Trade unions, management and European works councils: Opening Pandora's box?

Abstract

This paper makes a contribution to the ongoing debate on transnational worker representation in light of the European Works Council (EWC) directive. Three issues in particular are highlighted which we believe contribute to the organizational and political developments of EWCs. First, we present some variables which have stimulated worker representatives to 'network' with each other across national boundaries prior and parallel to the EWC directive. Looking at factors other than the EWC directive can give us a greater appreciation of the likely interactive nature of employee representatives, trade unions and management in the new forums. Second, and in particular, we explore whether certain elements of existing national industrial relations systems either stimulate or limit interest by employee representatives in forming and aligning themselves to transnational forums. Given that the German and British industrial relations systems are so different, and that the divergence between them is seen as an impediment to EU attempts to promote the growth of an integrated European system (Crouch, 1993), the research compares developments in these two countries. Third, the paper explains how management is responding to developments in transnational worker representative forums within the context of divergent industrial relations systems. We highlight in particular the way management is able to utilize institutional aspects of national systems in conditioning transnational worker representation in the newly structured forums. Such responses, we argue, raise questions regarding our understanding of convergence and divergence in industrial relations.