Industrial Relations in Europe 2012 - European Commission - Europa

is also paid to equal pay and low-pay issues. The traditional model employer approach has been
abandoned under the Thatcher governments, but employment relations in the public sector are still
different to those in the private sector.
Within this framework, the measures adopted by many EU governments in response to the global
economic crisis that began in 2007 not only have affected the employment levels, salaries and
pension benefits of public employees (see evidence in chapter 4 of this report), but in some
instances have also strained the traditional regulatory system prevailing in the country. Sometimes
these strains have halted or reversed consolidated patterns; in other cases they appear to have
accelerated and deepened changes already underway. Four main, problematic features can be
mentioned here (for an extensive analysis of the impact of the crisis on public sector industrial
relations, see chapter 4 of this report).
First, there has been a general revival of unilateralism, with few exceptions. In many cases
measures affecting public employees and public service employment relations have been decided
relatively urgently without negotiations with trade unions, and sometimes even outside consultative
procedures. Where powers of unilateral determination formally existed, they have of course been
utilized (France and Germany for Beamte are cases in point, but also various central and eastern
European countries like the Baltic countries, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania – see Vaughan-
Whitehead 2012); where collective bargaining or forms of social dialogue were allowed and
practiced, these have been suspended or were less effective (Italy is a clear example, Ireland is
another one, at least in the first phase of the crisis, but also the UK, Spain, Portugal, and Greece
could be mentioned). It should also be noted, however, that where the social dialogue is not wellembedded
in the public sector it is much more difficult to find consensus, particularly in a difficult
economic context. For a more detailed examination of the tension between the role of government
and the development of social dialogue, see Chapter 4.
Second, we have seen a process of recentralisation of wage-setting systems in many countries, as a
consequence of centrally defined horizontal measures applied in a generalised and undifferentiated
way to all services and all employees (Italy, France, UK, Ireland, Greece, Portugal, some central
and eastern European countries), although in some cases the break-up of centralised systems has
opened the way to processes of decentralisation and differentiation of procedures and terms and
conditions, as in Germany.
A third point regards the traditional issue of the distinctiveness of public service employment
relations compared with the private sector. The removal of this feature was a crucial target of the
NPM approach, within a wider programme towards a leaner and less distinctive public sector. In
this respect, recent measures adopted in response to the economic crisis seem to have had
ambivalent effects. On the one hand, probably the main distinctive feature of public sector
employment relations, namely the power of public employers to unilaterally determine terms and
conditions of civil servants, has been reaffirmed and possibly further strengthened, also influencing
dynamics and outcomes related to public employees under private contract (like in Germany). On
the other hand, these peculiar prerogatives have in some cases been used to accelerate the
introduction into the public sector of private-sector-style HRM practices and managerial techniques
(like in Italy).
The final feature concerns public sector trade unions. While they remain the stronghold of national
trade union movements almost everywhere, their role has generally been weakened by the crisis, at
least in terms of capacity to influence governments’ and public employers’ policies.
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