Towards a European Model of Industrial Relations?:Building on the First Report of the European Commission PDF Download

Author: Marco Biagi
Publisher: Kluwer Law International B.V.
ISBN: 9041116532
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 255

View

Book Description
A social dialogue has been in progress concerning industrial relations on a European level. The publication of the first Report of the European Commission on Industrial Relations demonstrates that, rather than merely harmonizing regimes, EU policy is focusing on the pursuit of basic aims.

Author: Marco Biagi
Publisher: Kluwer Law International B.V.
ISBN: 9041118853
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 332

View

Book Description
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.

Author: Marco Biagi
Publisher: Kluwer Law International B.V.
ISBN: 9041120254
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 314

View

Book Description
The Selected Papers in this volume, written over a period of some 20 years, represent just a small part of Marco Biagi's scientific writings, and are reprinted here with a view to showing the range, depth and originality of his research work. While many of his papers dealing with labour relations issues in the Italian context were published in Italian, Marco's long association with Johns Hopkins University and Dickinson College, along with his close links with the leading scholars in comparative labour law and industrial relations not just in the member states of the European Union, but also in many other countries, including Japan, were of fundamental importance for his work, and as a result he chose to publish many of his most thought-provoking papers in English. What emerges from a reading of these papers is the integrity and consistency of his thinking: themes that appear in his early work, such as industrial democracy, employee participation, training for flexibility, the role of small and medium-sized enterprises, and innovative strategies for creating new jobs and improving the quality of work, are further developed in the later years. He always wrote with a sharp eye on changes in the labour market arising from economic, social and political developments, such as most recently the introduction of the single currency, and always with a view to extending the benefits of employment opportunities beyond the existing limits. His ideas will continue to play an influential role in thinking about employment issues for many years to come.

Author: Alan C. Neal
Publisher: Kluwer Law International B.V.
ISBN: 9041123121
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 193

View

Book Description
In the realm of European employment law, tension exists between the concepts of 'economic policy' and 'social policy.' During recent years, a growing tendency to emphasize the 'economic' at the expense of the 'social' can be discerned. What this trend gives us'in the views of the leading figures in the field of European labour law and social policy whose considered analyses are presented in this volume'is a regime of 'grand declarations' about workers' rights, but with extremely limited enforcement potential. ,i>The Changing Face of European Labour Law and Social Policy presents some of the papers given at a series of colloquia sponsored by the Employment Law Research Unit at the University of Warwick in early 2002. In its assessment of the forces at work in European employment law today, these commentaries examine significant initiatives and issues, including:problems arising in the context of the Nice Charter;delivering 'equality' at the workplace under the new EU legal framework;the crisis facing workers' participation in practice;the prospects for trans-national collective bargaining;employment-related aspects of human rights under the ECHR; and,attempts to establish effective protections in relation to the working environment. Invaluable appendices include a report, as presented by the late Marco Biagi, of a high level group on reform of the European labour market; the text of the Social Policy Agenda, as approved at the Nice Summit of 2000; and the Commission's 'scoreboard' on the implementation of the Social Agenda as of 2002.With its down-to-earth analysis of the current status of the 'floor of rights' in the European work environment, The Changing Face of European Labour Law and Social Policy will be of inestimable value to all practitioners and scholars seeking to improve the quality of life for Europe's working population and the quality of regulation at the disposal of those charged with confronting the new challenges to social policy resulting from the radical transformation of Europe's economy and society.

Author: Mia Ronnmar
Publisher: Kluwer Law International B.V.
ISBN: 9041145281
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 358

View

Book Description
The relationship between the national and international has been central in the debate on the impact of globalisation on national patterns of employment relations. While some industrial relations researchers in recent years have put forward evidence not of convergence, but rather of continuing national diversity in employment relations, others see a complex power-sharing interplay emerging for which Europe is the laboratory. This ground-breaking book asks: Do EU or European industrial relations exist? What characterises EU industrial relations and their development? What are the differences between EU industrial relations and national industrial relations? Twelve outstanding authorities from seven countries discuss the theme from a variety of perspectives. Originally presented at an international and interdisciplinary research workshop held at the Faculty of Law at Lund University in November 2007, the essays probe a range of highly topical and important legal and industrial relations issues and developments, including the implications of the epochal and much-debated Laval and Viking cases from the European Court of Justice. The focus is on the EU dimension of industrial relations, common to the Member States, and not on comparative European industrial relations. The authors raise and discuss such crucial issues as the following: the power relationship and interactions between the social partners within the framework of the social dialogue; growing problems of posting of workers, low wage competition, and ‘social dumping’; approaches to creating an EU legal framework for transnational collective agreements; the right to take industrial action in order to achieve collective agreements; the fundamental asymmetry between the scope of action of players in companies and territories affected by restructurings; information, consultation and worker participation; potential benefits of increased tripartite co-operation between the social partners and governments; compatibility of the Swedish or Nordic system with the four freedoms and its eligibility as a European model; and issues of private international law arising from collective actions with transnational implications. An appendix includes relevant EC legislation and the ECJ opinions in Laval and Viking. EU Industrial Relations vs National Industrial Relations explores an emerging and still inchoate realm of law that is heavily fraught with implications for the near future of social relations, not only in Europe but worldwide. Labour lawyers and policymakers will greatly appreciate its precise stocktaking, its insightful analysis, and its well-informed recommendations on how to proceed in the realm of practical law.

Author: Frans Pennings
Publisher: Kluwer Law International B.V.
ISBN: 9041127836
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 578

View

Book Description
Since 1945, socially moderated market economies have formed the cornerstone of the European socioeconomic model. Now, however due to powerful global economic, political and demographic tendencies tensions between social and economic interests and values are increasing. These developments create an urgent need for answers, actions and measures on the European level. This wide-ranging but focused collection of essays approaches this important trend from multiple perspectives. Compiled in honour of the major European labour law scholar Teun Jaspers, it encompasses a broad spectrum of analyses and insights by forty-one distinguished contributors from seven countries. Four major tensions are identified: between the European and national level, between fundamental rights and economic freedoms, between workers and employers, and between soft and hard law instruments. Throughout, a comparative approach is emphasized, not only within the EU but also between the EU and China and South Africa. Among the many topics covered are the following: relocation of labour to low-wage countries both within and outside the EU; conditions for tempering the excesses of the free labour market; the legal weight of voluntary standards such as codes of conduct; extending the scope of application of corporate social responsibility norms to transnational enterprises; pressure on national social law due to flexibilization, deregulation and individualization; contract termination protection; employability and training of employees; fixed-term work in the wake of the Mangold ruling; adjustment of working conditions for ill and disabled workers; right to strike; and restructuring of enterprises. In light of the Lisbon strategy, the authors address how the various tensions should be reconciled, especially in the context of the flexicurity approach. The book will be of great interest to academics and practitioners for its clear categorization of the issues which must be overcome when regulating employment and social policy in the context of todayand’s EU multilevel legal order. It pays detailed attention to the legal questions raised by emerging European labour and employment policies in respect of their specific materialization, the opportunities they offer, their feasibility, and the threats they pose to traditional workerand’s protection and, more generally, to traditional concepts of labour law.

Author: Adalberto Perulli
Publisher: Kluwer Law International B.V.
ISBN: 9403506628
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 393

View

Book Description
The Role of the State and Industrial Relations Edited by Adalberto Perulli & Tiziano Treu The new era of industrial relations that has been stealthily changing the world of work in recent decades seems to have reached a stage where it can be systematically monitored and analyzed, in great part because the “creeping renationalization” that has been noted since the financial crisis of 2008 has reinvigorated state intervention in essential economic structures. The contributions in this unrivalled book provide important new perspectives on the many challenges inherent in the present and future of the relationship between industrial relations and the state. Analyzing industrial relations systems from international, supranational, European and national points of view—and with an interdisciplinary approach connecting labour law, commercial law, corporate governance and international law—this one-of-kind book examines such salient aspects of the subject as the following: cooperative versus conflictual industrial relations systems; phenomenon of constitutionalization of power by multinational enterprises; competitive, illiberal and protectionist patterns of state regulation; freedom of association and industrial relations; potential power of transnational collective bargaining; impact of worktime arrangements; role of European Works Councils; exemplary value of the German system of workers’ participation; and global framework agreements. Using a comparative approach (the European Union, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Japan, China, the United States, Brazil, South Africa, India), the book reconstructs the general framework of global industrial relations, considering challenges and future prospects and proposing a new agenda for the state. Contributors include widely renowned professors of labour, commercial and international law, as well as experts from the International Labour Organization and the International Society for Labour and Social Security Law. The debate about industrial relations and the state in our globalized world is of major concern for practitioners in governments, companies, employers’ associations and trade unions, as well as for company managers, entrepreneurs, consultants, judges, human rights lawyers and academics interested in labour, industrial relations and social rights in European and international contexts.

Author: Marie-Ange Moreau
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9789052014869
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 442

View

Book Description
This work presents a stimulating analysis of restructuring by developing a European perspective. The book provides a clear analysis of the capacity of the actors, through different models of industrial relations and corporate governance, to intervene in the process of restructuring.

Author: Christian Welz
Publisher: Kluwer Law International B.V.
ISBN: 9041127445
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 692

View

Book Description
Describes, analyses, and assesses the European social dialogue from a combined theoretical and normative perspective and applies theoretical strands stemming from industrial relations, EC law, and political theory to an understanding and assessment of the genesis, actors, processes, and outcomes of the European social dialogue through 2007

Author: Stamatia Devetzi
Publisher: Kluwer Law International B.V.
ISBN: 9041139850
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages :

View

Book Description
The idea that European welfare states are struggling to meet new social risks during a process of adaptation to a post-industrial setting has been an acknowledged theory in welfare state research for some time. The authors of this remarkable book have chosen to study a powerful indicator of how this trend might affect legal protection and access to justice for individuals: reforms in social security systems as they apply to cases of reduced earnings capacity. While previously the notion of social protection made welfare state inhabitants feel that the risk of loss of income due to physical or psychological hindrances was minimal, this sense of security can no longer be taken for granted. This book presents in-depth analyses, by nine leading scholars in social security law, of recent reforms in the field of incapacity benefits in four European countries: Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Sweden. The authors emphasize how recent reforms in the field of social security have been transformed into legal provisions, how the gate-keeping function is implemented in the legislation of the different countries, and to what extent the reforms have affected the legal position of the individuals concerned. They find that ever-tightening requirements designed to reduce benefit dependency, in combination with policies emphasizing individual responsibilities rather than individual rights, cause increased social risks for exposed groups. Among the specific aspects covered are the following: Measuring the reduction of earnings capacity; rights and obligations attached to reintegration into the labour market; work capability assessment procedures; "rehabilitation chains" with fixed time limits; the real and increased risk of poverty faced by long-term incapacitated persons; constitutional concerns raised by increased dependency on means-tested benefits; conditionality of benefits on work-related activities, participation in training programmes, or active job searching; and sanctions that can be applied if the claimant fails to comply with activation measures. All the country chapters provide thorough surveys of recent reforms, as well as analyses of their different weaknesses and strengths. The European dimension is explored with particular reference to anti-discrimination legislation, health and safety law as well as the Open Method of Coordination. As a systematic analysis of the current reforms relating to reduced earnings capacity, this book will attract a wide readership among lawyers and policymakers for its thorough coverage of the current landscape and the far-reaching implications it suggests. The book's systematic comparative method sheds a bright light on the challenges faced by post-industrial European welfare states, and its crystallization of the legal strategies behind the individual legal measures and reforms deepens our understanding of the institutions of social security and our awareness of the rights and obligations of exposed individuals.