CROSS-BORDER SOCIAL DIALOGUE AND AGREEMENTS: An ...

Cross-border social dialogue and agreements
was developed. The second section examines the follow-up action to the
European Commission’s Social Agenda 2005-2010 regarding the issue of
transnational collective bargaining. The following section analyses the
context within which collective action might take place in the framework
of the European single market, and the fourth section the legal dimension
of transnational collective industrial action and free movement in
the EU context. The role of the EU Charter as a legal basis for crossborder
industrial action is then analysed. The sixth section examines the
ECJ’s caution vis-à-vis the integration of the Charter in the Community’s
legal order. The conclusions refer to the ECJ’s use of the Charter in the
cases of Laval and Viking and the implications for transnational industrial
action.
Cross-border social dialogue in the European Union
An analysis of the implementation and monitoring of cross-border
agreements requires an understanding of the dynamic of the process of
cross-border social dialogue and its outcomes, namely cross-border agreements.
In this respect, the experience of the EU may be instructive. The
focus of this chapter is on what may emerge as a key element in this
dynamic, namely the potential role of cross-border collective industrial
action.
The current state of the evolution of EU policies on labour regulation
may be sought in the European Commission’s Communication of 9
February 2005 on the Social Agenda (European Commission, 2005).
What is striking is that there is not one single proposal for new legislation
in the labour law field. If labour legislation is not foreseen up to
2010, what is?
While respecting the autonomy of the social partners, the Commission
will continue to promote the European social dialogue at cross-industry and
sectoral levels, especially by strengthening its logistic and technical support
and by conducting consultations on the basis of Article 138 of the
[EC Treaty] (European Union, 2002; emphasis added).
This focus on social dialogue is warranted because of all the proposals
on the Social Agenda, the one that the European Commission
explicitly commits to adopting is on transnational collective bargaining:
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