Beneath the Surface of Stability: New and Old Modes of Governance in European Industrial Relations

Abstract

Despite surface stability, there are significant changes in the modes of governance regulating the relationship between law and collective bargaining as a source of labour rights, and between norms defined at EU, national, sectoral and company level. This article focuses on the European integration process as a key source of change, first outlining the weaknesses of informal coordination of wage bargaining within and across countries, then discussing the tensions for trade unions created by Economic and Monetary Union. It concludes by examining the diffusion of ‘opening clauses’ in sectoral agreements, the displacement of collective by individual rights promoted by EU law and the reduction in statutory standards of welfare and social rights.