Study on the representativeness of the social partner organisations in the EU member states and in candidate countries. Construction (original) (raw)

This report has been produced as part of the research into the institutional representativeness of social partners in the European Union, and the situation of trade unions and employers' associations in the candidate countries. The research has been conducted by the Institut des Sciences du Travail (Université catholique de Louvain) at the request of the Employment and Social Affairs Directorate-General of the European Commission (Call for tenders No VC/2004/0547). The issue of the representativeness of European organisations came to the fore in the context of the promotion of social dialogue. In a communication published in 1993 1 , the European Commission set out three criteria determining the access that employers' and workers' organisations had to the consultation process under Article 3 of the Agreement on Social Policy. According to the terms of this communication, the organisation must: (1) be cross-industry or relate to specific sectors or categories and be organised at European level; (2) consist of organisations which are themselves part of the social partners structures of Member States which have the capacity to negotiate agreements, and which are representative of all Member States, as far as possible; (3) have adequate resources to ensure their effective participation in the consultation process. In 1996, it adopted a consultation document 2 that sought to bring together the widest range of views on the measures to be employed in fostering and strengthening European social dialogue. At that point, given that the social partners at European level were, and still are, in the process of structuring themselves and accepting new applications for membership, the European Commission conducted a study on the representativeness of inter-professional and sector organisations in the European Union, and in a new communication 3 in 1998, announced the measures that it proposed to take in order to adapt and promote social dialogue at European Union level. In it, the Commission reaffirmed the three criteria established by the 1993 Communication, permitting European organisations to be recognised as representative for consultation purposes under Article 3 of the Social Policy Agreement. Finally, in 2002, the Commission reaffirmed its support for a strengthening of social dialogue in its communication The European social dialogue, a force for innovation and change 4. In the respect of the three criteria set up by the Commission, as has been pointed out in previous studies 5 , the changes focus on the disappearance of demands relating to the inter-sector nature of organisations and on the fact that they are established in all Member States; the new rules have not been formulated in a very restrictive manner, they only require employers' and workers' organisations to represent "several" Member States. This relaxation of the implementation condition might pose a demarcation problem in the sense that there is no criterion setting out a minimum number of Member States to activate it. Against this background, it is clear that one of the main issues, both for the Commission and for the European social partners, is the enlargement of the European Union and its impact on the process of social dialogue at Community level: The Communication underlines the vital role and the weaknesses of social dialogue in the candidate countries. Much has been achieved over the