Industrial Relations in Europe 2012 - European Commission - Europa

* Italics indicate pacts addressing tax-based incomes policies. In all other cases, social pacts
covered broader social policy issues (regulatory, reform or symbolic pacts according to the
ICTWSS database coding).
** Numbers in parentheses indicate the strength of the pact. Strength is defined as a composite
measure of pact scope and pact structure. The maximum in each of these two categories is 2,
therefore the maximum strength score is 4. In general, CEEC pacts are agreed upon by all the
relevant peak social partners (which means a 2 in the structure score), but their scope is rather
vague and do not reach to lower levels of industrial relations (1 on scope).
Source: ICTWSS database, version 3.0, 2011.
Despite the contested role of tripartism, a number of tripartite agreements, or national-level
social pacts, have been concluded across the CEECs. International factors that have facilitated
the conclusion of social pacts even in countries that lack a tradition of tripartite consultations
(e.g., Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia), or in countries with a weak substantive role of tripartism
(e.g., Hungary, Poland and Romania) include EU accession, prospects for EMU membership
and the economic crisis. In Poland, considered the weakest performer in terms of social pacts
among the welfarist Visegrad countries, EU accession served as a motivating factor for the
Labour Minister and later the Minister of Economics and Deputy Prime Minister (2001 –
2005) to attempt a conclusion of several social pacts addressing EMU convergence, reforms
of public finance, employment policy, healthcare and labour law (Meardi 2012: 46-53). This
initiative also involved strengthening intersectoral social dialogue and improving the
coordination of sectoral bargaining committees. Social dialogue was perceived as a policy
alternative to those of previous governments. The most important pact initiative, known as the
“Pact for Work and Development” was drafted in 2003. However, these proposals were later
abandoned due to lack of domestic political commitment and lack of trust between the
Solidarność trade unions and the post-communist party (Meardi 2012: 47). These initiatives
are an important sign of the impact of EU accession and prospective EMU membership on
CEEC social partners’ capacity building to strengthen tripartism despite hostile domestic
conditions.
In sum, table 2.9 offers an overview of tripartite agreements, but also of failed attempts to
conclude agreements, between 1991 and 2008. More pacts have been concluded in the 2000s
than in the second half of the 1990s. More recent evidence confirms this trend, especially in
the post-crisis years of 2009 and 2010.
2.3.6 Information and consultation of employees at company level
Company-level employee representation in the CEECs underwent significant changes upon
EU accession, mainly because of implementing the dual representation structure (including
both trade unions and works councils) stipulated by the Directive on Information and
Consultation of Employees (2002/14/EC). Table 2.10 documents the workplace presence of
employee representatives across CEECs after the implementation of the Directive.
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