Social Partnership in the European Union Edited by Hugh Compston and Justin Greenwood compston/94985/crc 4/4/01 8:46 am Page 1 Social Partnership in the European Union compston/94985/crc 4/4/01 8:46 am Page 2 Also by Hugh Compston THE NEW POLITICS OF UNEMPLOYMENT: Radical Policy Initiatives in Western Europe (editor) Also by Justin Greenwood COLLECTIVE ACTION IN THE EUROPEAN UNION: Interests and the New Politics of Associability (editor with Mark Aspinwall) EUROPEAN CASEBOOK ON BUSINESS ALLIANCES (editor) ORGANISED INTERESTS AND THE NEW GLOBAL ORDER (editor with Henry Jacek) ORGANISED INTERESTS AND THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY (editor with Jurgen Grote and Karsten Ronit) REPRESENTING INTERESTS IN THE EUROPEAN UNION compston/94985/crc 4/4/01 8:46 am Page 3 Social Partnership in the European Union Edited by Hugh Compston Lecturer in European Politics Cardiff University and Justin Greenwood Jean Monnet Professor of European Public Policy Robert Gordon University Aberdeen compston/94985/crc 4/4/01 8:46 am Page 4 Selection, editorial matter and Chapter 6 © Hugh Compston and Justin Greenwood 2001 Introduction and Chapter 4 © Hugh Compston 2001 Chapter 3 © Ann Branch and Justin Greenwood 2001 Remaining chapters © Palgrave Publishers Ltd 2001 All rights reserved. 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Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE is the new global academic imprint of St. Martin’s Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd). ISBN 0–333–77520–1 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Social partnership in the European Union / edited by Hugh Compston, Justin Greenwood. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–333–77520–1 1. European Union. 2. Corporate state. 3. Functional representation. 4. Economic and Monetary Union. I. Compston, Hugh, 1955– II. Greenwood, Justin. JN30 .S63 2000 306'.094—dc21 00–066553 10987654321 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 Printed in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire Contents List of Tables vi Acknowledgements vii Notes on the Contributors viii Introduction 1 Hugh Compston 1 ETUC and European Social Partnership: a Third 11 Turning-Point? Jon Erik Dølvik and Jelle Visser 2 European Employers: Social Partners? 41 Ann Branch and Justin Greenwood 3 The Impact of the Social Dialogue Procedure on the 71 Powers of European Union Institutions Daniela Obradovic 4 The Intergovernmental Dimension of EU Social 98 Partnership Hugh Compston 5 The European Sectoral Social Dialogue 129 Tina Weber 6 Social Partnership in the European Union 154 Hugh Compston and Justin Greenwood Appendix 1: the Legal Basis of the Social Partnership 170 Procedure in the Treaty of Amsterdam Appendix 2: the 1996 Parental Leave Directive 172 Appendix 3: the 1997 Part-time Work Directive 179 Appendix 4: the 1999 Fixed-Term Work Directive 187 Notes 195 References 201 Index 214 v List of Tables 1.1 ETUC Definitions of Social Partnership 35 1.2 ETUC Rationales for European Social Partnership 38 2.1 Employer Use of Terms Relating to Social Partnership 47 2.2 Employer Arguments in Relation to Social Partnership 49 5.1 European Sectoral Social Dialogue: Sectors with Joint Committees 133 5.2 European Sectoral Social Dialogue: Sectors with Informal Working Groups 136 5.3 Key Terms in the European Sectoral Dialogue 142 5.4 European Sectoral Social Dialogue: Nature of Employer Group Participation 143 5.5 Arguments For and Against European Sectoral Social Partnership and Social Dialogue 145 vi Acknowledgements We would like to express our appreciation of the funding from the European Commission DG Employment and Social Affairs and Cardiff University that enabled us to carry out this research. We would like in particular to thank Daniel Vaughan-Whitehead of Directorate D for his advice and assistance. We would also like to thank the administrative staff at Cardiff University whose assistance was vital, especially Bridget Bradley, Graham Edwards, Laura James, Mike Joynson and Helen Muir. The opportunity to discuss the dynamics of social partnership with Gerda Falkner was also valuable. Thanks are also due to those who made time to be interviewed for this project. Most of all, however, we would like to thank the contribu- tors to this study who worked with us throughout and produced their contributions on time. HUGH COMPSTON JUSTIN GREENWOOD vii Notes on the Contributors Ann Branch is writing a DPhil thesis on European integration theory and the European social dialogue at Nuffield College, Oxford. Pub- lications include ‘Trapped in the Supranational–Intergovernmental Dichotomy: a Response to Stone, Sweet and Sandholtz’ (with Jakob C. Ohrgaard), Journal of European Public Policy, vol. 6/1 (1999); ‘The Impact of the EU on National Trade Unions’, in R. Balme, D. Chabanet and V. Wright (eds), Collective Action in Europe (forthcoming); and ‘The European Union and National Trade Unions: Living Up to Expectations or Better than Nothing?’, La lettre de la Maison française d’Oxford, Action collective, représentation des intérêts et espace public en Europe (forthcoming). Hugh Compston teaches politics in the School of European Studies, Cardiff University, and researches in the area of comparative public policy and political economy. Among recent publications are The New Politics of Unemployment: Radical Policy Initiatives in Western Europe (editor, 1996); ‘Union Power, Policy-Making and Un- employment in Western Europe, 1972–1993’, Comparative Political Studies (December 1997); and ‘The End of Policy Concertation? Western Europe since the Single European Act’, Journal of European Public Policy, vol. 5/4 (1998). Jon Erik Dølvik is a researcher at the Institute for Applied Social Science (Fafo), which is affiliated to the University of Oslo. His current area of research is comparative labour relations and em- ployment policies in the context of globalisation and regionalisation. Recent publications include ‘Redrawing Boundaries of Solidarity? ETUC, Social Dialogue and the Europeanisation of Trade Unionism in the 1990s’, doctoral dissertation (1997), ARENA-report 5/97/Fafo- report 238; Making Solidarity Work? The Norwegian Labour Market Model in Transition (ed. with A.H. Steen, 1997); An Emerging Island? ETUC, Social Dialogue and the Europeanisation of Trade Unions in the 1990s (1999); and ‘EMU: Re-nationalization and Europeaniza- tion of Industrial Relations – Two Sides of the Same Coin?’, in A. Martin and G. Ross (eds), EMU and the European Model of Society (forthcoming). viii Notes on the Contributors ix Justin Greenwood is Jean Monnet Professor of European Public Policy at the Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen. His career re- search specialism is ‘interest representation in the European Union’. Books include Representing Interests in the European Union (1997), Organised Interests and the New Global Order (ed. with Henry Jacek, 1999), Collective Action in the European Union: Interests and the New Politics of Associability (ed. with Mark Aspinwall, 1997), European Casebook on Business Alliances (ed., 1995); and Organised Interests and the European Community (ed. with Jurgen Grote and Karsten Ronit, 1992). He has also published articles in journals such as Political Studies, Parliamentary Affairs, the Journal of Common Market Studies, West European Politics, the International Journal of Public Administra- tion, and the European Journal of Political Research, and is the editor of Current Politics and Economics of Europe, the only EU studies jour- nal to be published in the United States. His work has been funded, inter alia, by the European Community/Union, the British Acad- emy, the Carnegie Foundation, and firms and business associations, and he currently leads the International Political Science Associ- ation (IPSA) Research Committee on Politics and Business, and the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) Standing Group on European Level Interest Representation. Daniela Obradovic teaches in the Faculties of International Law and Political Science at the University of Amsterdam. Her main publications deal with European institutional law and the role of interest groups in the formation, implementation and enforcement of European Union policies. Jelle Visser is professor of empirical sociology and chair of sociol- ogy of labour and organisation at the University of Amsterdam, where he directs the Centre for Research on European Societies and Industrial Relations (CESAR). He is also associated with the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne, Germany,