Diversity and social dialogue – the European way

Date: 28/04/05

Last week the EU's social partners - trade union and employers' associations - celebrated 20 years of European social policymaking, in what is becoming an increasingly challenging environment.

The social dialogue, which began with the former European Commission president Jacques Delors's 'Val Duchesse' initiative, allowing the partners to adopt non-binding agreements, has seen more than 40 cross-industry texts and over 300 sectoral agreements since its inception in 1985.

Since their 1991 Agreement on Social Policy (ASP), under which the partners demanded to be consulted by the Commission on social policy, the partners have negotiated important pieces of legislation such as rules for parental leave (1996) and standards for part-time and fixed-time work in 1995 and 1997.

Framework agreements on telework, stress and work and gender equality have also been hammered out under the ASP provision allowing the negotiation of agreements without interference from the Commission.

As Europe shifts its focus on growth and jobs, employers and workers find themselves increasingly at odds. Business opposition has led to virtual stalemate since 2002 on the directive aiming to provide better protection for temporary workers. Last week (21 April), MEPs reopened the battle to scrap the UK's controversial opt-out from EU working hours but they face an uphill struggle against governments which backed the opt-out late last year. Deputies will vote on the directive in the mid-May plenary.

As for the agreements struck between the partners alone, the fact that they are not legally binding means that their implementation is subject to the foibles of domestic industrial relations procedures and can therefore be patchy when viewed across the EU as a whole.

Last year's enlargement put even more pressure on a system which relies on uniting diverse national labour and welfare policies. EU bodies are dealing with associations from the new member states that are largely unused to policymaking that has not been initiated by the state. At the same time there are few employers' organisations because of the relatively recent move to capitalism, which means that the traditional collective bargaining seen in many older member states is almost entirely absent.

And trade union membership in the EU as a whole is declining, making the social partner balance more precarious still.

Last week John Monks, general secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), called for more European framework agreements in light of what he called the Commission's "timid attitude" towards its recently published social agenda.

ETUC has launched a project to integrate the new member states' industrial relations systems with those of the EU.

"We need to ensure that the EU's increased diversity does not slow down, let alone reverse, the process of social convergence," he said.

Unions have already demonstrated their potential power in overturning the controversial services directive on fears it would undermine social Europe, although arguably they have been propped up by a domestic political agenda.

ETUC's next step will be to beef up its campaign for a 'Yes' vote on the EU constitution, which Monks calls Europe's "best shot" for making sure that the social partners have a proper say in Europe's future.

"Some people, on the left and on the right, may still prefer class war but I will go for the European way, that of dialogue," he says.

Author takes a look at the role of the social partners - trade unions and employers' associations - in the EU's employment and social affairs policy, 20 years after its initiation by the European Commission under Jacques Delors.