Editorial: Trade unions and the European integration project

This is the eleventh Annual European Review of the Industrial Relations Journal. During the course of these 11 years the publication has shifted from reviews of the ‘important developments in key aspects of industrial relations policy and practice in the European Union (EU) member states and at European level’ (Terry and Towers, 1998: 1) to a more thematic approach in which issues pertinent to the European research agenda and policy debate are explored in detail in several interlinked articles. This issue of the Annual European Review explores four topical policy areas associated with European integration—Constitutional Treaty, EU enlargement, European social models, and employee participation in the form of information and consultation provisions—in terms of the impact of recent developments on labour. While the articles differ in perspective and methodological approach, a theme that unites them is the identification of the wide-ranging challenges that face labour in the current economic, social and political environment. Trade unions in Europe have been consistent supporters of EU integration. ‘No’ votes in the French and Dutch referenda on the Treaty establishing a constitution for Europe in 2005, followed by the Irish ‘no’ vote to the Lisbon ‘Reform’ Treaty in June 2008, raise the question: do trade union members support EU integration, and if so, on what terms? Richard Hyman examines the apparent paradox between widespread official trade union support for EU integration and the reluctance of trade union members to ‘sign up’ to the process with similar gusto, even when the proposed EU constitution would incorporate the unions' long-cherished Charter of Fundamental Rights. The final section of the article identifies the policy shifts that trade union organisations might consider if they are to mobilise members more effectively in campaigns for a ‘social Europe’ while countering nationalism and xenophobia. At the core of the debate on EU enlargement was a key tension: could the benefits of an enlarged market be realised without a decline in Western European labour standards? In particular, attention was directed towards the weaknesses in union organisation in the new Member States coupled with the adoption of neoliberal forms of regulation and the impact of the relocation of production facilities from the West to the East (Meardi, 2002; Woolfson, 2007). Underpinning many of these arguments was the assumption that a ‘race to the bottom’ will ensue to the detriment of workers in both the East and the West. Ulrich Jürgens and Martin Krzywdzinski argue that recent developments in the Polish automotive industry suggest that some of the more pessimistic predictions may be overstated. They detect the emergence of a ‘limited high-road model’ as shortages of skilled labour, supplemented by institutional reform, compel companies to change labour market practices. This optimism, however, is tempered by the realisation that companies may shift production still further East as wage costs in new Member States rise and skilled workers migrate to the West. The EU has always comprised Member States that exhibit a range of different employment models, often aggregated within the rubric: variants of the European social model. Integral to the Western European variants of this model is some form of social partnership between labour and management, conducted within a context set by the state. In recent years the social partnerships within national employment systems have been subjected to pressures arising from the neoliberal-oriented policies associated with the Lisbon process and patterns of national reform implemented by right-of-centre national governments. Three articles in this issue of the Annual European Review address different aspects of the threats to these social partnerships and the social standards that are associated with them. Jon Erik Dølvik and Jelle Visser examine the impact of recent judgments made by the European Court of Justice on three fundamental principles of the EU: free movement of services and labour, non-discrimination and equal treatment, and the right of association and industrial action. The authors argue that the tension between EU-level policies enshrined in these judgments and national labour markets with diverse combinations of union–management relations, public policy and legal order is increasingly problematic. They demonstrate that the Viking and Laval judgments play into the hands of the critics of the EU in that the judgments threaten nationally developed social standards. Taking a different tack, Jens Lind shows that the rise of unemployment insurance funds that are independent of trade unions in Denmark, Finland and Sweden has contributed to the recent decline in trade union membership, which, in turn, may impair the capacity of unions in these countries to protect social standards. Furthermore, he argues that the weakening of trade unions through these mechanisms is ‘probably the general idea of the centre-right governments’ in order that the capacity of unions to resist the neoliberal economic policy agenda is reduced. In a third contribution around this theme Jürgen Hoffmann and Rudi Schmidt analyse the warnings for the future of the German trade union movement arising from the recent disputes involving Gewerkschaft der Lokführer (Train Drivers' Union). In pointing out that several of the large-encompassing unions in Germany have recently experienced drives for greater bargaining independence among relatively small and homogeneous groups of workers with strong bargaining positions in order to secure improvements in terms and conditions of employment greater than those awarded to other groups of members, the authors argue that the system of collective bargaining, to date, has remained resilient. The circumstances within which this resilience may not persist are examined, as is the impact of these developments on the governance of the large encompassing unions. On 23 April 2009 a new Directive (2009/38/EC) on European works councils was adopted by the Council of Ministers. This was subsequently signed by the European Parliament on 16 May. These events marked the end of a process set in train in 1999 when the European Commission undertook a preliminary review of the operation of the original European works council Directive as was required under its Article 15. Romuald Jagodziński assesses whether the new Directive constitutes a marked improvement on its predecessor. He shows that the European Trade Union Confederation has been able to secure some improvements in the Directive despite the opposition to change expressed by employers' organisations. As the author acknowledges, however, it is an open question whether the improvements that have been secured are sufficient to improve the coverage of the Directive and the quality of information and consultation that takes place at European works councils. The coverage of the Directive is the subject of the final article written by Michael Whittall, Stefan Lücking and Rainer Trinczek. These authors show that employers have been able to resist the establishment of European works councils by limiting access to information of workforce size, a key criterion in determining whether a company comes within the scope of the Directive. The authors also identify a reluctance among some German employee representatives to establish European works councils based on a perception that national interests can be best defended by acting nationally rather than through European institutions. The limitations of this approach are exposed by reference to the ongoing shifts in the German system of industrial relations and the character of foreign direct investment practised by German companies.

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