Industrial Relations in Europe 2012 - European Commission - Europa

Chart 1.12: Comparison between national and public sector industrial relations systems
(a) national industrial relations systems
= Organised Corporatism = Dense
= Social Partnership = Political
= State-centred = Lean
= Liberal = Fragile
= Mixed = Empty
Source: Bechter, B., Brandl, B. and Meardi, G. (2011).
(b) public sector industrial relations systems
Note: Public sector industrial relations in the Czech Republic, Spain, and the UK can be considered
as being classified on the margins of another system.
As can be seen in Chart 1.12, public sector industrial relations rarely match the traditional
national types. Only in the Nordic countries (i.e. Denmark, Finland and Sweden) and in
Belgium, Germany, Netherlands and Slovenia do public sector industrial relations systems
correspond to the national system (i.e. to the industrial relations system in the majority of all
other sectors in the country).
Further, in no country are public sector industrial relations characterised by an Empty
industrial relations system which is typical of the national level in the CEECs. On the
contrary, the analysis shows that public sector industrial relations systems are characterised
by typically very centralised collective bargaining and high coverage, intensive interaction
with the state (which is obvious for the public sector), a high (but not exceptionally high)
fragmentation of actors and a relatively high degree of actors’ densities, which is the
characteristic of the Dense and Political systems of industrial relations.
A Dense-type public sector industrial relations system is found in Austria, Cyprus, Greece,
Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Romania and the UK, which in all countries does not correspond
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