Eurofound
Representativeness at the heart of European decision-makingEurofound - Sep 07, 2016 10:00 BST
On the eve of the 11th International Labour and Employment Relations Association (ILERA) European Congress,
we look at the issue of representativeness in Europe, and how ensuring
that workers and employers are fairly represented at EU-level is an
important aspect of European democracy.
Ensuring
that the interests of workers and employers are fairly balanced and
represented has been one of the defining characteristics of
modern Europe. National governments must balance the need for fair
treatment and rights for workers with the obligation to create an
environment where business can flourish and grow; to do this they
consult with trade unions and businesses via national, regional and
local structures. Strong, fluid and fair consultation is seen as being
important for economic growth; whereas ineffective, insufficient or
unbalanced consultation can lead to economic and political stagnation.
Social
dialogue has also become vital in the EU policy-making process and is
recognized as such in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European
Union (TFEU). In the Treaty representative European social partner
organisations are directly consulted, giving them indirect legislative
influence. The legitimacy of this influence is underpinned by their
level of representativeness of their constituent group. The current
European Commission places a strong emphasis on social dialogue, and in 2015 launched a renewed partnership between social partners and the EU institutions to focus on a number of priorities to promote growth and create jobs
Workers
and employers organisations are facing challenges from a rapidly
changing and fluid labour market. The concept of a job for life is by
now a thing of the past with workers changing jobs and professions more
frequently than ever before. Businesses are also challenged by the need
to diversify and adapt in order to stay relevant on the market. This
rapid change is having an impact on well-established models of
representativeness and social dialogue.
In
2006 the European Commission mandated Eurofound to carry out studies on
the representativeness of European sectoral social partners
organisations, with a view to use this information to enhance the work
of sectoral social dialogue committees.
These committees act as a forum for consultations on European policies
as well as a tool for autonomous social dialogue among the European
social partners who develop joint actions and conduct negotiations on
issues of common interest.
Over the past ten years Eurofound has published over 40 representativeness studies,
looking at industries as diverse as telecommunications and woodworking.
The objective of the studies is not to make a judgement on how
representative an organisation is, or how legitimate their place is at
the negotiating table, but rather to identify opportunities for trade
unions and employers to strengthen their membership scope and their
capacity to represent and negotiate on behalf of their members.
Almost
all European countries have legislation helping us to understand which
social partner organisations are representative for workers and
management, and what they need to do to enhance or maintain their
What
is more universal is that there little public debate about
representativeness. There is often surprise and consternation when a
strike occurs, but rarely is the link made that trade unions represent a
collective of workers and their interests. Eurofound’s
representativeness studies not only give an insight into the importance
and representativeness of social partners in a variety of industries
across Europe, they also show the importance placed on effective
representativeness as a key element of the EU legislative process.
Click here to read more about Eurofound’s representativeness studies.
Click here to find out more about the 11th ILERA conference.
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See also: https://goo.gl/lBtodg
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