Documents Lecher, Wolfgang 25 results

"The article starts by emphasising the differences between the Central and East European countries in terms of their labour relations traditions, providing a brief characterisation for four CEECs, with Slovenia identified as the country in which the participatory tradition is strongest. Subsequent sections identify similarities and differences in terms of collective labour law and labour relations at enterprise and supra-enterprise level. At enterprise level the article provides examples of co-operative relations between trade unions and works councils (Slovenia), a dual system of interest representation imposed by government without trade union support (Hungary), political duplication of representation structures (Poland), and the tendency to retain former representation structures (Czech Republic). Similar differences emerge with respect to tripartism, which remains underdeveloped in all countries, again with the exception of Slovenia. The relative weakness of the social partners, and in particular their fragmentation, are shown to be a problem for the candidate countries on their path towards EU accession. Here the European social partners, in particular the ETUC and UNICE, and also European works councils in firms with subsidiaries in eastern Europe should do more to promote social dialogue in the CEECs."

"Negotiated Europeanisation is the final study in a three-volume series on European Works Councils by an international research group. The first two studies have already been published by Ashgate. The current study is rooted in an analysis of the establishment of EWCs under Articles 5 and 6 of the 1994 EWC Directive. This is now a mandatory procedure and completes the development of EWCs from bodies set up purely by voluntary negotiation to bodies set up within a binding statutory procedure.
The study is based on cases of five (named) major European firms in a variety of industrial sectors. As well as a detailed consideration of how negotiations using the mandatory procedure took place, there are more general reflections on the 'quality' of the actors involved, the negotiating process and the outcomes. As well as their analytical value, these observations offer a number of practical pointers on the establishment of information and consultation arrangements internationally.
The study also asks why EWCs have been set up in only one third of eligible companies and why the pace of establishing new EWCs slowed after the mandatory procedure came into force in September 1996. This part of the study is based upon a pan-European questionnaire and offers the first empirical findings on this issue.
European Works Councils exemplify a new mode of regulation at the European level, not only within industrial relations but in the field of European integration more widely conceived – Europe as a multi-level system of governance within a framework of devolved subsidiarity.
This study is of both academic and practical interest, particularly in view of the continuing process of change in this area, exemplified in new Directives on the European Company Statute and information and consultation at national level."