Participation and Transnational Restructuring Agreements

The literature about the “Europeanization” and the “internationalization” of industrial relations has increasingly been dealing in recent years with transnational framework or company agreements and the European Commission database on transnational company agreements currently contains over 200 such texts. Do these new tools of transnational industrial relations at the company level also constitute a new form of regulation? What kind of employee participation do they entail? How have they changed with the crisis? First different levels and actors of transnational industrial relations will be identified, among which multinational firms, Global Union Federations, European Industry Federations, and/or European Works Councils. Then existing transnational forms of regulation will be analyzed with particular attention to restructuring and the crises. This communication is based on ongoing field work about transnational framework agreements with a focus on restructuring. The conclusion will reconsider the notion of “industrial democracy” and outline the evolution of the notion of “participation” as applied to the transnational level.

References:

2012 : Isabel da Costa et Udo Rehfeldt (coordonnateurs), numéro spécial "La participation des salariés au niveau européen : comités d’entreprise européens, société européenne, syndicats européens" de La Revue de l'IRES n°71, 2011/4. http://www.ires-fr.org/publications/la-revue-de-lires/493-revue-de-lires-nd71-numero-special-la-participation-des-salaries-au-niveau-europeen-comites-dentreprise-europeens-societe-europeenne-syndicats-europeens-coordonne-par-isabel-da-costa-et-udo-rehfeldt

2012 : da Costa Isabel, Valeria Pulignano, Udo Rehfeldt and Volker Telljohann, “Transnational Negotiations and the Europeanization of Industrial Relations: Potentials and Obstacles” in : European Journal of Industrial Relations, June 2012 vol. 18 no. 2, p.123-137.

2011: da Costa Isabel, Rehfeldt Udo, ‘Transnational Restructuring Agreements : General Overview and Specific Evidence from the European Automobile Sector’, in Konstantinos Papadakis. (ed.), Shaping Global Industrial Relations: The Impact of International Framework Agreements .Geneva: International Labour Office/Palgrave Macmillan, collection: Advances in Labour Studies: 143-163.