Industrial Relations in Europe 2012 - European Commission - Europa

with adequate services as well as the crucial role of workers in achieving these goals. The response
of this sectoral social dialogue committee to the European Commission’s Green Paper on
Restructuring and anticipation of change: what lessons from recent experiences? underlines how
the financial crisis has, on one side, “highlighted the important role central government
administrations play in regulating the market, providing employment and social protection and
jobs” and on the other hand has led to “programmes of pay, pensions and job cuts or freezes,
reforms of working conditions as well as changes of labour law”. The social partners in this sector
also state that “a major feature of restructuring in the public sector is that the social dialogue has
been sidelined”, although there are cases where social dialogue has contributed to settling disputes
and overcoming tensions – for example in Ireland, Lithuania and Slovenia – thereby showing “that
it is possible for social dialogue to deliver results in tense national contexts”. In Slovenia, there are
rising tensions in the area of social dialogue – for example, no new social agreement has yet been
adopted since the expiry of the previous one in 2009, due to the differing expectations of the social
partners. Further, there is continuing opposition from public sector unions to government plans for
additional public sector pay cuts.
As can be seen, the economic crisis has been addressed in some of the sectoral social dialogue
committees in the public sector by means of joint statements. These documents have reviewed the
impact of the economic downturn on the relevant sectors, notably central and local administrations,
and stressed the importance of supporting public service provision through adequate funding and
staffing, in terms of both employment and skill levels, and promoting social dialogue to accompany
reform and restructuring. In this sense, although they have contributed to the debate, they have not
directly affected policy implementation.
3.6 Wage setting systems
In connection with the above-mentioned specific regulation of the employment relationship in the
public sector, which persists in many EU countries, three formally different wage setting systems
can be found in the public sector: a) unilateral determination on the part of the government or public
authorities, through laws or administrative acts; b) free collective bargaining, along the lines of
wage setting in the private sector; c) mixed or hybrid arrangements, that are neither unilateral
determination nor collective bargaining. The latter mechanism refers mainly to the UK experience
of the pay review bodies, which must be considered as a special case as they cannot be equated with
either of the above systems of pay determination, although they share some elements of both.
A further issue arises when the outcomes of negotiations need a decision of the government to be
implemented. One possibility is that this decision is just a procedural formality that can be taken for
granted, in which case this system can be classed as de facto collective bargaining (the Italian
experience between 1983 and 1993, for instance, or Cyprus). A different possibility is when the
outcomes of negotiations are never binding for the government and can be substantially amended or
totally disregarded, as in France, in which case the system is closer to unilateral regulation than to
collective bargaining.
In general terms, free collective bargaining prevails in the UK (except for the groups of employees
under the pay review body system) all the Nordic countries, Ireland, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy,
Spain, and, with qualifications, Cyprus, Malta, Luxembourg, Greece and Portugal. In Portugal the
government has the power to decide unilaterally in the case of a stalemate in negotiations. In Greece
also, civil servants under public law have been permitted since 1999 to negotiate their terms and
conditions of employment (training, health and safety, mobility, trade union prerogatives), but pay
issues are excluded, while public sector employees under private contracts enjoy full bargaining
rights in line with rights enjoyed by private sector employees (Ioannou 1999; 2012). In
Luxembourg wage agreements must be confirmed by law.
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