Industrial Relations in Europe 2012 - European Commission - Europa

1.5 Employers’ associations
In contrast to the private sector, where employers’ associations organise and represent the
interests of companies, the associational structure of public sector employers is more
complex. This is because the public sector is characterised by a multi-layered structure of
political and administrative actors with different responsibilities on different levels and in
different regions (Keller, Due and Andersen, 2001). One main difference between the public
and the private sectors is that in the public sector no employers’ associations exist in the
majority of the EU Member States.
The reason for this lack of public sector employer associations is that state authorities - which
act directly as employers - are organised under national public administrative systems. Thus,
the more centralised, coordinated and organised these administrative systems, the more
coordinated the employer side in the public sector. There is therefore no need to organise
employers’ interests in an association in countries with well organised, coordinated and
centralised administrative systems. In general, that is why employer associations exist only in
countries in which the national public administrative system does not enable enough
coordination of central states’ employment and wage strategies (Adam, 2011). This is
frequently the case in countries with a decentralised system for regulating the employment
relationship (as shown in Table 1.1).
Nevertheless, compared to the private sector, collective bargaining in the public sector is still
characterised by a high degree of centralisation as central state authorities are actively
involved in collective bargaining in almost all EU Member States. Thus the employer side is
represented in collective bargaining by central state authorities. These are usually important
ministries themselves who represent state interests as an employer or spin-offs of ministries.
See Table 1.7 for an overview of public sector state authorities who represent states interests
as an employer.
Table 1.7: Main actors in the public sector on the employer side in the EU (employer
organisations are in italic)
Country
AT
BE
State Secretary for Civil Service and Administrative Reform in the Federal
Chancellery (Bundeskanzleramt BKA)
Committee composed of the Prime Minister and ministers (no central public sector
employer organisation)
BG
CY
CZ
DE
DK
EE
National Council for Tripartite Partnership
Government, represented by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance
and the Director of Public Administration and Personnel Department and acting in
the Joint Staff Committee (J.S.C.)
Joint Consultative Committee (MEP)
Ministry of the Interior (BMI) at national level. Federation of Municipal
Employers Association at local level. Municipals Employer’s Association (VKA)
Ministry of Finance: State Employer’s Agency. Local Government Denmark (KL)
Inter-Ministerial Committee chaired by the Minister of Social Affairs
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