Documents social partners 1 075 results

"The Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) is integrated into the European Semester framework for economic and social policy coordination. It is the cornerstone of the NextGenerationEU package and provides funds to Member States for the implementation of the reforms and investments in their recovery and resilience plans until the end of 2026.

This report looks at the extent and quality of social partner involvement in the European Semester and in the RRF. It examines the question of how the social partners have been involved in the design and implementation of national recovery and resilience plans and how satisfied they have been with this involvement. It also aims to identify general trends in the implementation of the national plans, with a particular focus on measures in the social policy field. The involvement of the social partners came to the fore with the adoption of a new economic governance framework in April 2024, which introduced national medium-term fiscal-structural plans on which the social partners need to be consulted."

"While the Nordic labor market model is renowned for providing ‘good' jobs, we have over the last decade nonetheless seen the rise of platform-mediated gig work, associated with relatively precarious working conditions, in the Nordic countries. Analyzing the emergence and development of platform-mediated gig work in the taxi and food delivery industries in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, this article identifies four trajectories: Evasion, disruption, adaption, and market exit. It shows that gig platforms established themselves in the ‘fringes' of the Nordic labor market model, evaded regulations by classifying workers as self-employed contractors, recruited workers from marginalized segments of the labor force, and provoked regulatory responses that deregulated markets to facilitate their business model. The analysis thus highlights the importance of product market regulations in shaping the development of platform-mediated gig work and emphasizes the segmented nature of the Nordic labor market model."

"This study overviews the impacts of the twin (digital and green) transition on the labour market and the workplace. It explores the role and presents good practice examples of employee involvement, both via social dialogue and collective bargaining and direct co-decision making, in shaping the transition at the macro and micro levels. Finally, the study summarises the main legislative and policy measures adopted at the EU level to foster employee involvement."

"The Council Recommendation on strengthening social dialogue is a positive recognition of the key role of social dialogue in the EU's social market economy. At the same time, episodes of institutional disfavour of the social partners' co-determination role and resistance to robust sectoral collective bargaining warrant a cautious assessment. This article looks at the current state of EU social dialogue, examining its primary dimensions: the involvement of social partners in policymaking and the scope of collective bargaining. It assesses the Council Recommendation, along with other measures adopted during the Von der Leyen presidency, to ascertain their collective contribution in realigning EU social dialogue with the principles of the EU Treaties. Overall, the analysis reveals a nuanced picture, with both positive and challenging aspects. While collective bargaining has been given a new (albeit partial) boost, the same cannot be said for the social partners' participation in EU policymaking. Notably, the Council Recommendation reaffirmed the Court of Justice's decision in the EPSU case, solidifying the Commission's discretionary authority to decide on the legislative implementation of framework agreements, to the detriment of the social partners' regulatory agency. Finally, the article proposes a blueprint for further advancing the EU's aspiration for social dialogue, seeking to reconciling it with the social objectives that, constitutionally, the Union aspires to achieve."

"The EU's social dimension has been strengthened since the mid-2010s. Recent research has shown how Commission entrepreneurship in meta-governance such as the European Pillar of Social Rights and the European Semester turned existing regulation in a more ‘social' direction or led to new regulation strengthening Social Europe. This article asks whether the Commission also stands out as the most important actor in initiatives focused exclusively on working conditions and if the European social partners also in these are secondary reactive actors. Focusing on a recent case where the social partners had a treaty-based right to bargain—the Working Conditions Directive—the article confirms the Commission's dominance and the reactivity of the social partners. The choice not to bargain reduces the social partners to lobbyists attempting to influence other key actors. However, the case also shows the limits to Commission entrepreneurship in that EU member states and the European Parliament were able to influence the outcome in important ways."

"Workplace compliance with existing data protection law appears poor. A variety of reasons explain poor compliance, including lack of legal clarity and under-resourcing of worker organisations (e.g., unions), data protection officers, and data protection authorities. This paper explores what social partners, governments and civil society organisations can do to improve data protection compliance at work, across the following major themes: 1. Existing data protection law provides a range of options for social partners and national governments that have thus far not been fully explored. These options, such as codes of conduct and certification schemes under Arts. 40 and 42 GDPR, could clarify matters that are as yet not fully clear in data protection law, and could improve compliance and reduce the enforcement burden on data protection authorities. 2. Member States should make use of Article 88 GDPR to enact national workplace data protection rules – and social partners and civil society organisations should encourage them to do so. Recent legal developments at EU level have clarified the requirements on national Article 88 laws. This creates an opportunity for Member States to improve legal clarity around application of existing data protection rules to the work context, provide additional substantive protections, and improve compliance and enforcement. 3. Technical experts can assist unions and data protection authorities in auditing algorithmic systems. The complexity and opacity of work-related data processing systems and practices has created a need for technical insight and expertise in assessing whether those systems and practices comply with applicable law. 4. Strategic litigation can help address legal uncertainties and provide financial deterrents against non-compliance. Such litigation has proved fruitful in the area of consumer data processing; its potential should be assessed in the area of work-related data processing as well. This paper elaborates on these themes, providing specific examples and references to relevant literature where appropriate."