Negotiated board-level employee representation in European Companies: Leverage for the institutional power of labour?

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Lafuente Hernández
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
European Law ◽  
European Company ◽  
Employee Representation ◽  
Institutional Power ◽  
Board Level ◽  
First Time

The European Company Directive anchored board-level employee representation in European law for the first time. Rules negotiated between management and worker representatives became the primary source for formulating and designing such representation as an institution of European industrial relations. However, I show that negotiated rules on board-level representation provide limited institutional leverage for European workers. I examine the fragmented and incomplete legal framework applicable, the diverse forms and patterns of negotiated rules and their potential and limitations for supporting workers’ power on boards.

Historians and the U.S. Industrial Relations Regime

1997 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 475-489 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert H. Zieger
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Labor Policy ◽  
Organized Labor ◽  
National Labor Relations Board ◽  
Section 8 ◽  
Employee Representation ◽  
Union Activists ◽  
First Time ◽  
The U.S

During the Clinton administration, for the first time in almost twenty years, the character and direction of the U.S. industrial relations regime has become a matter of serious public debate. Clinton-appointed chair of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) William Gould IV has sought with some success to revivify an agency that in the 1980s had come to seem almost superfluous. The 1994 report entitledThe Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations(Dunlop Commission) stirred debate on the role of unions in the nation's future. Organized labor has sought, with some limited success, to place such critical topics as striker replacement on the national agenda. Meanwhile, congressional conservatives have sponsored measures to curb new organizing strategies such as “salting” anti-union workplaces with union activists. Even more moderate politicians, with support from at least some sections of the labor community, have proposed measures aimed at drastic recasting of the Wagner Act's Section 8(a) (2), which outlawed company unions, so as to permit so called “team” approaches to employee representation. The shake-up in the leadership of the AFL-CIO and the federation's launching of an unprecedented program of political mobilization, which in turn has drawn Republican counterfire reminiscent of the rhetoric of the 80th Congress, increases the possibility that basic matters of federal labor policy may, after a long absence from mainstream public discourse, may return to center stage.

Board-level employee representation in Europe

1998 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 281-296
Author(s):  
Mark Carley
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
European Company ◽  
Employee Representation ◽  
Worker Participation ◽  
Board Level

This article examines briefly the nature of employee representation on company boards, its extent in western Europe and the revival of the European Company Statute which has once again brought this form of indirect worker participation to the fore. The article goes on to outline some of the main findings of recent research by the author into board-level representation in five countries (Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland and the Netherlands), highlighting areas of diversity and of convergence.

scholarly journals Corporate Mobility – The Involvement of Employees

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 74-105
Author(s):  
Joti Roest
Keyword(s):  
European Commission ◽  
Employee Participation ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Negotiation Process ◽  
Employee Representation ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Political Compromise ◽  
Board Level ◽  
Corporate Mobility ◽  
The Eu

In April 2018, the European Commission presented a proposal for a Directive amending Directive 2017/1132 as regards cross-border conversions, mergers and divisions. This article discusses the proposed provisions to protect the interests of employees in a cross-border operation. Their position would be strengthened since employee representatives are granted information and consultation rights. As to the protection of existing board level employee representation rights, the Proposal follows the EU legal framework on the involvement of employees, consisting of a negotiation process between representatives of the employees and the management. As Standard Rules apply if no agreement can be reached, negotiations take place with the law as a sentinel. Practice has shown that this complicated legal framework is effective in protecting existing employee participation rights. The Proposal shows that in 2019, this carefully vetted political compromise leaves EU legislators little room to manoeuvre by simplifying the framework or strengthening the position of employees.

scholarly journals Workplace Employee Representation and Industrial Relations Performance: New Evidence from the 2013 European Company Survey

2019 ◽  
Vol 239 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-154
Author(s):  
John T. Addison ◽  
Paulino Teixeira
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Employee Motivation ◽  
Staff Retention ◽  
Sickness Absenteeism ◽  
Strike Activity ◽  
European Company ◽  
Employee Representation ◽  
Differential Outcomes ◽  
Company Survey ◽  
Works Council

Abstract Using cross-country data from the European Company Survey, we investigate the relationship between workplace employee representation and management perceptions of the climate of industrial relations, sickness/absenteeism, employee motivation, and staff retention. For a considerably reduced subset of the data, a fifth indicator – strike activity – is also considered alongside the other behavioral outcomes. From one perspective, the expression of collective voice through works council-type entities may be construed as largely beneficial, especially when compared with their counterpart union agencies either operating alone or in a dominant position. However, if heightened distributional struggles explain these differential outcomes in workplace employee representation, it should not go unremarked that the influence of formal collective bargaining is seemingly positive.

Why no board-level employee representation in Italy? Actor preferences and political ideologies

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salvo Leonardi ◽  
Donata Gottardi
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Employee Representation ◽  
Political Ideologies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Real Change ◽  
Legislative Proposals ◽  
History Of ◽  
National Models ◽  
Board Level

Unlike most continental EU countries, Italy lacks any system of board-level employee representation, despite a specific article in the 1948 Constitution. Hence, involvement and participation remain limited to the sphere of contractually established information and consultation rights, primarily because of the reluctance of the social partners to establish reciprocal responsibilities by law. Employers feared that this would limit their property rights and prerogatives, unions that it would restrict their own autonomy. After a long history of confrontational industrial relations, there has been a shift towards participatory approaches, but in a distinctive way. We present an overview of the historical background and the cultures and practices of the main actors, the Italian approach to industrial democracy, the influence of other national models and the current debates and legislative proposals. We conclude by assessing the opportunities for and obstacles to real change in the future.

Legal Expertise: A Critical Resource for Trade Unionists? Insights into the Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cécile Guillaume
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Institutional Power ◽  
Collective Redress ◽  
Critical Resource ◽  
The Law ◽  
Legal Expertise

Abstract Based on in-depth qualitative research conducted in one of the major French trade unions (the CFDT), this article explores to what extent and under what conditions trade unions adopt different legal practices to further their members’ interests. In particular, it investigates how ‘legal framing’ has taken an increasingly pervasive place in trade union work, in increasingly decentralised industrial relations contexts, such as France. This article therefore argues that the use of the law has become a multifaceted and embedded repertoire of action for the CFDT in its attempt to consolidate its institutional power through various strategies, including collective redress and the use of legal expertise in collective bargaining and representation work.

Board-level employee representation in the Visegrád countries

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 261-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrzej Zybała
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
National Level ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Class ◽  
Employee Representation ◽  
Policy Paradigm ◽  
Labour Participation ◽  
Board Level ◽  
Practical Agenda ◽  
Visegrád Countries

This article addresses the complexity of trade-union approaches to board-level employee representation in the Visegrád countries, and the barriers it faces in particular national settings. Trade unionists in these countries accept the relevance of such employee representation in theory, but their practical agenda covers other issues which they perceive as more important as they struggle to survive at many levels of activity, and face growing existential uncertainty and risk. Unions also lack capacity to overcome obstacles such as reluctance on the part of the political class and managerial hostility to board-level representation; they cannot exert influence on major policy decisions at national level. They are operating in a more and more difficult environment, reflecting not merely a declining membership base, but also the recent economic crisis that failed to change the economic policy paradigm in the Visegrád countries: policies there still rely on a neoliberal approach and hence are not conducive to labour participation. What can still be seen as the predominant model is the traditional one of the market economy in which rights of ownership reign supreme.

scholarly journals NH<sub>3</sub>-promoted hydrolysis of NO<sub>2</sub> induces explosive growth in HONO

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wanyun Xu ◽  
Ye Kuang ◽  
Chunsheng Zhao ◽  
Jiangchuan Tao ◽  
Gang Zhao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North China Plain ◽  
North China ◽  
Ph Value ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Field Measurements ◽  
Oh Radicals ◽  
The North ◽  
The North China Plain ◽  
First Time ◽  
Hydrolysis Of

Abstract. The study of atmospheric nitrous acid (HONO), which is the primary source of OH radicals, is crucial to atmospheric photochemistry and heterogeneous chemical processes. The heterogeneous NO2 chemistry under haze conditions was pointed out to be one of the missing sources of HONO on the North China Plain, producing sulfate and nitrate in the process. However, controversy exists between various proposed mechanisms, mainly debating on whether SO2 directly takes part in the HONO production process and what roles NH3 and the pH value play in it. In this paper, never before seen explosive HONO production (maximum rate: 16 ppb/hour) was reported and evidence was found for the first time in field measurements during fog episodes (usually with pH > 5) and haze episodes under high relative humidity (usually with pH 

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