Industrial Relations in Europe 2012 - European Commission - Europa

Existence of
tripartite council
concerning social and
economic policy
Table 2.6 Tripartite councils and the involvement of social partners in policy making
Involvement of unions and employers in government
decisions on social and economic policy
Council with only unions,
employers and government
representatives or
independent experts
Council with various
societal interest
representatives
FR
limited
irregular and
infrequent
FI, CZ, LV,
PL, RO, SK
IT, EL, MT, PT, BG,
EE, HU, LT
regular and
frequent
AT, BE, LU,
NL, SI
ES, IE
No permanent council UK DE CY, DK, SE
Source: ICTWSS database version 3.0 (2011). CEECs in italics.
In sum, tripartism in the CEECs is strongly established but contested in terms of its real effect
on policy making, resisting political pressures, and producing enforceable agreements.
Developments in the 2000s suggest a slight improvement, namely tripartite negotiations in a
number of CEECs producing broad national agreements, similar to social pacts in some EU-
15 countries. To evaluate the real role of tripartism, however, it is necessary to acknowledge
not only the existence of tripartism as a structure, but also its outcomes, scope and
enforcement. This chapter’s second section offers an insight into tripartite arrangements
across particular CEECs.
2.2.5 Interim conclusions
The EU enlargement exercises of 2004 and 2007 increased the diversity of industrial relations
systems across the EU not only because of different historical legacies, but also due to recent
economic, political and societal developments across the CEECs and the EU-15. A
comparison of indicators covering the main pillars of a stable industrial relations system
allowed us to highlight the most important structural characteristics of industrial relations
across the EU-15 and the CEECs. In comparison with the EU-15, CEECs are characterised by
weaker trade unions and a faster erosion of trade union density, a lack of established
employers’ associations, a lack of a tradition of bipartite multi-employer collective
bargaining, persistently lower bargaining coverage (partly due to the underdeveloped system
of extension of collective agreements), and finally a strong formal existence of tripartism that
partly substitutes underdeveloped sector-level collective bargaining. At the same time,
evidence suggests some convergence in industrial action between the EU-15 and the CEECs
after 2007. Expected Europeanisation in company-level information and consultation of
employees through the transposition of the EU law to the new member states in the CEECs
did not yet bring convergence trends with the EU-15, but rather has strengthened the tension
between trade unions and works councils in CEECs.
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