This edited volume explores the old and new “collective dimensions” of employment relations. It examines specific challenges stemming from new forms of work of the digital and sharing economy, such as measurement, monitoring, assessment, and remuneration of work, the protection of work-life balance, the impact of new technologies on health and safety, the adaptation of occupational skills to new work processes, and the responses to the digital restructuring of undertakings. It addresses a series of questions such as how the representational action of unions and works councils can adapt to the challenges posed by new production systems and whether the legislative framework needs to be reformed to ensure that digital workers enjoy the right to collective representation. This important collection offers readers a renewed theoretical perspective and justification of the role that the dialogue between workers (representatives) and companies could play in an increasingly complex world of work.
What role will the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights play in the future for labour law in the European Union Member States? How could it affect industrial relations in these states? These are crucial questions to which a group of eminent European labour law professors and researchers seek to offer some answers in their new book European Labour Law and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. To recall the story behind the Charter: in December 2000, this text was not enshrined as an integral part of the new EU Nice treaty, but was merely "proclaimed", to the disappointment of many, so that its legal status remained ambiguous. The draft future Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe is clearer, insofar as it incorporates the Charter as its Part II, thereby giving it a binding character - but nobody knows whether, or when, this Treaty-Constitution will actually see the light of day and, if it does, in what shape. Yet now, as the discussions about a future EU constitution are regaining momentum, the European Court of Justice has also had its word on the role of the Charter. It has declared that "the principal aim of the Charter is to reaffirm rights" which are legally binding due to their provenance from other sources recognised by EU law (Case 540/03, European Parliament v. Council, decided 27 June 2006). The thus strengthened Charter includes core labour law and industrial relations provisions, covering matters such as freedom of association, collective bargaining and collective action, information and consultation within the undertaking, fair and just working conditions and protection in the event of unjustified dismissal. The book European Labour Law and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights is a detailed commentary on the provisions of the Charter which guarantee these and other fundamental rights that are binding upon the EU institutions and the Member States. The commentary throws light on the potential of the EU Charter to shape the future labour law of Europe, an understanding of which is important for labour lawyers and industrial relations professionals, as well as for academics and policy makers in the Member States and in the EU institutions.
As issues of employee involvement and participation once more evoke considerable controversy, this textbook provides an accessible overview of the main strands, perspectives and debates in current thinking and practice. It adopts a comparative international approach, addressing developments in the United Kingdom and mainland Europe, the United States and elsewhere. The authors identify two main strands of evolution: one driven by managerial interests in enhancing and controlling employee commitment and performance; the other deriving from employees' attempts to influence high-level organizational decision-making. In particular, they examine and analyze: the background of key concepts, issues and philosophies underpinning these different strands; the range of current employee involvement methods, from the individualistic and management-led to more regulated collective approaches; and the rationales and responses of employees, unions and employers to the various initiatives. Throughout the book the authors evaluate the contrasting philosophies and practices in the context of the rapidly evolving organizational and economic landscapes of advanced industrialized countries. Relevant factors include declines in manufacturing industries, deregulation of labour markets, intensifying international competition and the ever-increasing globalization of enterprise.
European Labour Law explores how individual European national legal systems, in symbiosis with the European Union, produce a transnational labour law system that is distinct and genuinely European in character. Professor Brian Bercusson describes the evolution of this system, its national, transnational and global contexts and its institutional and substantive structures. The collective industrial-relations dimension of employment is examined, and the labour law of the EU as manifested in, for example, European works councils is analysed. Important subjects which have traditionally received little attention in some European labour law systems are covered, for example, the fragmentation of the workforce into atypical forms of employment. Attention is also given to the enforcement of European labour law through administrative or judicial mechanisms and the European social dialogue at intersectoral and sectoral levels. This new edition has been extensively updated, as the EU's influence on this area of social policy continues to grow.
This book, originally published in 1977, is a comparative study of worker participation in France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Britain. The first part of the book treats employee participation in general terms and examines its meaning and scope. The second part then examines the major themes of representative establishment councils and employee representation through an analysis of the relevant statutes and common law of the countries concerned, and by exploring the legal and other problems which have arisen in each. It also examines how these laws are applied in practice and the opinions of those concerned.
As the European Union undergoes a major, self-proclaimed democratic exercise the Conference on the Future of Europe and approaches Treaty change, this volume offers a new model of citizen participation to address Europe's long-standing democracy challenge, and respond to the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Proposed are a set of democratic innovations, ranging from citizens assemblies to regulatory gaming to citizens initiatives and lobbying, which are complementary, not antagonistic, to existing representative democracy across the European continent. These innovations are emerging bottom-up across the continent and getting traction at local, national and EU level in a new era powered by technology. This book brings together academics as well as practitioners to give a forward-looking, holistic view of the realities of EU citizen participation across the spectrum of participatory opportunities. They all converge in arguing that, after many years of proven experimentation, the EU must institutionalize supranational, participative and deliberative, democratic channels to complement representative democracy and each other, and ultimately improve the effectiveness of EU citizen participation. While this institutional approach will not magically treat the EU democratic malaise, it should make the system more intelligible, accessible, and ultimately responsive to citizen demand without necessarily undertaking Treaty reform. The attempt to harness citizen participation to help address the current EU crisis needs the type of multi-faceted approach presented in this book. One that recognises the potential of existing and new democratic mechanisms, and also, importantly, the links between different instruments of citizen participation to improve the overall quality of EU's democratic system
In October 2001, the EU formally adopted the legislation on the European Company, also known by its Latin name Societas Europaea (SE). This handbook aims to ensure that the new opportunities for employee representation at European level which these new SE rules provide, are seized. It has been designed first and foremost to help practitioners to prepare and conduct negotiations on agreements on employee involvement in SEs. The handbook introduces the SE and its mechanism of employee involvement. It explains the negotiation procedures and provides ‘tips and tricks’ for a decent preparation of negotiations. Based on the experience of several experts, it gives an overview of key aspects of an SE agreement and includes an extensive set of overviews, graphics and comparative tables.
The eighteen essays in this volume concentrate on the issues surrounding workers' participation, the area of industrial relations uppermost in Marco Biagi's thinking at the time of his assassination in March 2002. The trend toward ever greater employee involvement in managerial decisionmaking has been growing in Europe for over a decade, to a significant extent as a result of Biagi's work. From the start, he clearly discerned that the key to quality of work was worker participation. This book stands not merely as a homage, but as evidence that Biagi's assassination will not affect the progress he was making. In what amounts to an integrated series of recommendations for further European legislation on workers' participation in industrial relations, the authors analyse and evaluate the following: experience gained from implementation of the European Works Council Directive and the European Company Statute Directive; implications of the new Directive on Information/Consultation in National Undertakings and of the European Forum on the Financial Participation of Workers; and experience in a variety of national contexts, including those of Japan, Italy, France, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, Poland, and Slovenia. In the final analysis, employee involvement--when it is a genuine commitment on the part of all stakeholders--is seen as a sharing of cultural values that successfully reconciles efficiency and social justice. Those who believe this is a goal worth achieving, for reasons both economic and social, will recognize in this book an immensely valuable contribution.
