scholarly journals Industrial Relations and Institutional Changes in Sweden: a Response to European Integration

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Kelvin Bannan
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
National Level ◽  
Market Model ◽  
Collective Agreement ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Swedish Model ◽  
Extension Model ◽  
European Court ◽  
The Social

<p>Many observers have identified Europeanization as undermining the foundation of national systems of capitalisms. This paper addresses a national level response. The approach taken assesses the positions (for change) by actors within the Swedish Model toward the 'Laval' European Court of Justice ruling (C-341/05). Through the analysis of position documents and semi-structured interviews with representatives from the social partners, this paper identifies key pressures within the Swedish labour market model in response to the Court ruling. The extension model (autonomous collective agreement model) proved to be the preferred option for the Swedish partners. Concurrently, this model results in the least amount of change to Swedish industrial relations. While a substantial degree of support was identified for 'change', specifically the legislated minimum wage option, institutional structures were identified that restricted such positions from reaching official channels of influence. This case provides evidence of institutional continuity and is an example of national industrial relations proving robust against the forces of European integration.</p>

scholarly journals Industrial Relations and Institutional Changes in Sweden: a Response to European Integration

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Kelvin Bannan
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
National Level ◽  
Market Model ◽  
Collective Agreement ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Swedish Model ◽  
Extension Model ◽  
European Court ◽  
The Social

<p>Many observers have identified Europeanization as undermining the foundation of national systems of capitalisms. This paper addresses a national level response. The approach taken assesses the positions (for change) by actors within the Swedish Model toward the 'Laval' European Court of Justice ruling (C-341/05). Through the analysis of position documents and semi-structured interviews with representatives from the social partners, this paper identifies key pressures within the Swedish labour market model in response to the Court ruling. The extension model (autonomous collective agreement model) proved to be the preferred option for the Swedish partners. Concurrently, this model results in the least amount of change to Swedish industrial relations. While a substantial degree of support was identified for 'change', specifically the legislated minimum wage option, institutional structures were identified that restricted such positions from reaching official channels of influence. This case provides evidence of institutional continuity and is an example of national industrial relations proving robust against the forces of European integration.</p>

The politics of European integration: A European labour movement in the making?

2002 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 39-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham Taylor ◽  
Andy Mathers
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
National Level ◽  
European Level ◽  
Member States ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
The Social ◽  
National Boundaries

This paper explores the logical and historical determinants of European integration and reflects on the potential and dangers this presents for labour movement renewal. Through the principle of ‘subsidiarity’ a regulatory gap has been established between political mobilisation at the national level and neo-liberal regulation at the European level. The historical determination of this form is traced through an exploration of the social struggles against neo-liberalism that have developed within member states and transnational mobilizations that bridge this regulatory gap by linking resistance across national boundaries.

Workers’ representation and labour conflict at company level

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-66
Author(s):  
Vincenzo Pietrogiovanni ◽  
Andrea Iossa
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Collective Agreement ◽  
Swedish Model ◽  
Union Representation ◽  
Recent Trends ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Autonomous Development

This Article critically evaluates the recent trends in Italian industrial relations in order to highlight the clash between Italian constitutional principles and the autonomous development of self-regulation as for the relationship between representation, conflict and collective agreement. By conducting a comparative analysis with the Swedish model, the article argues that the constitutional principles of the Italian system of industrial relations conceive the collective agreement as a contingent element in the relationship between representation and conflict, whereas the Fiat case (2010) and the latest interconfederal agreements (2013 and 2014) place it at the centre of such a relationship. The Swedish model, instead, regards the collective agreement as a central mechanism through which the signatory trade union trades social peace with privileged rights of representation in the workplace. Through the prism of the Swedish model, the article suggests that Italian industrial relations are turning towards a restrictive system centred on the collective agreement, in which however the obligation of social peace is not exchanged with any strengthening of union representation in the workplace.

European social dialogue: an instrument in the Europeanisation of industrial relations

2003 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Kirton-Darling ◽  
Stefan Clauwaert
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Social Dialogue ◽  
Future Developments ◽  
European Institutions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Partners ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Cross

This article offers a historical and analytical overview of the development of the European social dialogue at the cross-sectoral and sectoral levels, and examines the potential of European social dialogue. In spite of the substantial institutional and cultural differences between the national industrial relations systems, the national social partners are increasingly facing the common challenges of globalisation and European integration. The European social dialogue has emerged as one of the potential instruments at the disposal of the social partners and European institutions for facing these common challenges. This article presents an evaluation of the development of European social dialogue to date and raises questions about future developments.

Social sciences and European society in the making

2005 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 327-335
Author(s):  
ALESSANDRO CAVALLI
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Legal Aspects ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
European Constitution ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Nation States ◽  
European Court ◽  
The Social ◽  
European Regulations

The study of the European integration process offers a serious challenge for the social sciences. It is easy to understand why the disciplines of law, economics, and political science have made the most relevant contributions to the study of the Europeanization of our societies. From the treaty creating the European Coal and Steel Community in May 1951 to the establishment a few years later of Euratom, from the treaty of Rome to the European Economic Community (EEC), from the European Single Act to the Maastricht treaty and the Monetary Union, from the treaties of Amsterdam and Nice to the recent Convention that resulted in the proposal for a European Constitution, all of these historical events during the second half of the twentieth century mark a process of transferring sovereignty rights from nation-states to European institutions. The Council, the Commission, the Parliament, and the European Court of Justice are substantial innovations from the point of view of public law. They are not ‘state institutions’, nor are they intergovernmental agencies. In many domains, the influence of European regulations on national legislation is impressive. The amount of literature in all languages on the legal aspects of European integration is astonishing.

Free Movement of Services versus National Labour Law and Industrial Relations Systems: Understanding the Laval Case from a Swedish and Nordic Perspective

2008 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 493-523 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mia Rönnmar
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Eu Enlargement ◽  
European Court Of Justice ◽  
Free Movement ◽  
Labour Law ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
European Court ◽  
Free Movement Of Persons ◽  
The Eu

European integration, the internal market and free movement of persons and services are important aspects of EC labour law and EU industrial relations. As a result of EU enlargement and the emphasis on free movement within the EU, the problems of posting of workers, low-wage competition and social dumping are high on the agenda. This is illustrated by the epochal and much-debated Laval and Viking cases from the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

The European Court of Justice and “Total Market” Thinking

2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (10) ◽  
pp. 2005-2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emilios Christodoulidis
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
European Court Of Justice ◽  
The European Union ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
Regulatory Policies ◽  
Swedish Model ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
European Court

The controversial decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in the quartet of cases that are grouped under its “Laval/Viking jurisprudence” are rapidly becoming entrenched as a key dimension of the European Union (EU) constitutional imaginary. This comes with a certain “immunization” against challenge as they become much harder to treat as mistakes. In their elevated status they have aligned stances and expectational structures. They have also had significant impact on the “Nordic” models; Charles Woolfson shows, for example, how subsequent to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) decision, the rulings of the Swedish Labour court has “seem[ed] to confirm that the ‘Swedish model' has, at the very least, been significantly redefined, if not fundamentally altered, in the light of Laval.” While EU lawyers largely sit it out in relative passivity, wondering what the fuss is really about, labor lawyers have been vocal in their disagreement. But the latter's voices in this debate—if we can call it such—have in turn been drowned out by the ululations of lawyers and theorists from the “new,” post-2004, EU countries loudly proclaiming a victory against the arrogance of the older Member States. If the workers of the Baltic states want to sell their labor—and their life—cheap, goes the “inclusionary” argument, why should they be constrained from doing so under protectionist regulatory policies that undercut their competitive advantage by those unwilling to rein in the exclusionary structures of social protection that limit access and opportunity for their workforce to join the Continent-wide economy? The massive impact that the decisions have had on the regulation of industrial relations in the countries of the European Union and on the position of the trade unions has hardly been ameliorated by the debacle that was the rapid withdrawal of the proposed Monti II Regulation in the face of resistance to it by national parliaments.

The Swedish Model of Industrial Relations

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Torsten Svensson
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Peak Level ◽  
Wage Bargaining ◽  
Market Model ◽  
Labor Market Institutions ◽  
Market Institutions ◽  
The Past ◽  
Swedish Model ◽  
Wage Coordination

This chapter examines Sweden’s labor market organizations and labor market institutions, showing what is distinctive about Sweden’s current labor market model, and how it differs from the highly centralized model of the past. The first section deals with the classical “Swedish model,” the challenges to this model in the 1980s and 1990s, and the manner in which it has been reformed. A section on the employer organizations and a section on the unions are followed by a section that analyzes contemporary industrial relations. The ultimate break with centralization came in 1990 when the employers’ peak-level organization openly abdicated as a corporatist negotiating partner. However, the decentralization and movement toward an uncoordinated labor market in the 1990s became an interregnum between two different means of wage coordination. Basically, there has been a transition from central wage bargaining to coordination through pattern bargaining.

scholarly journals Social Theory and European Transformation: Is there a European Society?

1998 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Delanty
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
National Level ◽  
Institution Building ◽  
National Society ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cultural Cohesion ◽  
Supranational Level

The concept ‘society’ in social theory has generally presupposed notions of cultural cohesion and social integration associated with national societies and the framework of modernity. This older idea of the social emerged out of the experience with institution-building associated with the rise of the nation-state and the transition from ‘tradition’ to ‘modernity’. The question whether European integration can articulate a conception of the social independent of national society is a major challenge for social theory. This paper explores changing conceptions of the social in recent social theory and applies some of these ideas to European integration. It is argued that we need to rethink our notion of society: instead of a ‘transition’ the kind of social change we are experiencing today is that of social ‘transformation’, a concept which suggests less the ‘end of the social’ than an emerging ‘network’ society based on knowledge. Thus instead of trying to reproduce on the supranational level a model that has reached its limits on the national level, European integration needs to give expression to the emerging power of knowledge. Rejecting the notion of the demos and the ethnos as inappropriate to European integration, the case is made for a discursive understanding of democracy and knowedge.

The Vaxholm case from a Swedish and European perspective

2006 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerstin Ahlberg ◽  
Niklas Bruun ◽  
Jonas Malmberg
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Case Law ◽  
European Court Of Justice ◽  
Collective Agreement ◽  
Legal Interpretation ◽  
European Law ◽  
Building Site ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
Industrial Action ◽  
European Court

The Vaxholm (or Laval) case concerns an industrial action undertaken on a building site in Vaxholm, a town not far from Stockholm, Sweden. The work was performed by Latvian workers employed by a Latvian company. In order to put pressure on the company to conclude a collective agreement the Swedish Building workers' union initiated industrial action, including a ban on all building and installation. This blockade was supported by the Electricians' Union through a secondary action. Both the primary and the secondary actions were lawful under Swedish law. The case raises the question whether the industrial action or Swedish law is contrary to Community law on the free movement of services or the Posted Workers Directive. The case is now pending before the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The aim of this article is to present the background and context of the Vaxholm case for a non-Swedish audience and to outline the main issues of legal interpretation at stake, as well as their background in the Swedish industrial relations system and in Swedish and European law. The authors also point to some probable solutions in the light of earlier case-law of the ECJ.

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