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

International framework agreements: A reassessment – Dan Gallin
negotiated labour-management agreements, it is not the only difference
and actually not always the case: there are some negotiated codes. There
may be a deeper underlying issue, which has to do with the view that
unions take of the purpose of such agreements. If IFAs are primarily
meant to address company behaviour, they may indeed appear to be no
more than a stronger kind of code: stronger, because the outcome of a
negotiation, but not basically different in purpose. If, conversely, IFAs are
seen and used as organizing tools, the contrast with codes becomes much
clearer (Egels-Zandén and Hyllman, 2007).
IFAs and European works councils
As a rule, EWCs do not negotiate IFAs and are not signatories to
IFAs. Carley (2001) observes that:
In formal terms, the prospects of EWCs developing a negotiating role are
not very bright. The [EWC] Directive provides for no such role for them,
stating that their purpose is to improve information and consultation and
laying down only an informative/consultative role for statutory EWCs
based on its subsidiary requirements.
The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), while supporting
the development of a European framework for transnational collective
bargaining (which should complement the existing framework for
European “social dialogue”), 6 stresses that EWCs do not have a mandate
for negotiations nor the right to sign transnational agreements:
The power to do this must remain solely and strictly a trade union right,
owing to their representativeness long recognized by the Commission,
which also specified as much in a text. Transnational agreements as such
must be left up to collectively responsible and thus players with a mandate
6
A note on terminology is in order. About 20 years ago, a new vocabulary was introduced in the
public discourse on industrial relations, typically involving concepts like “social partners” and “social partnership”
or “social dialogue”. This vocabulary seems to have originated with the EU Treaty of Rome (1984),
but has since, unfortunately, been adopted by the ILO and by most international trade union organizations.
In fact, it is not designed to reflect reality but to hide it. “Partnership”, by any definition, assumes shared interests.
In recent years. it has become increasingly obvious that whatever shared interests may have existed or still
exist between workers and employers, they are overridden by conflicts of opposing interests in most areas of
industrial relations. Today, trade unions do not have “social partners” in any real sense: the accurate term
would be: “social counterparts”. As for “social dialogue”, it is a particularly vague and meaningless term, obviously
designed to dilute the reality of labour-management relations, perhaps to sidestep terms like “negotiation”.
Since vocabulary is never innocent, it is worth reflecting on what interest is served by introducing this
kind of language.
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