Documents European Industry Federation 25 results

"The first section of this article recalls the most important organisational features of the crossindustry players in the European social dialogue (UNICE, UEAPME, CEEP). Four sectoral employer federations (WEM, Euratex, FIEC, EuroCommerce), selected on grounds of the specific nature of their profile, are also analysed here in view of the increasing importance currently taken on by the sectoral social dialogue. The second part of the article reports on the achievements of the social dialogue as seen by the employers. This dialogue has seen at least two salient events: in 1991, when the cross-industry social partners signed an agreement laying down collective bargaining practices; and more recently when a first voluntary agreement on telework was concluded. This agreement represents for the European employers, as for the trade unions, a radical change in terms of affirming their autonomy in drawing up their work programme and in the way that negotiated solutions are implemented. This has also been a period of consolidation for UNICE as a body representing Europe's employers, while CEEP has embarked on new - territorial - forms of representation. As for UEAPME, a peripheral body in the early 1990s, it has gradually asserted itself as a fully-fledged protagonist in the social dialogue. "

"On 25 April 2006, European chemical and metallurgical industry unions struck a deal with the employers in a range of industries on protecting the health of workers exposed to crystalline silica dust. But the European building workers' union refused to join the negotiations or sign the autonomous agreement. This article looks at the health problems stemming from occupational exposure to silica dust, the contents of the agreement, and why some opted in while others shunned it. It concludes with our analysis of the negotiations set against the background of the current revision of the European Carcinogens Directive."

"In recent years transnational framework agreements (TFAs) at global and European level have emerged as a new tool of regulation within transnational companies. Based on an outline of the origins of TFAs, a quantitative overview of TFAs and an analysis of the strategies pursued by global and European union federations in concluding TFAs, this article discusses whether and how these new tools advance theinternationalisation of industrial relations. The article concludes that a whole range of sector- and company-specific conditions must exist for a TFA to be signed. Where they exist, TFAs give global and European union federations as well as European Works Councils a recognised place in the area of global social regulation, and there are cases in which they have successfully been used to solve local conflicts. Research carried out by the authors suggests that TFAs, if used strategically, have the potential to contribute to the development of international industrial relations at company level and even, in the long term, to facilitate the trade unions' organising activities. However, because ofthe small number of TFAs, currently fewer than 150, their contribution to the internationalisation of industrial relations has so far remained limited."

"This article is based on a comprehensive investigation of the organization and policies of all 12 European industry federations (EIFs) since the beginning of the 1990s. The focus in the present analysis lies on the evolution of the tasks, governance capacity and functions of the EIFs in the areas of company policy and collective bargaining — areas which traditionally belong to the ‘core business' of the national-level trade unions. The empirical analysis demonstrates that, since the early 1990s, the European industry federations have — despite a longstanding lack of resources — proven able to develop from providing forums for the exchange of information to becoming platforms for the definition of binding guidelines and minimum standards. This expansion of their functional competence, which reflects the growing willingness of their national affiliates to be drawn into and committed by transnational coordination processes, has also led to more differentiated organizational and political structures within the European federations. "

"Faced with globalisation on the one hand and advancing European integration on the other, it is almost a platitude to point out that trade unions are challenged, if not compelled, to cooperate with increasing political and organisational speed across national borders. Clearly, in parallel to these processes, international and European associations of trade unions are increasingly attracting academic attention. For research in history or political science – indeed, the social sciences in general – to be at all feasible, the materials – archives and publications alike – generated by international and European trade union organisations must be preserved and made accessible to scholars. Both the Archive of Social Democracy and the Library of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung have eagerly accepted this task in recent years. ..."