Quality of work and employee involvement in Europe

Book abstract:

This book is concerned with the worker's growing role in decision-making at management level in Europe, a system of collaboration which has become increasingly popular over the last ten years or so. As Marco Biagi was one of the groundbreaking thinkers and writers in this area, and despite his assassination in 2002, this book provides a compilation of work from various contributors, most of which has the aim of proposing ways of facilitating an even more integrative relationship between management and employee. Biagi himself was one of the first to recognise that this relationship, on both a macroeconomic and macro level, will provide better standards of work all round, although it also has crucial implications for notions of social equality and justice.

Each of the volume's six parts contains several separate articles. Following Biagi's introduction on 'Thinking the Unthinkable' about worker participation, part one turns to the effectiveness of the European Works Council Directive, which laid down the groundwork for the changes. Part two deals with the involvement of workers in the European Company and part three looks at the question of information and consultation for workers, with a specific study of the situation in Japan. In part four, on financial participation and new industrial relations, there is work on policy and practice, financial participation in Italy and France, as well employee financial participation and the role of social partners in three countries: Belgium, Germany, and the UK. Part five assesses and proposes the way forward for the future of employee participation, with an essay on the Russian situation, and part six concludes the work with discussions of employee involvement and its relationship to tensions over EU enlargement. The particular case studies here are on Poland and Slovenia.