Social Dialogue on Green Mobility in Belgian Enterprises: Interpreting the Results from a Social Movement Perspective

Belgian trade unions are known for their ‘social movement unionism’. Within this framework they have been picking up issues like environmental challenges and sustainable development. They obtained also legal information and consultation rights on these matters at enterprise level. Among others, the works council and health&safety committees obtained consultation rights on (sustainable) mobility issues.

The paper present empirical results of 50 in-dept cases on ‘how’ and ‘when’ these issues of green mobility are dealt with in Belgian workplace social dialogue. The paper tackles the ‘how’-question by  clustering first the cases in 5 types on form and content of social dialogue on green mobility. In a second part the paper investigates where and when these configurations can be distinguished. A conceptual model of ‘workplace industrial relations’ is used for this purpose that takes into account context, actor and process characteristics. A QCA mixed-method is adopted for this interpretation of the case data.

The results show that a specific mix of joint cultural framing and specific knowledge resources determe if a social dialogue between trade unions and management develops on green mobility and not only the creation of a political opportunity structure by assigned legal powers on the matter to the information&consultation body.