of single-structured (for instance, in Great Britain) and dual-structured (company and worker representation as for example in Germany) forms of representation will have to be relocated.

Against this background, the project pursued several objectives: it consisted of an investigation of a rapidly developing subject area which will be extremely important in the future and which highlights a whole host of questions and problems.

At the same time, the project explicitly aimed to provide a practical service in publishing this report as well as having an educational function for worker representatives at plant and union levels.

Many conferences were held bringing together representatives from companies and associations along with technical experts not only for the purpose of gathering information, but above all to stimulate the political discussion about involvement and co-determination by employees in the European unification process.

It was also intended that the planned project would enable the increasingly dynamic process of of the Europeanisation of industrial relations to be integrated into continuous project work and to demonstrate suitable possibilities for how this could be structured.

The aim was to take into account the requirements of an exchange of employee-orientated research especially as a result of bringing appropriate, practising researchers together with company and union worker representatives.

The project was carried out by dividing the work into several steps:

1. Evaluation of empirical studies already carried out and a review of relevant literature;

2. Talks between experts, unions, works councils, representatives from employers’ associations or trade associations as well from management;

3. Case studies in the parent companies and subsidiaries of combines in the different countries and sectors of industry ;

4. National and international conferences and workshops on specially chosen topics, involving unions, employers’ associations, companies and workplaces, to guarantee a continuous feed-back amongst the people involved; and

5. The establishing of a working group “European Works Councils in the Region Bremen” where (European) works councils, trade union representatives, experts, colleagues from further education units and other interested parties meet regularly to exchange information and to discuss mutually agreed topics.

In Germany, the project co-operated with the following trade unions: IG Metall (Metalworkers’ Union), IG Bergbau-Chemie-Energie (Miners, Chemical and Energy Workers’ Union), IG Bauen-Agrar-Umwelt (Construction, Agricultural and Environment Workers’ Union), Nahrung-Genuss-Gaststatten (Food and Restaurant Workers’ Union) and Handel, Banken und Versicherungen (Commerce, Bank and Insurance Workers’ Union).

Co-operation partners in France, Great Britain and Italy were: Adelheid Hege, Christian Dufour and Ingrid Artus from the Institut De Récherches Economiques Et Sociales (IRES), Paris; Lionel Fulton from the Labour Research Department (LRD), London and B. Cattero, University of Frankfurt/M.

The existing project report was written by the Bremen team and therefore falls into their sphere of responsibility. It follows, to a great extent, the procedure of the study.

After the overview of the system of industrial relations in Germany, France, Great Britain and Italy which follows immediately after this, the theoretical-conceptual framework of the investigation will be set out. This is followed by a detailed examination of the “Europeanisation” of industrial relations themselves.

After that, through a re-appraisal of relevant literature, the present development trends and problems of the national systems of industrial relations in particular are examined.

Following on from this, different national experiences and points of view on the development of industrial relations will be highlighted, and how they became especially clear in discussions with the experts and representatives from trade unions and employers’ associations.

From the connection between the national and European level of industrial relations we go straight on to the empirical basis of our case studies carried out in the selected parent companies and subsidiaries in the various countries and in the different industrial sectors.

Finally, in thesis-form, we describe the development of industrial relations in Europe as a contradictory process between national and European regulation, which became clear in our study. From this, we shall consider how employees especially and those representing their interests, could be put in a position to take an active rather than a passive role in shaping the process of European Unity.

Thanks go to all those who have helped to ensure the success of this investigation:

• The Hans-Böckler-Foundation and the University of Bremen for their financial sponsorship;

• The corresponding partners in Great Britain, Italy and France for their expertise and the undertaking of the case studies;

• Dr. Michael Braun for carrying out the expert discussions in Rome;

• The representatives of companies and enterprises, trade union and employer associations in the countries involved and at European level, who made themselves available for expert discussions and/or agreed to undertake case studies;

• The European Works Councils, in whose meetings we were allowed to participate as guests;

• The European Trade Union Institute for their guaranteed hospitality;

• Colleagues from companies, trade unions, Institutes of Further Education, and the field of research, who came together with us in the “Regional Work Group on European Works Councils” for critical and productive discussions and;

• Henning Schmincke, a student at the University of Bremen, for his assistance during the final stage of the project.

Industrial relations systems in Germany, France, Great Britain and Italy – an overview

With regard to the question of a possible Europeanisation of industrial relations, there has been no shortage of attempts, especially in the last few years, to develop both theoretical constructs of industrial relations in Europe, as well as to draw up related primary and secondary empirical studies (see among others Mesch, 1995; Ferner and Hyman, 1993; Hyman and Ferner, 1995 and Lecher and Platzer, 1994).

The following abbreviated version of the historic development of each national system of industrial relations in our four countries, is also based on these works:

In this scheme, which necessarily refers mainly to institutions and less to industrial relations in each country as a social process, Germany and the UK can be characterised, as extreme poles, between which, with some modifications, Italy and France can be ranked.

Müller-Jentsch (1995) summarises the specific structures and characteristic features of the German system of industrial relations under the following five main points:

• Duality: two different structures of collective bargaining autonomy and co-determination;

• Intermediacy: social institutions and programmes for pragmatic negotiations between capital and labour;

• Legalisation: close network of mainly procedural regulations and legal restrictions on industrial conflicts and industrial action;

• Centralisation: the organisations representing capital and labour have reciprocally encouraged the concentration and centralisation of their associations;

• Representation: organs of collective worker representation, especially those of the employees, have a representative character.

This system ensures that the workplace itself is not normally an area of conflict, but to a large extent carries on production undisturbed.

It is a well-known fact that the most important institutions of this system are the trade unions, the works constitution and with its essential expression, the works council, as well as co-determination at company level.

The trade unions are mainly organised according to the principle of a single industrial union. At the workplace, especially in large concerns, the union structure is based on representatives, who are voted in by trade union members at the workplace.

Overall then, these institutions operate in a fully developed network of industrial labour and social regulations, which together characterise the German system of industrial relations.

The following general tendencies in the historical development of German industrial relations can be observed (Braun, Eberwein and Tholen, 1992, pp. 428 ff.; as well as Eberwein, 1992):

• Liberalisation and objectivation of the power relationship: generally it is true that the relationship of control between capital and labour has not been eliminated. However, the exercise of control was systematised and to a certain extent, rationalised, and in practice the results of this system were liberalised too, i.e. principally were made the object of negotiations and the reconciliation of interests.

• Thematically differentiated and step-by-step process of regulation of potential conflict between capital and labour: industrial relations comprise a network of institutions to overcome and regulate social conflicts. These institutions mean that potential social conflicts are taken apart, divided up and handled on different levels. Thus, conflicts are robbed of the explosive nature that the system might not be able to handle and this allows a different partial solution to be found to these “broken-down complex problems”.

The essential difference between the British system of industrial relations and the German one is that in the former, there is no functional and institutional separation of free collective bargaining and regulations governing industrial relations, so there is a single structured system of worker representation, (see amongst others Eberwein and Tholen, 1993, pp. 201-31; Lane, 1995). A counterpart to the German works council generally does not exist. Instead, worker representation in the plant is taken up by shop stewards, i.e. plant trade union representativ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Authors
• List of Abbreviations
• 1. Introduction: A comparative study on the development of industrial relations in Germany, France, Great Britain and Italy
• 2. The process of Europeanisation and the development of industrial relations – theories
• 3. Selected empirical findings on the development of industrial relations in Europe – current research
• 4. Views from trade unions and employers’ associations experts – National and European experiences
• 5. Relations between national and European levels of industrial relations – five case studies
• 6. Future prospects – Developing industrial relations in Europe as a contradictory process between national and European regulation
• Bibliography
• Index