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

Cross-border social dialogue and agreements
Major factors that appear to have contributed to the multiplication
of IFAs in recent years include the following:
(a) The trade union movement’s response to the challenges of globalization
through a series of mergers in 1990-2006, so as to lead to
the transformation of the ITSs into GUFs. The latest (and perhaps
most significant) merger is that of the two largest international confederations,
namely the International Confederation of Free Trade
Unions (ICFTU) and the World Confederation of Labour (WCL)
into the single International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC),
on 1 November 2006 (Wills, 2002; Tørres and Gunnes, 2003;
Bourque, 2005; Fairbrother and Hammer, 2005; Fairbrother et al.,
2007).
(b) The strengthening of endeavours at regional integration, especially
in Europe, 8 favouring the creation of a supranational level of social
representation. This is especially the case of the European social dialogue
framework envisaged in Articles 138 and 139 of the Treaty
Establishing the European Community (the EC Treaty — see Bé,
this volume) and the establishment of EWCs by virtue of the EWC
Directive of 1994. 9 This led to transnational employee representation
bodies in MNEs operating in the European economic area and
brought about a strengthening of European trade union umbrella
organizations (or European industry federations), leading to European
framework agreements and in general to a reinforcement of
the idea of transnational dialogue and agreements in Europe (Block
et al., 2001; Daugareilh, 2006; Fairbrother and Hammer, 2005).
(c) A parallel move from “multi-employer” to “single-employer” bargaining
(Marginson and Sisson, 1996). It should be underlined that
although IFAs are transnational instruments, they concern a single
employer and not an entire sector of activity (see also Sobczak, this
volume).
(d) The emergence of a new generation of managers’ and workers’ representatives,
accustomed to a broad spectrum of innovative prac-
8
For an overview of the relevance of EWCs, see Sobczak (this volume). To a lesser extent, other
regional integration endeavours favour supranational social representation: the North American Agreement
on Labour Cooperation (NAALC) in the context of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA);
and ad hoc initiatives in the context of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), such as the
SADC Labour Relations Conference in October 1999 or the task team for improving conditions of employment
in member countries established in February 2007.
9
European Works Councils Directive 94/45/CE. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/employment_
social/labour_law/docs/directive94_45_en.pdf.
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