Industrial Relations and European Integration : Trans and Supranational Developments and Prospects

The completion of the Single Market and the launching of the European Monetary Union during the 1990s have been accompanied by processes of socio-economic restructuring and major changes in the structure and forms of governance within the dynamic multi-level EU system.

The patterns of reaction and adaptation of national industrial relations systems to these EU - developments are discussed under the heading of "Europeanisation" of national IR-systems.

The Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties have extended - to a certain degree - the scope for legislative and coordinated activities by the EU in the fields of social, labour - market and employment policies.

These basic legal and political decisions have created new avenues for the development of transnational industrial relations and the establishment of new arenas for EU - level interaction, including social dialogues between the social partners. This volume focuses on these newly emerging dimensions of cross-border, transnational and EU level industrial relations.

It covers the existing and developing dimensions of cross-border and EU level industrial relations: European Works Councils; Sectorial Social Dialogues; multi-sectoral Social Dialogue; transnational coordination of collective bargaining; European employment policy and the involvement of the social partners; industrial relations in Central and Eastern Europe and their integration into EU -level structures. The volume aims to present the actual empirical and theoretical state of research in the respective fields and to contribute to both the academic and the political debate on preconditions, dynamics, limits and prospects of an emerging industrial relations system at EU -level.