Social dialogue in the public service in selected countries of the European Union

Abstract

Analysis of the regulation and practice of social dialogue in the public
service at the European Union (EU) level and within a group of EU countries, with a focus on
the forms of social dialogue other than collective bargaining and their evolution after the onset
of the 2008 economic crisis.

Full text

Working Paper No. 318
Sectoral
Policies
Department
Social dialogue
in the public service
in selected countries
of the European Union

WP 318
Social dialogue in the public service in
selected countries of the European Union
Lorenzo Bordogna
International Labour Office
Geneva
Working papers are preliminary documents circulated to stimulate
discussion and obtain comments

ii
Copyright © International Labour Organization 2018
First published 2018
Publications of the International Labour Office enjoy copyright under Protocol 2 of the Universal Copyright
Convention. Nevertheless, short excerpts from them may be reproduced without authorization, on condition that
the source is indicated. For rights of reproduction or translation, application should be made to ILO Publications
(Rights and Licensing), International Labour Office, CH-1211 Geneva 22, Switzerland, or by email:
rights@ilo.org. The International Labour Office welcomes such applications.
Libraries, institutions and other users registered with a reproduction rights organization may make copies in
accordance with the licences issued to them for this purpose. Visit www.ifrro.org to find the reproduction rights
organization in your country.
ILO Cataloguing in Publication Data
Social dialogue in the public service in selected countries of the European Union / International Labour Office,
Sectoral Policies Department. - Geneva: ILO, 2018.
(SECTOR working paper ; No. 318)
ISBN: 978-92-2-030825-7 (web pdf)
International Labour Office. Sectoral Policies Dept.
The designations employed in ILO publications, which are in conformity with United Nations practice, and the
presentation of material therein do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the
International Labour Office concerning the legal status of any country, area or territory or of its authorities, or
concerning the delimitation of its frontiers.
The responsibility for opinions expressed in signed articles, studies and other contributions rests solely with
their authors, and publication does not constitute an endorsement by the International Labour Office of the
opinions expressed in them.
Reference to names of firms and commercial products and processes does not imply their endorsement by the
International Labour Office, and any failure to mention a particular firm, commercial product or process is not a
sign of disapproval.
ILO publications and digital products can be obtained through major booksellers and digital distribution
platforms, or ordered directly from ilo@turpin-distribution.com. For more information, visit our website:
www.ilo.org/publns or contact ilopubs@ilo.org.

iii
Preface
Social dialogue, including collective bargaining, is one of the core enabling principles
of the ILO’s decent work agenda. It should form part and parcel of the regulation of labour
relations in the public sector. Dialogue and bargaining can and should be key contributors
to public sector efficiency, performance and equity. However, because competing interests
can be involved, neither dialogue nor collective bargaining is conflict-free. If governments
and public sector unions are to be encouraged to bring these dynamics into public sector
work, where industrial peace carries a special premium in the public mind, then
considerations of conflict management must be uppermost. This is more relevant than ever
in times of fiscal consolidation and austerity measures.
The Manual on Collective Bargaining and Dispute Resolution in the Public Service
(2011) sought to offer a compilation of good practices in dispute prevention and dispute
resolution in public services. Its intention was to showcase an array of mechanisms, mostly
interconnected, that governments and social partners around the world have developed to
minimize and resolve disputes – and especially interest disputes in collective bargaining –
in the public services. The manual has been received warmly among ILO constituents and
beyond, and it has been translated into 10 languages so far.
The Global Dialogue Forum on Challenges to Collective Bargaining in the Public
Service, held in Geneva on 2-4 April 2014, concluded with a recommendation that the
Office carry out research on the diversity of practices in social dialogue, in particular
collective bargaining, in different countries. Such research should provide countries with
knowledge to improve their own practices, enable improved responses to situations of
crisis and to address obstacles in the ratification of Conventions Nos. 151 and 154.
Building upon this foundation and in celebration of the 40th anniversary of
Convention No. 151, this paper, drafted by Professor Lorenzo Bordogna of the University
of Milan, presents a compilation of practices in collective agreements in the public service
in the European Union. This selection shows how the principles of Convention No. 151
have been implemented through legislation and/or collective bargaining. I trust that these
pages will contribute to a constructive engagement of worker organizations and
government employers in this regard.
Alette van Leur
Director
Sectoral Policies Department

iv
Contents
Preface ........................................................................................................................................... iii
List of Acronyms ............................................................................................................................. v
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 1
2. Social dialogue actors in the civil service: The government and the civil servants ..................... 4
3. Forms of social dialogue in the civil service: Institutions and mechanisms at EU level ............. 8
4. Forms of social dialogue in the civil service: Institutions and mechanisms at national level .... 16
5. Conclusions ................................................................................................................................ 24
Bibliography and references .......................................................................................................... 26

v
List of Acronyms
ARAN Italian Agency for the Negotiating Representation of the Public Administration
BusinessEurope Confederation of European Business
CEE Central and Eastern Europe
CEEP European Centre of Employers and Enterprises providing Public Services
CEMR Council of European Municipalities and Regions
CESI European Confederation of Independent Trade Unions
CGA Central Government Administration
CGIL Italian General Confederation of Labour
CISL Italian Confederation of Trade Unions
EMU European Monetary Union
ETUC European Trade Union Confederation
ETUCE European Trade Union Committee for Education
ETUI European Trade Union Institute
EU European Union
EUPAE European Public Administration Employers
EUPAN European Public Administration Network
EUROSTAT Statistical Office of the European Union
HOSPEEM European Hospital and Healthcare Employers’ Association
HS Hospital and Healthcare Sector
ILO International Labour Organization
IUL Italian Labour Union
LFS Labour Force Survey
LGDK Local Government Denmark
LRG Local and Regional Governments
MEF Italian Ministry for the Economy and Finance
NPM New Public Management
OECD Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

vi
RSU Unitary Workplace Union Structure (Italy)
SDC European Social Dialogue Committee
SNA System of National Accounts
SSDC European Sectoral Social Dialogue Committee
TFEU Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union
TUNED Trade Unions' National and European Administration Delegation
UEAPME European Association of Craft, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

1
1. Introduction
The aim of this paper is to analyse the regulation and practice of social dialogue in the public
service at the European Union (EU) level and within a group of EU countries, with a focus on
the forms of social dialogue other than collective bargaining and their evolution after the onset
of the 2008 economic crisis.
Social dialogue
Social dialogue is an important pillar in the institutional fabric, policy tradition and practical
activity of both the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the EU.
According to the ILO, social dialogue comprises “all types of negotiation, consultation or
simply exchange of information between, or among, representatives of governments, employers
and workers, on issues of common interest relating to economic and social policy. It can exist as
a tripartite process, with the government as an official party to the dialogue or it may consist of
bipartite relations only between labour and management (or trade unions and employers’
associations), with or without indirect government involvement. Social dialogue processes can
be informal or institutionalised, and often it is a combination of the two. It can take place at the
national, regional or at enterprise level. It can be inter-professional, sectoral or a combination of
these” (ILO-ITC, 2012, p. 12; see also ILO, 2013c and ILO, 2018b).
This constitutes a very broad definition, both with regard to the more or less institutionalized
processes and the procedures it covers – from simple exchange of information to collective
bargaining leading to formal agreements – and from the point of view of the actors involved and
the levels at which the dialogue can take place. Actors may include only the social partners or
also the government, engaged in inter-professional or sectoral dialogue at the national, regional
or enterprise level. Whatever its form, social dialogue “is essential to help design and implement
national policies to achieve fair terms of employment and decent working conditions”, and plays
“a critical role in achieving the ILO’s objective of advancing opportunities for women and men
to obtain decent and productive work in conditions of freedom, equality, security and human
dignity” (ILO, 2013b, p. 39). The importance of the role of social dialogue for “democracy and
good governance” and “as a means to achieve social and economic progress” was most recently
re-affirmed in the resolution on Social Dialogue adopted by the 107th Session of the International
Labour Conference, which also includes a paragraph emphasising the role of “cross-border social
dialogue in an increasingly complex globalized economy” (ILO, 2018c).
With particular regard to the public service, several ILO instruments define the general
framework for labour relations and collective bargaining in the sector. These are the Labour
Relations (Public Service) Convention, 1978 (No. 151) and the Collective Bargaining
Convention, 1981 (No. 154), as well as their respective Recommendations, No. 159 and No. 163,
More recently, one of the points of consensus adopted by the 2014 Global Dialogue Forum on
Challenges to Collective Bargaining in the Public Service underlined that “social dialogue is key
to addressing several matters regarding public service”. Moreover, considering the role of
collective bargaining in addressing the challenges facing the public service as well as the impact
of the economic and financial crisis, the points of consensus added that “collective bargaining is
a concrete form of social dialogue, as it sets out in agreement the rights and responsibilities of
public employers and public workers”.
As for the EU, social dialogue, a crucial component of the European Social Model, is framed
within a complex institutional architecture based on the EU Treaties. In its broadest meaning, it
has its roots in Article 11 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU),
1
which establishes the
following:
1
Consolidated version, 26 October 2012, “Official Journal of the European Union” C 326/13, Art. 151.

2
1. The institutions shall, by appropriate means, give citizens and representative associations the
opportunity to make known and publicly exchange their views in all areas of Union action.
2. The institutions shall maintain an open, transparent and regular dialogue with representative
associations and civil society.
3. The European Commission shall carry out broad consultations with parties concerned in order to
ensure that the Union’s actions are coherent and transparent.
Through various steps, since the so-called Val Duchesse process was launched in 1985,
social dialogue obtained full recognition with the 1997 Amsterdam reform, and is now defined
in Articles 151-156 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU)
2
. In
particular, Article 151 recognises the promotion of dialogue between management and labour as
a common objective of the EU and the Member States. Article 152 establishes that “the Union
recognises and promotes the role of the social partners at its level, taking into account the
diversity of national systems. It shall facilitate dialogue between the social partners, respecting
their autonomy. The Tripartite Social Summit for Growth and Employment shall contribute to
social dialogue”. Articles 154 and 155 also envisage, under certain conditions and through a
specific procedure, the possibility of a legislative role for dialogue between management and
labour at EU level in the social policy field.
On this legal basis, the EU architecture also presumes tripartite and bipartite types of
dialogue at different levels – the cross-industry level, covering the entire economy, and the
sectoral level, covering workers and employers in specific sectors of activity, with different
committees. The main forum of tripartite concertation, at its highest level, is the Tripartite Social
Summit for Growth and Employment (Article 152 of the TFEU), generally held twice a year, and
coinciding with the European Council’s meetings. The main forum for the cross-industry
dialogue is the Social Dialogue Committee (SDC), while sectoral dialogue occurs through the
Sectoral Social Dialogue Committees (SSDC). After the decision of the Commission in May
1998 (98/500/EC) to promote new SSDCs, defining precise provisions for their establishment
and operation, the number of SSDCs has steadily increased (see also European Commission,
2015). At present (2018), there are 43 SSDCs, including those that cover central government
administrations, local and regional government, and hospitals and the health sector. The dialogue
may be autonomous, including all types of joint activities that follow the work programmes of
the social partners, or treaty-based, that is consultation or negotiation of agreements in social
policy fields based on the procedure established in Articles 153-155 of the TFEU.
In March 2015, thirty years after the beginning of the Val Duchesse process, the EU
Commission promoted a high-level conference involving European social partners to launch “a
new start for social dialogue”. In that conference, and in its follow-up one year later, the
Commission stressed the importance of the link between social dialogue at EU level and at
national level, as well as between tripartite and bipartite dialogue. It was underlined that “EU
social dialogue cannot deliver without a well-functioning and effective social dialogue at national
level”, and that at both levels “tripartite concertation, involving public authorities, needs to build
upon a strong bipartite social dialogue” (European Commission, 2016a).
Social dialogue and collective bargaining in existing studies
In addressing the topic of this report, and examining the related literature, a problem arises
regarding the relationship between collective bargaining and other forms of social dialogue. As
seen in the definitions of both the ILO and the EU, collective bargaining appears as a special type
of social dialogue, a particular form within a wider array of relationships. According to the ILO,
“Convention No. 154 and Recommendation No. 163 acknowledge that information, consultation
and negotiation are inter-linked and reinforce each other. While focusing on negotiations, both
highlight the importance of a common information base for meaningful negotiations, and the role
2
Consolidated version of 26 October 2012, “Official Journal of the European Union” C 326/47.

3
of consultation in deciding measures to encourage and promote collective bargaining” (ILO,
2011, p. 5). In an ideal hierarchy of intensity, information exchange comes as the less intense
form of social dialogue relationship, followed by consultation and finally by collective
bargaining, which leads to more or less formal collective agreements (see also ILO, 2013c; ILO,
2018a; Ishikawa, 2003, p. 3; Ratnam and Tomoda, 2005, p. 3). In other words, information and
consultation are seen as conducive to collective bargaining: where there is collective bargaining,
there are also the other, less intense forms of social dialogue, in a sequence.
There are, however, two qualifications. First, the relationship between the various forms of
social dialogue can be seen not as a sequence, where the highest form inevitably includes and
presupposes the lower ones, but as a relationship of substitution, where collective bargaining in
a way could ‘cannibalize’ the other forms of social dialogue, eroding their role and substituting
for rather than fostering them. In other words, there could be a potential trade-off between these
forms of social dialogue. This is something similar to what H. A. Clegg, in his classic study on
trade-unionism under collective bargaining, hypothesized with regard to the relationship between
collective bargaining (at least at the workplace level) and other forms of employee participation
or industrial democracy. He argued that “so long as adequate arrangements are made for
collective bargaining within the plant, collective bargaining may be regarded as a satisfactory
form of industrial democracy” (Clegg, 1976, p. 97). Clegg’s hypothesis has been debated, and its
validity should perhaps be considered also in light of the type of workplace representation system,
whether it be a single or a dual channel system. This trade-off feature should be accounted for
when selecting countries for analysis. If the hypothesis holds, one could expect to find better
developed forms of social dialogue other than collective bargaining in contexts where the right
to collective bargaining is absent as compared to contexts where it is recognized and practiced.
Likewise, it could be expected that forms of social dialogue other than collective bargaining may
be better developed in contexts where information/consultation/concertation rights are clearly
differentiated from bargaining rights than in contexts where this distinction is absent or blurred.
Finally, forms of social dialogue other than collective bargaining could be expected to be better
developed in contexts where a dual channel workplace representation system exists rather than
in contexts with a single channel system.
Second, while collective bargaining and its related procedures are clearly defined and
formally regulated in the public service and frequently enshrined in legal provisions, other less
intense forms of social dialogue are often more vaguely defined, if not entirely informal, at
national level. This may also be a reason why it is easier to find studies on collective bargaining
than on other forms of social dialogue. If the first qualification outlined above influences the
selection of countries for analysis, suggesting to choose cases both with and without collective
bargaining rights in the public service, the latter qualification explains why in the review of
existing studies it is difficult to single out those specifically dedicated to forms of social dialogue
other than collective bargaining. This is a problem that emerges again in the analysis of the
evidence in this report, in terms of the difficulty in disentangling forms of social dialogue other
than collective bargaining from collective bargaining experiences.

4
2. Social dialogue actors in the civil service: The
government and the civil servants
Public sector, public administration and civil service
Convention No. 151, devoted to labour relations in the public service, has been ratified by
54 ILO member states. Eighteen of the 28 EU member states have ratified it, as have three
countries that are candidates or potential candidates for EU membership.
Convention No. 151 adopts a very wide definition of public service, establishing in Article
1 that it applies “to all persons employed by public authorities”. The distinction between public
sector, public administration and civil service, however, is not always unambiguous in the
literature. The public sector is usually considered as the largest aggregate, including also public
enterprises and public corporations or quasi-corporations, followed by public administration and
finally by civil service, which usually refers to the central government or central public
administration, often employing personnel with a special (public law) employment statute. The
exact boundaries between these groups, as well as the definition of civil service/civil servant,
vary between countries, depending on national political and administrative traditions (Bordogna,
2007a; Bordogna and Pedersini, 2013; Kerckhofs, 2017). In some countries, civil servants have
a special public law/statute such as the Beamte in Germany (Keller, 2016) or the Fonctionnaires
publics titulaires in France (Vincent, 2016). In both cases, these cover employees well beyond
the central government. A Special legislation regarding civil servants, as distinct from other
public employees also exists in Czech Republic and Romania (Kerckhofs, 2017, pp. 11-12). Even
the distinction between private and public sector depends to some extent on the point of view
adopted in the analysis.
The OECD (2008, p. 434) suggests three possible criteria for the definition of public service
– employment status, the financing source, and the employer’s identity. Each criterion has
strengths and weaknesses. The most suitable option for analysis in this paper would be to utilize
the employment status of employees. In several countries, however, the entire aggregate of public
sector employees, and in some cases even the civil service, has never been covered by a special
employment status. This has been partially reinforced since the late 1980s under the pressures of
new public management (NPM) reforms (Bach and Bordogna, 2011). Economists and public
policy scholars often refer to comprehensive aggregates that include all activities financed with
public money or carried out by organizations managed by personnel appointed by central or local
governments (Rose, 1985). These can be suitable solutions for the analysis of the total wage bill
or of public finances trends. From a labour relations point of view, however, they run the risk of
either being too inclusive because they would cover, for instance, corporations partially or totally
owned by the government but subject to the civil code and employing personnel with private
contracts, or too restrictive because they would exclude, for instance, the employees of the UK
National Health Service Trusts, which have changed their status and operate with independent
financing arrangements (OECD, 2008, p. 434). In addition, classifications based on the functions
of government (COFOG), which are utilized by the OECD, or based on economic activities, as
employed in the Labour Force Survey (LFS) provided by Eurostat, are not entirely satisfactory
for this analysis. They also include private for profit or not-for-profit providers, especially in the
education and health sectors, with a large proportion of employees on ordinary employment
contracts, which makes it difficult to establish a precise identification of the boundaries of the
public sector and of the size of public sector employment for comparative purposes.
Nevertheless, the data provided by the OECD and by the Eurostat-LFS are the only data that
allow comparisons across countries and sectors. For this reason, they are often utilized in these
types of studies although they can only serve as a proxy and not as an exact measurement of the
public sector (see Bach and Bordogna, 2013 and 2016; Bechter and Brandl, 2013; Bordogna and
Pedersini, 2013; Kerckhofs, 2017; Glassner and Keune, 2010; Vaughan-Whitehead, 2013).

5
The scale of the public sector
Table 1 and Figure 1 present the share of the public sector as a whole, and as three sub-
sectors of total employment in the EU countries plus Norway in 2009 and 2015/2016, utilizing
both OECD and Eurostat-LFS data.
The OECD data, in the first two columns, are based on the System of National Accounts
(SNA) and refer to general government employment, which covers employment at all levels of
government (central, state, local and social security funds) and includes core ministries, agencies,
departments and non-profit institutions that are controlled by public authorities. The data
represents the total number of persons employed directly by those institutions. As specified in
the “Methodology and definitions” note (OECD, 2017, p. 90), “compared to the previous edition
of Government at a Glance, data for this indicator are drawn from the SNA framework and refer
to general government employment whereas before data were collected by the International
Labour Organisation (ILO), referring to the public sector employment (i.e. general government
plus public corporations)”. In some cases, the difference with previous data is substantial, as for
instance in France, Greece, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, and also partly in Denmark, Germany,
Estonia, Ireland and Norway.
Eurostat-LFS data, as captured in columns 3-10, cover three sections of the Statistical
classification of economic activities of the European Community NACE Rev.2, specifically:
 Section O: Public Administration, Defence, Compulsory Social Security, which
includes three subgroups of activities: 84.1 administration of the State and the
economic and social policy of the community; 84.2 provision of services to the
community as a whole (Foreign Affair; Defence activities; Justice and Judicial
activities; Public order and safety activities; Fire service activities); 84.3
Compulsory social security activities.
 Section P: Education, which includes subgroups with codes from 85.1 to 85.6,
respectively: pre-primary education; primary education; secondary education;
higher education; other education; educational support activities.
 Section Q: Human Health and Social Work Activities, which includes nine
subgroups. Specifically, code 86 – hospital activities; medical and dental practice
activities; other human health activities; code 87 – residential nursing care
activities; residential care activities for mental retardation, mental health and
substance abuse; residential care activities for the elderly and disabled; other
residential care activities; code 88 – social work activities without accommodation
for the elderly and disabled; other social work activities without accommodation.
Section O is likely the closest measure to approximate the scale of central government
administrations, for which a specific SSDC has been constituted in 2010. In several countries,
however, some activities included in Section O do not, or only partially, ‘belong’ to central
government administrations, and are provided by the local and regional government sector for
which another SSDC has formally operated since 2004 (Kerckhofs, 2017, p. 10, Table 3). In some
cases, for instance France and Italy, personnel employed in education activities are included in
Section O of the LFS statistics rather than in Section P. Moreover, many public service
employees, even those classified as civil servants in some countries, work for public providers in
Section P (public schools of any grade) and Section Q (the National Health Service in many
countries), along with employees under ordinary employment contracts working for private
providers. For these employees, other SSDCs operate, specifically: Education, which was
constituted in 2010, and Hospitals and Healthcare, which was established in 2006.
Eurostat-LFS and OECD data show both similarities and differences. In terms of
similarities, the Nordic countries, for example, with the partial exception of Finland, appear in
the upper part of Figure 1, with the largest general government or public sector share. Another

6
similarity is the decreasing share of public sector employment in most countries after the onset
of the 2008 economic crisis, although with some significant exceptions (Table 1). There are,
however, also marked differences, especially in the lowest part of Figure 1, where, according to
LFS data (including also P and Q sections, with many private providers), we find only CEE
countries, presumably with a limited welfare state (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Poland and
Romania). Yet according to OECD data, the group with the leanest general government
employment includes Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
Figure 1. Public sector employment share of total employment, 2015 or 2016
EUROSTAT LFS (NACE Rev.2),
sections O+P+Q, 2016
Countries
Over 29%
Belgium, Denmark, France, Sweden, United Kingdom, Norway
25% - 29%
Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Finland
20% - 24%
Estonia, Greece, Spain, Croatia, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Austria, Hungary,
Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia
Below 20%
Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania
OECD, General Government, 2015
Countries
Over 26%
Denmark, Sweden, Norway
21% - 26%
Estonia, France, Lithuania, Hungary, Finland
15% - 20%
Belgium, Czech Republic, Ireland, Greece, Spain, Latvia, Austria, Portugal,
Slovenia, Slovakia, United Kingdom
Below 15%
Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands
Source:
EUROSTAT, Labour Force Survey, last update 14-9-2017, extracted on 7 December 2017
OECD. 2017. Government at a glance 2017 (Paris, OECD), Figure 3.1

7
Table 1. Public sector employment as a share of total employment. OECD and LFS data (2009 and 2015 or 2016)
GEO/TIME
OECD
Gen Gov
2009
OECD
Gen Gov
2015
LFS
O+P+Q
2009
LFS
O+P+Q
2016
LFS – O
2009
LFS - O
2016
LFS - P
2009
LFS – P
2016
LFS - Q
2009
LFS – Q
2016
EU-28
24,56
25,42
7,27
6,94
7,26
7,60
10,02
10,87
EU-27
24,61
25,45
7,28
6,94
7,28
7,60
10,05
10,90
EU-15
26,03
26,89
7,46
6,94
7,39
7,83
11,19
12,13
Belgium
18,8
18,4
31,80
32,94
9,51
8,66
8,94
9,43
13,35
14,85
Bulgaria
n.a.
n.a.
18,15
18,32
7,26
7,38
5,88
5,72
5,01
5,22
Czech Rep
13,5
16,2
19,02
19,90
6,52
6,46
5,89
6,51
6,60
6,93
Denmark
29,4
29,1
32,72
31,81
6,38
5,44
7,91
8,96
18,43
17,41
Germany
11,3
10,4
25,32
26,50
7,30
7,12
6,19
6,54
11,82
12,85
Estonia
23,7
23,0
21,90
20,66
6,31
6,29
10,11
8,49
5,48
5,88
Ireland
15,8
15,0
24,97
25,38
5,50
5,10
7,58
7,61
11,89
12,67
Greece
17,6
18,0
20,91
23,21
8,40
9,14
7,32
8,13
5,18
5,94
Spain
14,8
15,7
20,50
22,08
7,27
6,92
6,15
6,93
7,08
8,23
France
21,9
21,4
29,70
31,19
10,18
9,17
6,80
7,51
12,72
14,52
Croatia
n.a.
n.a.
18,09
20,91
6,65
6,59
5,46
7,51
5,98
6,82
Italy
14,3
13,6
20,54
20,50
6,28
5,62
6,97
6,83
7,28
8,05
Cyprus
n.a.
n.a.
18,98
21,56
7,74
8,34
6,87
7,80
4,37
5,43
Latvia
21,7
20,1
22,03
21,71
7,82
7,05
8,84
8,94
5,37
5,72
Lithuania
24,8
22,8
23,08
22,61
6,11
6,22
10,48
9,80
6,49
6,58
Luxembourg
12,1
12,4
30,17
27,79
11,45
9,79
8,47
7,48
10,24
10,52
Hungary
19,6
21,9
22,59
24,34
7,81
10,31
8,28
7,53
6,50
6,50
Malta
n.a.
n.a.
25,02
27,34
8,74
7,95
8,49
10,02
7,79
9,38
Netherlands
13,8
12,8
29,70
27,99
6,68
5,81
6,91
6,67
16,11
15,51
Austria
16,5
16,9
22,80
23,81
6,86
6,54
6,31
6,87
9,63
10,40
Poland
n.a.
n.a.
19,79
19,97
6,50
6,73
7,76
7,30
5,54
5,94
Portugal
15,0
15,2
21,34
24,68
6,98
6,54
7,59
8,59
6,77
9,55
Romania
n.a.
n.a.
14,40
14,25
5,56
5,30
4,38
4,20
4,46
4,75
Slovenia
15,9
17,4
19,49
22,42
6,36
6,09
7,55
9,02
5,58
7,30
Slovakia
18,9
19,4
20,67
23,20
7,54
8,95
6,84
7,06
6,29
7,19
Finland
25,0
24,9
27,40
28,56
4,77
4,61
6,72
7,14
15,90
16,81
Sweden
29,4
28,6
32,27
33,37
5,91
6,62
10,73
11,51
15,64
15,23
UK
19,6
16,4
30,08
29,74
6,87
6,11
10,18
10,53
13,03
13,09
Norway
29,3
30,0
34,97
35,59
5,96
6,50
8,18
8,59
20,83
20,50
Source:
OECD. 2017. Government at a glance 2017 (Paris, OECD), Figure 3.1
EUROSTAT, Labour Force Survey, last update 14-9-2017, extracted on 7 December 2017; age: from 15 to 64 years.
Before analysing cases of social dialogue practices at national level, the following section
examines social dialogue at EU level in general, and with particular attention to the sectors
pertinent to this study. Social dialogue at EU level is not only important, often influencing
national level experiences, but is also more institutionalized than in many Member States.

8
3. Forms of social dialogue in the civil service:
Institutions and mechanisms at EU level
This section first highlights the broader framework of social dialogue institutions and
mechanisms at EU level, considering tripartite concertation and cross-industry dialogue, with the
most recent developments and issues. Attention is then given to forms and activities of social
dialogue in three SSDCs closely connected to the civil service, specifically: central government
administrations, hospital and health sector, and regional and local government sector.
Social dialogue at EU level: EU Commission’s initiatives, tripartite concertation and cross-
industry dialogue
The recognized European Social Partners are the same for both tripartite concertation and
cross-industry dialogue at EU level, while there can be some variation with regard to the
institutional actors. On the workers’ side, there is the European Trade Union Confederation
(ETUC), while on the employers’ side the actors include BusinessEurope, the European
Association of Craft, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (UEAPME), and the European Centre
of Employers and Enterprises providing Public Services (CEEP).
 ETUC, created in 1973, comprises 89 national trade union confederations in 39
countries and 10 European trade union federations.
 BusinessEurope is the confederation of European businesses representing
enterprises of all sizes with 39 members in 34 countries, including all the EU
countries and six European non-EU countries.
3
 UEAPME is the employers’ umbrella organisation representing the interests of
European crafts, trades and small- and medium-sized enterprises, incorporating 67
member organisations from 34 countries consisting of national cross-sectoral small
and medium enterprise (SME) federations, European branch federations and other
associate members. It represents about 12 million enterprises, which employ around
55 million people across Europe.
4
 CEEP represents employers and enterprises providing services of general interest
since 1961, with member organisations regardless of legal ownership status in fields
such as healthcare, education, housing, energy, waste management, transport, water,
environment, and communications.
5
Governments’ and employers’ responses to the 2008 economic crisis affected both working
conditions and social dialogue institutions and practices of many EU Member States, and not
only in the public sector (Ghellab, 2009; Ghellab and Papadakis, 2011; Guardiancich and Molina,
2017; Hyman, 2010 and 2015; Papadakis and Ghellab, 2014; Rychly, 2009; Schulten, 2009; Watt,
2008). At the same time, however, the evidence shows that in several cases a tradition of strong
social partnership helped national economies successfully address the challenges arising from
this context.
At EU level, social dialogue deteriorated during the deepest years of the crisis (2009-2012).
The measures tightening the rules of the European Monetary Union’s (EMU) institutional
architecture were often approved under the emergency of an economic crisis that in several
3
See BusinessEurope. 2018. “History of the organization: Winning the peace”, 5 Jul. Available at:
https://www.businesseurope.eu/history-organisation.
4
See http://www.ueapme.com.
5
See CEEP. n/d. “What is CEEP?” Available at: http://www.ceep.eu/our_organisation/.

9
countries turned into a dramatic sovereign debt crisis. The role of social dialogue in reforming
these rules and in their subsequent implementation and operation has been limited.
In response to this situation, in 2015 the new European Commission initiated a re-launching
of social dialogue, including its role in the cycle of economic policy coordination of the
‘European Semester’, introduced in 2010/2011, and more generally in the new EU economic
governance framework, as a prerequisite for the functioning of Europe’s social market economy.
The involvement of social partners in all the stages of the European Semester – Annual Growth
Survey, National Reform Programmes, Country Specific Recommendations, macroeconomic
imbalances procedures – had often been discussed at the Tripartite Social Summits (TSS) in
previous years. It was also the theme of a joint declaration of the European social partners at the
October 2013 TSS (European Commission, 2015, p. 116).
A high-level conference was held in March 2015 to kick-off “a new start for social dialogue”
and a renewed partnership between social partners and EU institutions. The Commission and the
social partners agreed on: a) the need for a more substantial involvement of the social partners in
the European Semester; b) a stronger emphasis on capacity building of national social partners;
c) a strengthened involvement of social partners in EU policy and law-making; and, d) a clearer
relation between social partners’ agreements and the Better Regulation agenda, that is, the agenda
to improve the quality of EU legislation (see also Garben and Govaere, 2018).
This initiative was welcomed and supported by a long declaration of the EU cross-industry
social partners (26-27 January 2016), whereby the need for a stronger link between social
dialogue and the Council’s decision and the European Semester process was underlined. In
accordance with this declaration, the conclusions adopted by the Council of the EU Ministers of
economic and social affairs of mid-June 2016 called on Member States to take the necessary
steps, inter alia, to “promote the building and strengthening of the capacities of the social
partners”, and to “ensure the timely and meaningful involvement of the national social partners,
…including throughout the European Semester, in order to contribute to the successful
implementation of Country Specific Recommendations” (EC 2016c).
Two weeks later, on 27 June 2016, a quadripartite joint statement between the Council
Presidency, the European Commission and the European social partners (ETUC,
BusinessEurope, CEEP, UEAPME) was adopted, underlining the fundamental role of European
social dialogue as a significant component of EU employment and social policy-making
(European Commission, 2016c). In this statement, the signatory parties, among other issues,
agreed to focus their efforts, in their respective role, to enhance the (biannual) Tripartite Social
Summit on Growth and Employment and the Macroeconomic Dialogue, and to improve capacity-
building and implementation outcomes both at cross-industry and sectoral European level. The
Commission, in particular, agreed to involve social partners in policy and law-making at EU
level, also in initiatives not falling under the scope of Articles 153 and 154 of the TFEU, but with
significant employment and social implications, as well as to enhance the involvement of EU-
level social partners in economic governance and the European Semester.
Finally, following a public consultation on the European Pillar of Social Rights, on 26 April
2017 the Commission published a Reflection Paper on the Social Dimension of Europe, which,
inter alia, recognised social partners’ right to be involved in the design and implementation of
employment and social policies, and supported their stronger involvement in policy and law-
making, while taking into account the diversity of national systems. At the Social Summit held
in Gothenburg on 17 November 2017, the European Parliament, Council and Commission
solemnly proclaimed the European Pillar of Social Rights. The document presented 20 principles
articulated in three chapters: “Equal opportunities and access to the labour market”; “Fair
working conditions”, including the principle that “social partners should be consulted in the
design and implementation of economic, employment and social policies according to national
practices”; and “Social protection and inclusion” (EP/EC 2017).

10
Apart from the Commission’s initiatives to relaunch social dialogue and promote the social
dimension in Europe with the declaration and joint statement of January and June 2016, the EU
social partners (BusinessEurope, CEEP, UEAPME and ETUC) presented their autonomous joint
work programme 2015-17 with eight priorities. Some of these priorities led to joint declarations
and, in some cases, negotiations. In particular, three declarations were issued in mid-March 2016
regarding the refugee crisis, the digitalisation of the economy and industrial policy, along with a
joint statement at the end of May 2016 regarding apprenticeships. Moreover, negotiations started
on two topics. The first was on the strengthening of the regulatory framework of the work-life
balance, which failed in September 2016 at the end of the consultation period due to the European
employers’ associations (BusinessEurope, CEEP, UEAPME) refusal to enter into substantial
negotiations (Degryse, 2017). The second was on active ageing and an intergenerational approach
to human resources within companies, which was part of the social partners’ working programme
2015-17, and was agreed upon in March 2017 after nine months of negotiations. Being an
autonomous agreement, it does not have to be transposed into a directive, but the national
affiliates to the European social partners are committed to promoting and implementing its
provisions, in accordance with their own traditions (Degryse, 2017). Within their previous
autonomous work programme 2012-14, the European social partners negotiated and adopted
(April 2013) a Framework of Actions on Youth Employment, on which a Final evaluation report
was issued in September 2017.
With regard to the role of social dialogue in EU economic governance, despite some steps
towards a sort of “socialization” of the European Semester (Zeitlin and Vanhercke, 2015) and a
few improvements highlighted by the European Commission (2016b), two documents by the
ETUC at the end of 2017 underlined a still unsatisfactory situation. First, an October 2017
document (ETUC, 2017a) based on a survey of 23 national ETUC affiliates, affirms that “the
involvement of trade unions at the milestones of the semester cycle at national level…. is still
largely unsatisfactory”. In 2017, consultations did not take place in five of the countries (United
Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Hungary and Romania) and were carried out poorly in four others
(Ireland, Germany, Latvia and Estonia). Consultations occurred in the other nine reporting
countries (Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Lithuania, Portugal, Poland and
Slovenia), but the quality of the dialogue was in need of improvement. ETUC members reported
that the level of involvement satisfied them in only five countries (France, Netherlands, Slovakia,
Sweden and Finland). Referring to the above-mentioned quadripartite statement of 27 June 2016,
the ETUC document underlines that “social dialogue should be better used to design and
implement policies”, and calls on the Commission and the Council “to issue specific
recommendations to Member States that do not properly involve trade unions at the milestones
of the EU Semester”.
Second, a similar request was underlined again in a letter sent by the ETUC General
Secretary to the President of the European Council and the Prime Ministers and Heads of State
just before the European Council in mid-December 2017. The letter emphasised the need “to
implement in practice” the principles of the European Pillar of Social Rights, and stressed that
this should be done through the inclusion of “social dimension in the European economic
governance and the European Semester, as well as in the new Multiannual Financial Framework
and in the reform of the European Monetary Union” (ETUC, 2017b).

11
Social dialogue at EU level: Sectoral dialogue
While the initiative to re-launch the European Social Dialogue “has not yet delivered
tangible results” at cross-industry level, the developments at sectoral level have in general been
less negative, if not even in “striking contrast” with cross-industry dialogue trends (Degryse,
2017, p. 116).
The number of SSDCs has grown, albeit somewhat discontinuously, from 36 in 2007, the
year before the onset of the crisis, to 43 in 2013. As for joint texts, after a peak of 55 in 2007 and
a marked decline in the following years, there has been an up-turn in 2012-13 with 47 joint texts
each year, followed by a lower but stable number of around 36-38 texts in the following three
years. These include both “external texts” – common positions addressed to public authorities
with the aim of adjusting or influencing European policies – and “internal texts” – reciprocal
commitments between the social partners themselves in the form of rules, objectives, and
guidelines (Degryse, 2017, pp. 119-121). The share of the latter type of texts sharply decreased
between 2010 and 2014, but has grown to more than 60 per cent in 2016, while most frequently
addressed matters regarded questions related to health and safety at work, social dialogue,
working conditions, and training. A subject of growing importance in recent years in several
SSDCs has been the social impact of the digitalization of the economy. It was addressed in 2014
in the transport sector with the arrival of Uber in European cities, in 2015 in the tourist sector
with the arrival of AirBnb, in the local and regional administration sector with the digitalization
of public services, and in 2016 in the insurance sector, the chemicals industry and the metal
sector.
In the three SSDCs relevant for public service activities, significant achievements have been
realized in recent years, including an agreement in central administrations in December 2015 for
which social partners requested implementation through EU legislation, although to date
unsuccessfully. Given the main focus of this report, in the following sections greater attention
will be given to social dialogue in central government administrations, while less consideration
will be accorded to hospitals and healthcare and the local and regional government social
dialogue processes. In all these SSDCs, the most representative workers’ organization is the
European Public Service Union (EPSU), while in the education sector, social dialogue is
undertaken by the European Trade Union Committee for Education (ETUCE).
Sectoral social dialogue at EU level: Central government administrations
The European SSDC for central government administrations (CGA) was set up in
December 2010 after a test-phase of 2-3 years by the Trade Unions’ National and European
Administration Delegation (TUNED) and the European Public Administration Employers
(EUPAE). TUNED is a joint organisation resulting from a cooperation agreement between the
EPSU and the European Confederation of Independent Trade Unions (CESI), signed in February
2005 and updated in May 2010. EPSU is a member of ETUC and represents 8 million public
service workers across Europe, and not all are employed in CGAs. Founded in 1990, CESI is a
confederation of 38 trade union organisations from 21 European countries and four European
trade union organisations, with more than 5 million individual members. The TUNED delegation
to the SSDC CGA meetings is coordinated by EPSU, the most representative European trade
union organization in the sector, in close cooperation with CESI. Decisions of the SSDC must be
approved by the relevant decision-making bodies of both EPSU and CESI, and on the
recommendation of TUNED (Kerckhofs, 2017, pp. 5-6).
EUPAE springs from the more informal European Union Public Administration Network
(EUPAN), a network of Directors General responsible for public administration in the EU
Member States, and was established as a non-profit organisation in December 2010 with the
purpose of representing CGAs in EU level social dialogue. Initially, EUPAE was created by the
governments of Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Italy and Luxembourg. According to EUPAE
statutes (Article 7), unanimity is required for any common position, and new members are
required to sign a declaration of adherence and endorse the statutes (Kerckhofs, 2017, p. 5). In

12
2017, EUPAE had 11 Member States – Belgium, France, Spain, Greece, Italy, Lithuania,
Luxembourg, Romania, Czech Republic, UK, Slovakia – and six observers – Germany, Austria,
Hungary, Malta, Portugal and Slovenia. According to Eurofound (Kerckhofs, 2017), the EPSU-
led TUNED represents a large majority of unionised workers and civil servants in 27 of the 28
EU Member States, while its counterpart the EUPAE represents employers with 88 per cent of
the total EU workforce of 9.3 million in CGAs (Kerckhofs, 2017).
According to the EU Commission, social dialogue in the CGA sector covers civil servants
and employees in government ministries, agencies, services that are financed or run by the central
government and EU institutions. This would amount to more than 9.7 million people working in
public administration at the local, regional or central level (Duran et al., 2014). The exact
definition of which activities are included in CGAs differs from country to country (Kerckhofs,
2017, p. 12). For instance, employees in public education in countries like France and Italy (more
than one million persons in each case) are included in CGAs (Section O in Eurostat-LFS
statistics), while in other countries they are included in the education sector (Section P in LFS
statistics). In Italy and France, the employees have representatives that are not affiliated to trade
unions, and in UK, trade unions cover only the civilian staff in the army (Kerckhofs, 2017, p. 25).
Moreover, certain CGA activities in some countries are not covered by social dialogue, either
because social dialogue structures do not exist (like in Czech Republic for police employees), or
because social dialogue is not foreseen (Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Malta for judicial
services; Cyprus, Lithuania, Latvia, Portugal and Spain for defence; Greece for diplomatic corps,
doctors in the public health system and parliamentary employees). Considering these
qualifications, according to Eurofound estimates (Kerckhofs, 2017, Table 4 and pp. 11-12)
6
, the
number of employees covered by the SSDC CGA is 9.3 million. That amount is notably higher
than the six million indicated on the website of the SSDC CGA
7
; however, it is not clear whether
this number includes the more than 2 million French and Italian public employees of the
education sector.
Table 2. Some agreed products of SSDC CGA, 2011-17
2011
Joint statement on the effects of the crisis
2011
Joint opinion on the EU Commission green paper on restructuring and anticipation of change
2012
Response to the EC Communication ‘Towards a quality framework on traineeship’
2012
Framework agreement for a quality service in CGA
2013
Statement on ‘Towards well-being at work’ in CGA, as part of a new EU occupational safety and health
strategy
2014
Joint policy guidelines on ‘Strengthening human resources by anticipating and managing change’
2014
Recommendations on ‘Closing the gender pay gap’
2014
Joint response in second stage consultation on ‘Preventing undeclared work’
2015
Recommendations on ‘Quality central government services for people in vulnerable situations’
2015
Recommendations for a quality service in CGA, within a project aimed at promoting the dissemination and
implementation of the Framework Agreement on the same subject adopted by the SSDC CGA in December
2012
2015
Framework agreement on ‘Information and consultation rights for CGA’
2017
Statement summarising an18-month-long project (with three project meetings in Vilnius, Madrid and Berlin)
on the prevention of psycho-social risks
2017
Project submitted to the Commission dealing with digitalisation and improving work-life balance, with the aim
to develop a balanced approach towards digitalisation that benefits both the organisation and the employees
6
Eurofound estimates (Kerckhofs, 2017, Table 4, and pp. 11-12) are based on replies from CGA employers
to the Eurofound questionnaire. In countries like Italy and France, the number of CGAs includes employees
in education (more than one million in each country).
7
Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=480&intPageId=1821&langId=en.

13
Source:
for the 2011-15 period, European Commission, SSDC CGA web page (http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=480&langId=en&intPageId=1821);
for 2017, EU COMMISSION – European Social Dialogue – e-newsletter September 2017, Issue No. 6.
This partial list testifies to the activity of social dialogue in CGAs within a difficult
economic context that has been particularly challenging for public administration and the public
sector in general, although with wide variations across countries (Bach and Bordogna, 2013 and
2016; Vaughan-Whitehead, 2013). Of particular importance are the December 2012 Framework
agreement for a quality service in CGAs and the General Framework Agreement for Informing
and Consulting Civil Servants and Employees of Central Government Administrations, signed
by TUNED and EUPAE on 21 December 2015.
The 2012 Agreement is a statement of values, not just a list of principles, encouraging their
implementation at national level and their adoption as a guide of action and work for the
Committee. Among the values and commitments engaging both employers and employees –
respect of the rule of law, equity, integrity, efficiency, communication and transparency – one
regards the quality of life at work, whose meaning includes the commitment of employers to
competence development, notably through training, good working conditions, sufficient and
gender neutral remuneration, social protection, work-life balance, combating all forms of
discrimination and precarious work, respect and facilitation of trade union freedom and the
resulting rights. Reaching an agreement between the social partners on these principles has been
quite remarkable in times of austerity policies, with particularly negative effects on public
services and public service employees.
The second text was welcomed by EPSU as a landmark agreement in the sector, whose
employees were previously excluded from the EU information and consultation legal framework
and deprived of these rights by many national governments. It came to fill a legal vacuum at EU
level by providing minimum requirements for employers to inform and consult trade unions on
matters such as restructuring and the consequences for working conditions, health and safety,
working time and work-life balance policies, remuneration guidelines, training, gender equality,
and social protection.
The developments regarding this important product of social dialogue also show weaknesses
in the SSDC. To become effective, the Agreement has to be transposed by the Commission into
a directive for adoption by the Council. The social partners TUNED and EUPAE called upon the
Commission to conduct this transposition as soon as possible, and again made a joint request in
February 2016, as envisaged by Article 155.2 of the TFEU. Two years after the signing of the
Agreement, this had not yet occurred.
The issue was discussed at the 19 October 2017 meeting of the EPSU Standing Committee
for central government and EU administration, where the decision was reached to launch a
campaign to draw attention to the situation, which was supported a week later by a statement
from the ETUC Executive Committee. Similar concerns were expressed by TUNED and EUPAE
at the 20 October 2017 meeting of the cross-sector Social Dialogue Committee. On that occasion,
when asked about the legal assessment of the Agreement that had been pending since 15
November 2016, the Commission stated that no new elements were available and that the
Agreement was still being evaluated. TUNED and EUPAE representativeness should strengthen
their argument in favour of the transposition of their Agreement into a directive.
Sectoral social dialogue at EU level: Hospitals and healthcare
The European Sectoral Social Dialogue Committee for hospitals and healthcare (SSDC HS)
established in 2006 between EPSU on the workers’ side and the European Hospital and
Healthcare Employers Association (HOSPEEM) on the employers’ side. According to the EU
Commission, social dialogue in this sector covers hospitals and human health activities defined

14
by NACE Rev.2 code 86
8
, irrespective of the legal ownership status of the provider, and
applicable to employees with either public or private employment contracts. The total amount of
employees in hospitals is more than 13 million. The domain of this SSDC does not cover the
entire set of activities of Section Q of Eurostat-LFS statistics (Human Health and Social Work
Activities), which includes also code 87 NACE Rev.2, mostly residential nursing care activities,
and code 88, social work activities (see Table 1 above). Including the United Kingdom, the entire
Section Q would include almost 24 million people employed in 2016 in the EU 28 Member States.
Strengthening the capacity of hospital and healthcare social dialogue structures across all
EU countries, along with the promotion of exchange of knowledge and experience between social
partners’ organisations, are currently among the key areas of activity of this SSDC.
Table 3. Some agreed products of SSD HS, 2008-16
2008
Code of conduct on ethical cross-border recruitment and retention in the European hospital
sector
2009
Framework agreement on prevention from sharp injuries in the hospital and health care sector
2010
Multi-sectoral guidelines to tackle third-party violence and harassment related to work
2010
Framework of Actions on Recruitment and Retention
2011
Joint statement and contribution to the EU green paper on reviewing the Directive on the
Recognition of Professional Qualifications
2012
Joint report on the use and implementation of the Code of Conduct on Ethical Cross-Border
Recruitment and Retention in the Hospital Sector
2012
Joint statement on the Action Plan for the Health Workforce in Europe
2013
Joint report on the follow-up and implementation of the 2010 multi-sectoral guidelines to tackle
work-related third-party violence and harassment
2013
Guidelines and examples of good practice to address the challenges of an ageing workforce
2014
Joint statement on the new EU occupational safety and health policy framework
2015
Joint project on psycho-social risks, stress and musculoskeletal disorders
2015
Joint follow-up report on the use and implementation of the HOSPEEM-EPSU Framework of
Actions on Recruitment and Retention
2016
Joint declaration on Continuing Professional Development and Life-Long-Learning for all
health workers in the EU
Source:
http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=480&langId=en&intPageId=1838;
EPSU, Report of Activities, January- December 2015, Brussels
The 2013 text on the ageing workforce provides guidelines and examples of good practices
for social partners and stakeholders at national and sub-national levels with regard to age
management policies such as flexible working arrangements, talent management and training,
health and safety at work, and workforce and retirement planning (European Commission, 2015,
p. 122).
The 2013 joint report that follows the 2010 multi-sectoral guidelines on tackling third-party
violence and harassment outlines achievements and further steps. It includes facts and trends in
relation to third-party violence, as well as examples of projects implementing the guidelines at
national and European levels and the results of a questionnaire carried out in the local and regional
governments, and in the health and social services sectors (European Commission, 2015, pp. 126-
127).
8
Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=480&langId=en&intPageId=1838. See also
Traxler, 2009.

15
Sectoral social dialogue at EU level: Local and regional governments
The European Sectoral Social Dialogue Committee for local and regional governments
(SSDC LRG) was established in 2004 between EPSU and the Council of European Municipalities
and Regions (CEMR). It covers mainly the activities defined by NACE Rev.2 codes 84.11, 84.13,
84.24, and 84.25 for over 17 million employees in public services. The SSDC in this sector
represents around 150,000 local and regional authorities (European Commission, n/d). CEMR is
the oldest and broadest European association of local and regional governments, bringing
together the national associations of local and regional governments from 42 European countries
with representation of all levels of territories (CEMR, 2014).
The main challenges confronting this SSDC include monitoring technological developments
and their impact on the workforce and employers (especially digitalisation), climate change,
energy transition, migration and its impact on municipalities and citizens, recruiting young
workers and retaining older workers in local public services, and life-long learning.
The key areas of focus for the Committee include the economic crisis and its impact,
migration guidelines, the implementation of the joint framework on restructuring for local and
regional government, information and consultation rights, health and safety at work, follow-up
guidelines on third-party violence, and gender equality. The agreed products of SSDC LRG
(since 2008) are included in Table 4.
Table 4. Some agreed products of SSDC LRG, 2008-2015
2008
CEMR/EPSU joint response to the Consultation of the European social
partners on sectoral social dialogue
2009
CEMR-EP/EPSU Joint Message to the Spring European Council
2010
Joint statement to the European Council on the economic crisis
2010
EPSU-CEMR Joint statement to the European Council
2011
The European Commission Guide on Socially Responsible Public
Procurement (Joint statement)
2011
Municipal and regional employers and trade unions deeply concerned
about the effects of the crisis (Joint Statement)
2012
Joint Social Partner Response to the European Commission’s Green Paper
COM (2012) 7 final “Restructuring and anticipation of change: what
lessons from recent experience?”
2012
Joint Letter to MEP Tarabella on Review of Procurement Directives
2012
Framework of Action for LRG
2013
Necessity and nature of a new EU OSH policy framework (Joint
Response)
2013
Local and Regional Government: Supporting the European Framework of
Action on Youth Employment
2014
Joint Guidelines Migration and Strengthening Migration and Anti-
Discrimination in Local Government
2015
Joint statement in support of the Commission initiative to relaunch Social
Dialogue
2015
Joint seminar on digitalisation of local government services as part of the
joint project on “New forms of service delivery for municipalities, the
contribution of social dialogue and good practice for well-being at work”
2015
Joint statement on digitalisation
Source: SSDC LRG web page, http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=480&langId=en&intPageId=1843.

16
4. Forms of social dialogue in the civil service:
Institutions and mechanisms at national level
The austerity policies adopted by many European governments following the 2008
economic crisis under the stricter rules of the new EU economic governance have particularly
affected the public sector (Bach and Bordogna, 2016 and 2013; Bach and Pedersini, 2013;
Bordogna and Pedersini, 2013; Glassner and Keune, 2010; Vaughan-Whitehead, 2013). Despite
some cross-national variation and depending on the financial vulnerability of each country,
working conditions, employment levels, wage dynamics and pension benefits of public
employees were particularly targeted by austerity policies, as were employment relations
institutions and practices in the sector.
While social dialogue structures, actors and procedures are clearly defined at EU level,
greater variation exists at national level, especially in the public sector. Public service social
dialogue institutions and practices are deeply rooted in country-specific legal, normative and, at
times, constitutional traditions, which makes cross-national comparisons difficult (Bordogna,
2007a; Bordogna and Pedersini, 2013). Despite a stronger legal framework than in private sector
employment relations, with regard to forms of social dialogue other than collective bargaining
the situation is less definite. The institutions are not always formally defined, procedures and
practices can be occasional, and the results uncertain – to distinguish between the two is not an
easy task.
With these qualifications in mind, and recalling the previous analysis on the scale of
government employment, in this section we examine the experiences of one country from
southern Europe (Italy), one Nordic country (Denmark), and two countries from Central and
Eastern Europe (Czech Republic and Slovakia).
9
Italy
Italy has a rather lean public sector in terms of employment share compared to many other
EU countries according to both OECD and Eurostat data (Table 1). It also has a rather strong and
legally defined employment relations system in the public sector, with a trade union density of
around 50 per cent, which is notably higher than in the private sector. Among trade unions, the
dominant role is played by the union federations affiliated with the three largest trade union
confederations in the country – CGIL, CISL, UIL. As compared to the private sector, there is a
stronger presence of independent unions both among managerial and non-managerial staff, which
together make up 25-30 per cent of total union membership, and even more in some subsectors.
Most of the independent unions have very few members or votes, with few admitted to sectoral
national level negotiations due to rules on trade union representativeness introduced by
legislation in 1997 (Bordogna, 2016)
10
. In general, the number and strength of independent
unions are relatively higher among medical doctors and managerial staff. Several specific unions
for managerial staff exist in central government, as with other sub-sectors, although in a strict
sense they cannot be considered civil servants’ single representatives (as managers no longer
have a civil servant statute, see infra).
9
With these selected countries, almost all of the groups outlined in Figure 1 (both OECD and LFS data)
are represented, as well as almost all of the clusters singled out in Bordogna and Pedersini (2013), European
Commission (2014), and ILO (2015).
10
The rules regulating trade unions’ representativeness have not changed since their introduction by
Legislative Decree No. 396/1997. They are based on membership data and on the results of the election of
the workplace representation bodies (RSU), introduced by the same legislation. Only unions above a 5 per
cent threshold (as an average of membership data and RSU votes) can participate in sectoral negotiations
at national level.

17
At workplace level, a single channel representation system exists. Since 1997, in any
administrative unit with more than 15 employees there are legally-based workplace
representation bodies (RSU), which combine bargaining and information, consultation and
participation functions. RSU elections, with universal suffrage and secret ballot, have been
regularly held approximately every three years since 1997, with a participation rate higher than
75 per cent on average, although slightly declining in the last ballots.
Following a major reform in 1993, the employment relationship of a large majority of public
employees has been “privatized” – moved from the public law statute to ordinary employment
contracts – and “contractualised” – regulated through collective agreements negotiated by
representative trade unions with the Agency for the Negotiating Representation of Public
Administrations (ARAN). ARAN, created by the same reform, is the public agency for
compulsory representation of all Italian public administrations in national level negotiations.
Since the 1993 reform, the employment relationship of about 80 per cent of public employees has
been “privatised” and “contractualised” under the jurisdiction of ARAN, meaning that most
public employees are no longer defined as ‘civil servants’. The following public employees are
excluded from this regime: police corps and armed forces (currently about 500 thousand
employees), fire fighters since 2005 (about 30 thousand), magistrates (10.5 thousand), public
university teachers and researchers (about 50 thousand), higher level diplomatic and prefect
personnel, prison personnel and, until 1998, high level state managers (Ministero dell’Economia
e delle Finanze-MEF, 2016; Bordogna, 2016). Forms of collective agreements exist, however,
for police corps, armed forces and fire fighters. These agreements are directly regulated by the
Ministry of Public Function as these personnel are still under a public law statute.
The institutions and mechanisms of collective bargaining at both national and decentralized
levels are regulated by legislation since the 1993 reform, with amendments in 1997-98, 2009
(Brunetta reform) and 2017 (Madia reform). Consultation processes involving the three largest
trade union confederations occurred in preparation for the first two reforms, while social dialogue
played almost no role or was limited to information to these trade union confederations in the
case of the Brunetta reform, but was partly revived in the Madia reform. The legislation defines
in detail the bargaining structure, essentially articulated at two levels of negotiations (nation-wide
sectoral level and decentralised single-employer level), the relevant actors at each level of
bargaining, the negotiable matters and relative procedures. This system is much more legally
defined than in the private sector.
Public employees whose employment conditions are determined through collective
agreements under the ARAN jurisdiction, totalling about 2.7 million in 2015, are distinguished
in four main sub-sectors or bargaining units (comparti) for non-managerial and four for
managerial staff (Table 2). These include: Central Functions (mainly ministries, government
agencies, compulsory social security)
11
; Local Functions (regions, provinces, municipalities);
Health sector (the national health system); Education and Research (public schools, non-teaching
personnel of public universities, public research centres). In addition, there are separate
bargaining units for the personnel of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, including one
for managerial and one for non-managerial staff. At national level, the bargaining agent on the
employers’ side in each bargaining unit is ARAN, while on the workers’ side, the bargaining
agents are the representative trade unions in the relevant sub-sector.
11
According to a Eurofound report on representativeness in CGAs (Kerckhofs 2017, Table 4), Italy has
2,051,540 employees. This number, however, includes police corps and armed forces and about 1.1 million
employees in education.

18
Table 5. Bargaining units at national level for non-managerial and managerial staff, 2015
(personnel with fixed term and work-trainee contract included)
Nation-wide bargaining units
(comparti)
Non-managerial staff
Managers
Total
Central Functions
239,994
6,694
246,688
Local Functions *
467,397
15,117
482,514
Health sector **
543,426
134,259
677,685
Education and Research ***
1,191,694
7,805
1,199,499
Presidency Council of Ministers
1,898
270
2,168
TOTAL
244,409
164,145
2,742,813
* Excluding personnel of the 5 regions with special autonomy
** Managerial staff includes both medical doctors and administrative managers
*** Managerial staff are the school-heads (about 7.5 thousand in total)
Source: ARAN
In spring 2010, following the approval of the Brunetta reform, the entire bargaining
machinery at national level, as well as the wages and salaries increase of non-contractualized
personnel, were frozen due to the 2008 economic crisis, first for a three-year bargaining round
(2010-2012), and then annually until July 2015. In July 2015, a sentence of the Constitutional
Court declared illegitimate any further extension of the bargaining and wage freeze. The
bargaining machinery was slow to begin following the sentence. At the end of November 2016,
a political concertation agreement was reached between the government and the three largest
trade union confederations, which laid down the broad guidelines for contract renewals in the
entire public sector for the 2016-18 bargaining round. At the end of December 2017, ARAN and
the representative trade unions signed the national collective agreement for the 2016-18 period
for the approximately 240,000 non-managerial staff of Central Functions. Representative trade
unions in the sector are the organizations affiliated to the three largest Italian confederations, plus
four other independent organizations (three of which refused to sign). In January 2018, the
agreement involving police corps and armed forces was reached with the Ministry of Public
Function. The nation-wide collective agreements for the remaining comparti are expected to
follow.
Since the 1993 reform, the legislation regulates forms of social dialogue other than
collective bargaining for the entire public sector under the label “trade union participation”. In
general, the role of these forms reached its peak in the 1998-2007 period, to some extent affecting
the relationships between managerial powers and trade union prerogatives at decentralized single-
employer level. Article 6 of the Legislative Decree No. 80/1998 (later Article 9 of Legislative
Decree No. 165/2001) delegated to national collective agreements the regulation of forms of trade
union participation with regard to managerial decisions affecting the employment relationship
12
.
Accordingly, the 1998-2001 national collective agreement for central government ministries
specified that participation included information, concertation and consultation, with the
possibility to also create joint committees at decentralized level without bargaining powers and
with equal representation for the parties to facilitate an orderly governance of issues of mutual
concern (like restructuring processes). The 1998-2001 national collective agreement also
indicated the list of matters amenable to each form of participation and the relative procedures
13
.
For instance, the list included: the definition of work-loads, the periodic assessment of
productivity of the organizational units, the implications of general restructuring processes, the
12
The legislation does not regulate forms of direct employee participation, outside the mediation of
collective organisations. Forms of direct employee involvement are certainly rare in the public sector,
especially in central government. Limited exceptions might be found in the health sector.
13
Similar provisions were included in national collective agreements in the same period for the local
government, health, and school sectors. These provisions are in line with ILO Recommendations 1952 (No.
94), 1960 (No. 113) and 1967 (No. 129).

19
general criteria for the organization of work, the introduction of new technologies affecting the
organization of work, training programs for personnel, and measures regarding health and safety
at the workplace. On a subgroup of these matters, upon written request of workers’
representatives (trade unions and RSU), the possibility was envisaged to move from information
to concertation, to be concluded with a signed document reporting the position of the parties. This
possibility was widely utilized at decentralized level between 1998-2005, especially in the local
government sub-sector. Although not formally allowed, a shift often occurred from concertation
to negotiation, with some exceptions, de facto “invading” managerial prerogatives on
organizational and HR matters and determining a significant wage drift in the period (Bordogna,
2007b; Dell’Aringa-Della Rocca, 2007; Ricciardi, 2004; Talamo, 2007; Vignocchi, 2007).
In light of these unexpected or undesired effects, the 2009 Brunetta reform, which was
adopted with only scant information given to the largest trade union confederations, reduced trade
union prerogatives with regard to both collective bargaining and participation rights, and
strengthened managerial powers. The reform confirmed the delegation to national collective
agreements of the regulation of the forms of trade union participation, but within the limits of the
renewed Article 5 of Legislative Decree No. 165/2001, which states that the decisions and
measures regarding the organization of administrative units, the organization of work and the
management of human resources fall exclusively to the prerogatives of managers. Only
information is allowed if envisaged by national collective agreements, thereby excluding
concertation and negotiation. The years following the Brunetta reform saw the suspension of the
bargaining machinery at national level, as well as a significant limitation of bargaining activity
and union-management relations at decentralized, single employer level. There is not much
evidence on social dialogue practices other than collective bargaining at decentralized level, as
such it is difficult to appreciate the effects of the Brunetta redefinition of these forms of workers’
and trade union participation, although it is likely that they deteriorated as well.
The 2017 Madia reform re-introduced the possibility of forms of participation beyond
simple information. Accordingly, the 2016-18 national collective agreement for Central
Functions envisages three forms of participation (other than collective bargaining): information,
joint exam (the previous “concertation”), and joint committees involving, on equal basis,
representatives of the employer and members of representative trade unions. The same national
collective agreement creates a new “joint committee for innovation” for the examination of
projects of organizational innovation, improvement of services, promotion of legality,
organizational well-being, and work-life balance, among other things. Only practice in the years
to come will demonstrate the effectiveness of these institutions and mechanisms of social
dialogue other than collective bargaining.
In summary, both collective bargaining rights and other forms of social dialogue institutions
and mechanisms in the public sector in Italy are clearly regulated by legislation (since the 1993
reform), and have been widely practiced afterwards, at least until a prolonged period of
deterioration between 2010 and 2015/2016. From this point of view, Clegg’s hypothesis about a
trade-off between collective bargaining and other forms of participation at workplace level is
apparently disproved, as both seem to follow a common trend. The Italian example, with the
oscillating amendments that followed the 1993 reform, demonstrates the difficulty of finding a
balance between the institutions and mechanisms of collective bargaining and other forms of
social dialogue.
Denmark
Denmark has one of the largest public sectors in the EU, with an employment share of about
30 per cent (Table 1), and has been rather stable over the last two decades despite privatization,
outsourcing processes, and the 2008 crisis (Ibsen et al., 2011; Mailand and Hansen, 2016). Unlike
Italy, the social dialogue system in the public sector is not clearly defined in law and is
predominantly voluntaristic. Legislation is relevant with regard to certain features of employment
conditions, such as terms of notice, holiday regulation, parental leave, working environment
issues. In general, however, collective bargaining and a well institutionalized employee

20
involvement system at both national and workplace levels play the dominant regulatory role in
Danish public sector employment relations (Mailand and Hansen, 2016). Social dialogue, within
a wider framework of a “negotiated economy” and “corporatist” structure of policy-making, has
a long tradition in the country (Nielsen and Pedersen, 1988).
All public sector workforces are employed in three levels of government: central
government or state sector, regional government and local government/municipalities. About 60
per cent (more than 400,000) of them are concentrated in the latter sector. The distribution of
responsibility for public services between the three levels of government has been reshuffled by
the 2007 Structural Reform, which replaced the 14 counties with five regions and amalgamated
the 273 municipalities into 98. The municipalities have independent power of taxation, and the
reform gave them responsibility for more policy areas, although health services fall under the
responsibility of the regions, and higher education, including universities, falls within the state
sector.
The right of collective bargaining on wages and working conditions was formally
recognized in 1969 for state, regional and municipal employees. Civil servants (“crown
servants”), with special statutory employment protections and restrictions on the right to strike,
are also generally covered by collective bargaining, and not unilateral regulation (Mailand and
Hansen, 2016, p. 222). Their number has been declining over the last decades to around 15 per
cent of total public employment (Ibsen et al., 2011, p. 2297), with approximately the same in
central government (Kerckhofs, 2017, Table 4). With regard to the bargaining structure, a two-
tier system exists in all three bargaining areas. At the highest level, state, regional and municipal
employers – respectively represented by the Ministry of Finance/Agency of Modernization,
Danish Regions/Regional Pay Council, and Local Government Denmark (LGDK) – negotiate
with coalitions of trade unions (cartels) an overall economic framework and, within this
framework, with individual unions on occupation-specific aspects of wages, pensions, and
working conditions. At the lowest decentralized level, continuous negotiations take place
between individual employers and shop stewards or local branch union officials on matters like
wages, working time, training programs, and measures for senior employees. Individual
bargaining may also occur for managers. Although the bargaining agents on the employers’ side
in sector level negotiations are independent from each other, the Ministry of Finance and the state
sector play a de facto leading role (Mailand and Hansen, 2016, pp. 223 and 226-227).
Union density is traditionally very high in Denmark, especially in the public sector, although
it has been declining slightly in recent years, partially as a result of the economic crisis. For
instance, in 2011, in the sub-sectors of public administration, education and health the density
rate was 89 per cent, 80 per cent and 83 per cent, respectively, down from 91 per cent, 86 per
cent and 92 per cent in 1996. Professional unions prevail in state and regional sectors, organizing
one or more occupations, while in the municipal sectors, professional unions co-exist with general
unions organizing unskilled and semi-skilled workers (Mailand and Hansen, 2016, pp. 227-228).
At workplace level, a dual channel system of representation exists. Union representatives
(shop stewards or Tillidsrepræsentant), elected by union members, exist in almost all public
sector administrative units with five or more employees. Their rights and duties are set out in
national agreements for central, regional and local government. Moreover, there is a dense
network of cooperation committees, named codetermination committees in the public sector
(MED-udvalg; Eurofound, 2017; Knudsen, 2006), the Danish equivalent of works-councils.
These are joint bodies with equal numbers of worker and management representatives, which are
excluded from bargaining over pay and other issues and are regulated by separate agreements for
central, regional and local government. In the public sector, codetermination committees also
incorporate health and safety committees (since 2012, work environment committees), with their
legally based representatives elected by all employees, as cooperation between employers and
employees is mandatory in the field of occupational health and safety (ETUI, 2016; Eurofound,
2017; Fulton, 2015; Viemose and Limborg, 2015). The employers’ commitment to the
codetermination system is widespread, although, according to union reports, is probably stronger
in state and regional sectors than in the municipal sector (Hansen and Mailand, 2015).

21
Public sector social dialogue is characterized by relatively limited legislation, bipartite
collective bargaining at all levels with high coverage rates, very high union density, and an
extensive system of employee involvement beyond workplace level (Mailand and Hansen, 2016,
p. 221). Within this framework, practices of social dialogue other than collective bargaining are
widespread, pervasive and well institutionalized, although generally not legally defined. At
workplace level, although with some variations in the municipal sector, they are facilitated by the
dual channel system of employee representation, and co-exist with intense collective bargaining
practices. Compared to Italy, where a single channel system exists at workplace level, combined
(in the 1998-2007 period) with an unclear demarcation between information/consultation and
collective bargaining rights, promoted the shift from, or the absorption of, forms of social
dialogue other than collective bargaining into bargaining practices.
The strength of social dialogue practices other than collective bargaining seems to have
survived a major conflict with teachers’ unions over working time regulation in 2013, as a result
of a reform that required a longer and more varied school day. Working time was traditionally
regulated through an agreement between employers (municipalities) and trade unions, but during
the 2013 conflict, under a centre-left government, the employers abandoned this agreement and
locked out teaching staff for 25 days (Høgedahl and Ibsen, 2017). Since then, working time has
been regulated by law while the organization of work remains a unique prerogative of the school
head. The collaboration has been strained, but social dialogue has shown capacity to survive
(Hansen and Mailand, 2015). The actual role of social dialogue in the implementation of the so-
called “trust reform” of 2012 is aimed at reducing control over employees and managers and at
containing (NPM-inspired) reporting and measurement practices in favour of more time on core
tasks (Vallentin and Thygesen, 2017).
A final point regards the interaction between social dialogue practices, with the central role
of traditional social partners, and the increasing practices of service users’ involvement,
especially in sectors like schools and hospitals. In general, in Denmark (as in other countries) the
two domains of union- management relations and service users’ involvement do not
communicate. The latter practices and processes are less institutionalized than the former, they
take place in different fora and arenas and do not interfere in traditional social dialogue practices,
even less so in collective bargaining. Forms of users’ involvement, however, have recently been
encouraged either by legislation such as the 2013 school reform, which formally provided the
school boards with extended powers, or by the employers’ organizations and local managers, as
a way to improve the quality and cost effectiveness of services. Interest on the part of trade unions
to become a core actor in promoting users’ involvement is uneven. It is higher in the school
sector, where these trends occur in connection with democratization pressures, than in the
hospitals sector, where they are often linked to NPM-inspired policies. Nonetheless, if users’
involvement continues to grow in depth and scope, on dealing with issues such as recruitment
processes or the length and organisation of school days or extended visiting hours, trade unions’
interest could grow as well. This growing interest is due to either the attempt to exploit a new
platform for exercising influence on management decisions, or the fact that users’ involvement
is moving closer to trade unions’ traditional core business. Whatever the reason, recent case
studies on this topic have shown that, especially in the school sector, room exists for the
development of multipartite, consultation-oriented fora with the participation of both traditional
social partners and service users (Hansen and Mailand, 2015, pp. 34-35).
Czech Republic and Slovakia
The size of the public sector in both Czech Republic and Slovakia features in the low-middle
part of Figure 1, closer to Italy than to Denmark. The employment share of total employment is
approximately 16 per cent and 19 per cent, respectively, according to OECD general government
data, and around 20 per cent and 23 per cent according to Eurostat-LFS data (sections O+P+Q).
Both countries, despite the adoption of austerity policies following the 2008 crisis, which were
oriented toward cost-efficiency priorities, have recorded an increase in public sector employment
between 2009 and 2015, although at a different pace depending on the source of data. The
percentage of employees in the public administration, defense and compulsory social security

22
sector is approximately the same, or even higher in Slovakia, than the percentage in the education
and health sectors, denoting a still relatively under-developed welfare state in comparison with
most EU15 countries (Table 1)
14
. The overall trade union membership and density declined
sharply and steadily in the initial years following the end of state socialism. In the years 2010-
2013, union density in the entire economy – excluding retired workers, independent workers,
students and unemployed – was about 12 percent in Slovakia and 13-14 per cent in Czech
Republic (Kahanková and Martišková, 2016, pp. 289-290; Veverkova, 2015, p. 11). Union
density in the public sector is unknown. However, Filadelfi (2017, p. 11) reports that in Slovakia,
there is a notably “higher share of employees working in public sector organizations with trade
unions” than in the private sector, and Kahanková and Martišková (2016, p. 290) underline that,
despite declining membership and union fragmentation, the public sector “remains well
organized”, with “regulation through collective bargaining more important than in the private
sector”.
In both Czech Republic and Slovakia, the formation of the public sector evolved in
connection with the double process of transition to a democratic system and a market economy
after the fall of state socialism in 1989. This process affected the development of public service
employment relations and social dialogue practices in both countries, with several common
features, as well as also important differences. Common efforts to decrease centralization and
politicization of public administration and to delegate power and responsibility to newly
established local government authorities dominated the period between the end of the old regime
and access to the EU, with more extensive transformations in Slovakia than in Czech Republic
(Kahanková and Martišková, 2016). Education was decentralized in both countries, earlier and
to a greater extent in Slovakia, with the creation of self-governing school bodies that improved
participatory democracy and gave some operational autonomy in employment relations.
Healthcare reform, to some extent inspired by NPM principles, took place in both countries,
although earlier and bolder in Czech Republic, with wide-scale privatization of public hospitals
and decentralization of the remaining public hospitals, whose ownership was transferred to
counties and municipalities, while corporatization under public ownership rather than
privatization occurred in Slovakia.
The period following the 2008 economic crisis saw in both countries reforms more oriented
to cost-efficiency priorities under austerity policies than to democratic and participatory
principles. In Czech Republic, however, an important legislation on employment conditions in
civil service was adopted in 2014, leading to a greater role for social dialogue and collective
bargaining in the public sector, which was previously subject to the government’s unilateral
regulation, while a reorganization of public administration occurred in Slovakia in 2012. In both
countries, there is a distinct regulation for civil (or state) service and public servants, which
broadly corresponds to distinct conditions for state administration – higher-level civil servants in
central government and specialized institutions – and employees in local government/territorial
administrations, education and healthcare (Kahanková and Martišková, 2016, pp. 280-81). In
Czech Republic, many public hospitals had already undergone privatization processes in the
1990s. For these workers, the role of civil and public service regulations remained marginal,
14
According to a Eurofound study (Kerckhofs 2017, Table 4) on social partners’ representativeness in
CGAs, Czech Republic has 77,970 employees, 90 per cent of which are civil servants. This number is
lower than the LFS data for Section O (public administration, defense, compulsory social security), which
are respectively 311,100 and 324,200 in 2015 and 2016. However, the Eurofound data are based on figures
provided by the contact persons for employers, and in the case of Czech Republic, refer only to civil
servants in the scope of the Civil Service Act (as explained in the footnote of Table 4). The Civil Service
Act covers civil servants in the state administration in different fields of public services – tax, social
security, central administration, administration of the state, public procurement, staff in the ministries
(Education, Army, Justice, Health) – but does not apply to security forces (army, justice or police) as they
have their own legal acts. Therefore, the employees in these CGA activities are not included in Table 4 of
the Eurofound study. By contrast, the number of CGA employees reported for Slovakia (407,523) is
notably higher than in the LFS data on public administration, defense, compulsory social security
(respectively 216,100 and 221,200 in 2015 and 2016).

23
while the general Labour Code increased its importance, allowing greater room for enterprise
level collective bargaining over wages and working conditions. In Slovakia, where the healthcare
sector underwent a process of corporatization under public ownership, hospital employees lost
their public servant status after 2006, remained excluded from public service legislation, and
developed their own employment relations system. Education remained part of the public service
employment system in both countries.
In general, there is more room for collective bargaining on remuneration matters in Slovakia
than in Czech Republic. In Slovakia, multi-employer and sectoral bargaining is well established
and is relevant for employment regulation across all subsectors due to the existence of well-
established sector level employer and trade union organizations and an earlier adoption of a
distinct regulation in the civil and public services. A two-level bargaining structure exists in
central and local government and in education, where the majority of employees, besides
establishment-level agreements, are covered by higher-level agreements for the civil or public
service, while the healthcare sector maintains its own bargaining structure following
corporatization (Kahanková and Martišková, 2016, pp. 287-88). In contrast, in Czech Republic
the direct government regulation of wages prevails and bargaining is limited to individual benefits
and non-wage working conditions at establishment level, while the development of higher-level
bargaining is hindered by the absence of employers’ associations at the sectoral and multi-sectoral
levels. The scope of multi-employer bargaining in central government could, however, increase
after the 2014 Civil Service Act, replacing government regulation of wages. After the 2008
economic crisis, various processes of union fragmentation and formation of new unions took
place in both countries, especially in the education and health sectors, leading in 2016 to a shift
of union agendas from bargaining to strikes and protests in support of wage claims.
Within this framework, room for social dialogue practices other than collective bargaining
dedicated to civil service or central government seems rather limited. In Czech Republic, the
Council of Economic and Social Agreement serves as a tripartite social dialogue forum at central,
national level, with strictly consultative functions. The matters covered by this tripartite body
regard fundamental areas of social and economic development, but also include public sector
wages and salaries and public administration (Veverkova, 2015, pp. 6-7). Consultations occur
before important legislative and regulatory measures such as Decree No. 564/2006 on the
remuneration of employees in government and public services or the 2014 Civil Service Act. The
2006 Decree allowed tripartite consultations before the government made a decision on wage
levels. After the 2014 reform, however, these consultations were replaced by collective
bargaining. Collective agreements usually set principles for cooperation between contractual
partners. At establishment level, works councils may exist without bargaining powers and legal
personality, acting mainly as mediator between employers and employees, in order to ease the
flow of information within the companies and at workplace level. Works councils, however, are
still rare (Veverkova, 2015, p. 11).
A tripartite social dialogue system at national level also exists in Slovakia. It started in the
1990s in the form of voluntary practices between the government, employers and trade unions,
and was institutionalized by Act No. 103/2007 Collection of Laws on Tripartite Consultations at
National Level and on Amendments and Supplements to Certain Laws (the “Tripartite Act”),
which established the Economic and Social Council of the Slovak Republic. The Council serves
as the negotiation platform and consultancy body of the government and social partners (Filadelfi,
2017, pp. 6-7). As in Czech Republic, the dialogue deals with fundamental issues of social and
economic development, but also covers matters regarding employment relations in public
administration and the broader public sector. For instance, in 2016 dialogue took place
concerning a new draft of the 2014 Civil Service Act, as well as discussions and negotiations
related to the so-called “nursery act” to improve work-life balance. In 2014, the Fico Government
also established the Solidarity and Development Council of the Slovak Republic (Sitarova, 2015).
Compared to the Economic and Social Council, it is a wider platform for social dialogue between
the government, traditional social partners and civil society organizations (like churches and
professional bodies and associations).

24
5. Conclusions
The ILO’s report on Social dialogue and tripartism, which was discussed in the recurrent
discussion on the strategic objective of social dialogue and tripartism in the 107th International
Labour Conference in 2018, states as follows:
The promotion of inclusive, productive and sound industrial relations in the private and public sectors
is key to achieving decent work. Bipartite social dialogue remains the most appropriate method for
promoting such relations, through the negotiation of collective agreements by employers and their
organizations with the workers’ organizations, and through cooperation and consultation between
managers and workers’ representatives at the workplace, including for the efficient prevention and
resolution of conflicts. These processes have changed significantly in recent years.
Social dialogue is an important pillar in the institutional fabric, policy tradition and practical
activity of both the ILO and EU, with a pivotal position in the current vocabulary and broader
political discourse of both institutions. It is a somewhat elusive notion, however, in traditional
employment relations/industrial relations literature. The label is seldom or never utilized by the
classic authors of this field of study – from the Webbs, Commons and the American
institutionalists, to Dunlop, the authors of the Oxford School (Flanders, Clegg, also Fox) and
Hyman. The scope of this expression can be narrower or wider than industrial relations,
depending on how one defines the content of industrial relations and of the industrial relations
field (Kaufman, 2004, pp. 560-564). Moreover, the relationship between collective bargaining
and forms of social dialogue other than collective bargaining is also somewhat indeterminate.
It is uncertain whether collective bargaining inevitably presupposes and fosters less intense
forms of social dialogue, or substitutes and excludes them (as Clegg suggested for industrial
democracy at plant level). A third possibility would be that they are independent of each other:
collective bargaining and forms of social dialogue other than collective bargaining have different
institutions and channels and follow different paths. Finally, while at EU level there is a clearer
definition of what social dialogue is, including its institutions, actors and procedures, and
including the distinction between cross-sector and sectoral social dialogue, which allows the
identification of rules and practices in central public administration and other public sector
domains, at national level there is much greater variation, and often vagueness. Apart from their
‘theoretical’ implications, the above considerations help understand why the empirical analysis
of forms of social dialogue other than collective bargaining in public services is complicated,
even for simply mapping the field, especially at national level.
At EU level, the picture is rather clear with regard to the rules, procedures, and actors of
social dialogue as well as the products, despite some uncertainty concerning their eventual
transposition into EU directives. There are four main sectoral social dialogue committees in the
public services: one for central government administrations (SSDC CGA), one for hospitals and
healthcare (SSDC HS), one for local and regional governments (SSDC LRG), and one for
education (not considered in this report). In all the cases considered in this report, the actors are
clearly identified both on the workers’ and the employers’ side. EPSU, or the EPSU-led coalition
TUNED (EPSU+CESI), is the main or exclusive actor for employees in each of the three sectors,
while EUPAE, HOSPEEM and CEMR are the employers’ representative organizations in SSD
CGA, SSD HS and SSD LRG, respectively. The SSD CGA committee covers civil servants,
public servants and employees under ordinary contract, without distinctions. This is also the case
for the other two committees. With regard to workers’ representation at EU level, civil servants
do not have a representative organization of their own that is distinct from that of other public
employees, although this may occur at national level, like in Germany with the German Civil
Service Union for Beamte, which is affiliated to CESI at EU level.
With regard to SSD CGA products, of particular importance are the December 2012
Framework agreement for a quality service in CGAs and the December 2015 Framework
agreement on information and consultation rights of workers and civil servants on matters of
direct concern to them. Beside their content, these agreements are remarkable for having been

25
reached in times of austerity policies and difficult conditions for public services and public
service employees. The December 2015 Agreement, however, demonstrates the difficulties SSD
may encounter, given that two years after its signing, the Agreement has not yet been transposed
by the European Commission into a directive for adoption by the European Council, despite
pressure from social partners.
At national level, the situation is more varied, and at times vague, with differences linked to
country specific institutional, legal and cultural traditions. The very definition of what is social
dialogue, and social dialogue other than collective bargaining, with the connected procedures,
actors and outcomes, is uncertain. This makes it difficult to investigate the topic, and even more
difficult to draw comparisons.
The three hypotheses roughly outlined above, which perhaps stretch Clegg’s work too much,
are apparently neither confirmed nor disproved by our analysis. Denmark is a case where
collective bargaining is well established and practiced in central public administration and public
services in general. Forms of social dialogue other than collective bargaining are also widely
practiced, supported by a dual channel workplace representation system with very active
agreement-based cooperation committees that cover a broader range of issues than in the private
sector (Knudsen, 2006, p. 5).
In Italy, since 1993 there have been well established and clearly defined, legally-based
collective bargaining rights, although national level negotiations were frozen after 2010 for
several years due to austerity policies. The bargaining structure is articulated on two levels,
sectoral national and single employer level, with the second, decentralized level being practiced
almost universally before the 2010 bargaining freeze. Italy also has a legally-based single channel
workplace representation system in any administrative unit with more than 15 employees.
Following the above-mentioned hypotheses, one could expect that bargaining practices will
“incorporate” or “cannibalize” forms of social dialogue other than collective bargaining. The
picture, however, is somehow more complicated. The workplace representation system is based
on one single body (the RSU), but with both collective bargaining and participation functions.
From the late 1990s to 2008, all national sector-level collective agreements include clauses
regulating various forms of social dialogue other than collective bargaining (information,
concertation, consultation), attributed to, and widely exercised by, the same workplace
representation body, which is also responsible for plant level collective bargaining. Italy is
therefore a case in which collective bargaining and forms of social dialogue other than collective
bargaining co-exist and are widely practiced, although the single channel workplace
representation systems to some extent include features of a dual channel system. Likewise, both
Czech Republic and Slovakia partly confirm and partly disprove the above-mentioned
hypotheses.
In the future, more in-depth research is needed, with dedicated field-work in addition to desk
analysis. This should include not only a general overview based on official documents and
declarations, but in-depth national case studies focusing on social dialogue institutions and
practices as a complex, interdependent system, involving both tripartite and bipartite processes
at national level, as well as institutions and dynamics at decentralized, company level. Such a
wider and deeper research programme could help understand how social dialogue, both as distinct
from and in cooperation with collective bargaining, can contribute to “translating economic
development into social progress, and social progress into economic development”, as suggested
in the recent ILC resolution on social dialogue (ILO, 2018c, 6A, sub-paragraph 6, Enhanced
research and training).

26
Bibliography and references
Bach, S.; Bordogna, L. 2011. “Varieties of new public management or alternative models? The reform of
public service employment relations in industrialized democracies”, in International Journal of Human
Resource Management, Vol. 22, Issue 11, pp. 2281-2294.
Bach, S.; Bordogna, L. 2013. “Reframing public service employment relations: The impact of economic
crisis and the new EU economic governance”, in European Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 19, Issue 4,
pp. 279-294.
Bach, S.; Bordogna, L. (eds.). 2016. Public service management and employment relations in Europe:
Emerging from the Crisis (New York, Routledge).
Bach, S.; Pedersini, R. 2013. The consequences of the crisis for public sector industrial relations”, in
Industrial Relations in Europe 2012 (Brussels: European Commission), pp. 129–161
Bechter, B.; Brandl. B. 2013. “Overview of European, national and public sector industrial relations”, in
Industrial Relations in Europe 2012 (Luxembourg, Publications Office of the European Union), pp. 21-52.
Bordogna, L. 2007a. Industrial relations in the public sector (Dublin, Eurofound). Available at:
https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/observatories/eurwork/comparative-information/industrial-relations-in-
the-public-sector.
Bordogna, L. 2007b. “La contrattazione collettiva: un nuovo equilibrio tra centralizzazione e
decentramento?”, in C. Dell’Aringa and G. Della Rocca (eds): Pubblici dipendenti: una nuova riforma?
(Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino), pp. 63-91.
Bordogna, L. 2017. “Italy: The uncertainties of endless reform: Public Service Employment Relations
Confronting Financial Sustainability Constraints”, in S. Bach and L. Bordogna (eds): Public service
management and employment relations in Europe: Emerging from the Crisis (New York, Routledge), pp.
84-111.
Bordogna, L.; Pedersini, R. 2013. “Public sector industrial relations in transition”, in Industrial Relations in
Europe 2012 (Luxembourg, Publications Office of the European Union), pp. 93-129.
Clegg, H.A. 1976. Trade unionism under collective bargaining. A theory based on comparisons of six
countries (Oxford, Basil Blackwell).
Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR). 2014. “Introducing CEMR”. Available at:
http://www.ccre.org/en/article/introducing_cemr.
Degryse, C. 2017. “The relaunch of European social dialogue: What has been achieved up to now?”, in B.
Vanhercke, S. Sabato and D. Bouget (eds): Social policy in the European Union: State of play 2017
(Brussels, ETUI and OSE), pp. 115-132.
Dell’Aringa C., Della Rocca G. (eds.) 2007. Pubblici dipendenti: una nuova reforma? (Soveria Mannelli,
Italy: Rubbettino).
Duran, J.; Isusi, I.; Corral. A. 2014. Working conditions in central public administration (Brussels:
Eurofound). Available at: https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/publications/report/2014/working-conditions-
in-central-public-administration.
European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC). 2017a. “A new start for social dialogue needs a change of
pace in trade union involvement in economic governance”, 27 Oct. Available at:
https://www.etuc.org/en/document/new-start-social-dialogue-needs-change-pace-trade-union-involvement-
economic-governance#.WjZOEbpFzIU.
ETUC. 2017b. “To Donald Tusk, President European Council, To Prime Ministers / Heads of State of the
EU Member States, Re: on the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights”, 13 Dec. Available
at: https://www.etuc.org/sites/default/files/document/files/20171213_-
_implementation_of_the_european_pillar_of_social_rights.pdf.
European Trade Union Institute (ETUI). 2016. “Denmark”, National Industrial Relations. Available at:
http://www.worker-participation.eu/National-Industrial-Relations/Countries/Denmark.

27
Eurofound. 2017. Living and working in Denmark (Dublin, Eurofound). Available at:
https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/country/denmark#actors-and-institutions.
European Commission. n/d. “Sectoral social dialogue – Local and regional governments.” Available at:
http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=480&langId=en&intPageId=1843.
European Commission. 2014. Government wages and labour market outcomes, European Economy
Occasional Papers No. 190 (Luxembourg, European Union).
European Commission. 2015. Industrial relations in Europe 2014 (Luxembourg, European Union).
European Commission. 2016a. A new start for social dialogue (Luxembourg, European Union).
European Commission. 2016b. New start for social dialogue – one year on, Fact Sheet, 16 Mar.
European Commission. 2016c. “A new start for social dialogue: Statement of the Presidency of the Council
of the European Union, the European Commission and the European Social Partners”, 27 Jun.
European Parliament; European Council; European Commission (EP/EC). 2017. European pillar of social
rights. Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/social-summit-european-pillar-
social-rights-booklet_en.pdf.
EUROSTAT, Labour Force Survey, last update 14-9-2017, extracted on 7 December 2017
Filadelfi, S. 2017. 2016 Annual review of labour relations and social dialogue: Slovakia (Bratislava,
Friedrich Ebert Stiftung).
Fulton, L. 2015. Worker representation in Europe, Labour Research Department and ETUI
Garben, S.; Govaere, I. (eds). 2018. The EU better regulation agenda: A critical assessment (Oxford, Hart
Publishing).
Ghellab, Y. 2009. Recovering from the crisis through social dialogue, DIALOGUE in Brief No.1, Industrial
and Employment Relations Department (Geneva, ILO).Ghellab, Y.; Papadakis, K. 2011. “The politics of
economic adjustment in Europe: State unilateralism or social dialogue?”, in The global crisis: Causes,
responses and challenges (Geneva, ILO), pp. 81-91.Glassner, V.; Keune, M. 2010. Negotiating the crisis?
Collective bargaining in Europe during the economic downturn, DIALOGUE Working Paper No. 10
(Geneva, ILO).
Guardiancich, I.; Molina, O. (eds). 2017. Talking through the crisis. Social dialogue and industrial relations
trends in selected EU countries (Geneva, ILO).
Hansen, N.W.; Mailand, M. 2015. New challenges for public services social dialogue: National report
Denmark, Employment Relations Research Centre (FAOS) Research Paper No. 142 (Copenhagen,
University of Copenhagen).
Høgedahl, L.; Ibsen, F. 2017. “New terms for collective action in the public sector in Denmark: Lessons
learned from the teacher lock-out in 2013”, in Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 59, Issue 5, pp. 593-610.
Hyman, R. 2010. Social dialogue and industrial relations during the economic crisis: Innovative practices
or business as usual?, Working Paper No. 11 (Geneva, ILO).
Hyman, R. 2015. “Austeritarianism in Europe: What options for resistance?”, in D. Natali and B. Vanhercke
(eds): Social policy in the European Union: State of play 2015 (Brussels, ETUI and OSE), pp. 97-126.
Ibsen, C. L.; Larsen, T. P.; Madsen, J.S.; and Due, J. 2011. Challenging Scandinavian employment relations:
the effects of new public management reforms, in The International Journal of Human Resource
Management, 22:11, pp. 2295-2310.
ILO. 2011. Promoting collective bargaining Convention No. 154 (Geneva, ILO). Available at:
http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_dialogue/---
dialogue/documents/publication/wcms_172186.pdf.
ILO. 2013a. Social dialogue: Recurrent discussion under the ILO Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair
Globalization, Report VI, International Labour Conference, 102nd Session, Geneva, 2013 (Geneva).
ILO. 2013b. Social dialogue interventions: What works and why? A synthesis review 2002-2012 (Geneva,
ILO).

28
ILO. 2013c. National tripartite social dialogue: An ILO guide for improved governance (Geneva, ILO).
ILO. 2014. Final report of the discussion – Global Dialogue Forum on Challenges to Collective Bargaining
in the Public Service (Geneva, 2-3 April 2014) (Geneva, ILO).
ILO. 2015. Collective bargaining in the public service in the European Union, Working Paper No. 309
(Geneva, ILO).
ILO. 2018a. Guidelines on decent work in public emergency services (Geneva, ILO).
ILO. 2018b. Social dialogue and tripartism, Report VI, International Labour Conference, 107th Session,
Geneva, 2018 (Geneva).
ILO. 2018c. Provisional Record 6A, Reports of the Recurrent Discussion Committee: Social dialogue and
tripartism: Resolutions and conclusions submitted for adoptions by the Conference, International Labour
Conference, 107th Session, Geneva, 2018 (Geneva). Available at:
http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_norm/---
relconf/documents/meetingdocument/wcms_631652.pdf.
ILO-International Training Centre (ITC). 2012. Social dialogue: A manual for trade union education (Turin,
ILO-ITC).
Ishikawa, J. 2003. Key features of national social dialogue: A social dialogue resource book (Geneva, ILO).
Kahancová, M. and Martišková, M. 2017. “Czechia and Slovakia: Facing Austerity Through Collective
Action: Economic Crisis and Public Service Employment Relations”, in Bach, S. and Bordogna, L. (eds.)
Public Service Management and Employment Relations in Europe. Emerging from the Crisis, London-New
York: Routledge, pp. 271-299.
Kaufman, B. 2004. The Global Evolution of Industrial Relations: Events, Ideas and the IIRA (Geneva: ILO).
Keller, B. 2016. “Germany: Retrenchment before the Great Recession and Its Lasting Consequences”, in
Bach S. and Bordogna L. (eds.) Public Service Management and Employment Relations in Europe.
Emerging from the Crisis (London-New York: Routledge), pp. 191-2017.
Kerckhofs, P. 2017. Representativeness of the European social partner organisations: Central government
administration (Dublin, Eurofound).
Knudsen, H. 2006. Workplace representation in Denmark – Structure and role, Paper presented at the
HIVA-EZA Conference, “A Boost for Workplace Democracy in Europe?”, Leuven, 9-10 Nov.
Mailand, M.; Hansen, N.W. 2016. “Denmark and Sweden: The consequences of reform and economic crisis
for public service employment relations”, in S. Bach and L. Bordogna (eds): Public service management and
employment relations in Europe: Emerging from the Crisis (New York, Routledge), pp. 218-243.
Ministero dell’Economia e delle Finanze (MEF). 2016 Commento ai principali dati del Conto Annuale
2007-2015 (Rome: Ministero dell’Economia e delle Finanze).
Nielsen, K.; Pedersen, O.K. 1988. “The Negotiated Economy: Ideal and History”, in Scandinavian Political
Studies, Vol. 11, Issue 2, pp. 79-102.
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). 2008. Glossary of statistical terms
(Paris, OECD).
OECD. 2017. Government at a glance 2017 (Paris, OECD).
Papadakis, K.; Ghellab, Y. (eds). 2014. The governance of policy reforms in southern Europe and Ireland:
Social dialogue actors and institutions in times of crisis (Geneva, ILO).
Ratnam, V.; Tomoda, S. 2005. Practical guide for strengthening social dialogue in public service reform
(Geneva, ILO).
Ricciardi, M. 2004. “La contrattazione collettiva nelle pubbliche amministrazioni: luci, ombre e pregiudizi”
in Lavoro e Diritto, Vol. XVIII nos. 3-4, pp. 633 – 672.
Rose R. 1985. “The significance of public employment”, in Rose, R. and Page, E. (eds.) Public employment
in Western Nations (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press), pp. 1-53.

29
Rychly, L. 2009. Social dialogue in times of crisis: Finding better solutions, Working Paper No. 1 (Geneva,
ILO).
Schulten, T. 2009. Minimum wages in Europe: New debates against the background of economic crisis,
Policy Brief No. 2 (Brussels, ETUI).
Sitarova, M. 2015. Annual Review 2014: Slovak Republic – Labour relations and social dialogue
(Bratislava, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung).
Talamo V. (2007). Per una dirigenza pubblica riformata. In: Dell'Aringa C., Della Rocca G. (eds.), Pubblici
dipendenti: Una nuova riforma? (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino), p. 119 et seq.
Traxler F. 2009. Representativeness of the European social partner organisations: Hospitals (Brussels:
Eurofound).
Vallentin, S.; Thygesen, N. 2017. “Trust and control in public sector reform: Complementarity and beyond”,
in Journal of Trust Research, Vol. 7, Issue 2, pp. 150-169.
Vaughan-Whitehead, D. (ed.). 2013. Public sector shock: The impact of policy retrenchment in Europe
(Cheltenham, UK, Edward Elgar; Geneva, ILO).
Veverkova, S. 2015. Annual Review 2014: Czech Republic – Labour relations and social dialogue
(Bratislava, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung).
Viemose, S.; Limborg, H.J. 2015. “Employee representatives in Denmark: How employers see them and
what they expect”, in M.C. Euwema et al. (eds): Promoting social dialogue in European organizations:
Industrial relations and conflict management (Cham, Germany, Springer Open), pp. 39-51.
Vincent, C. 2017. “The Crisis Speeds Up Public Service Reform and Adjustment”, in S. Bach and L.
Bordogna (eds): Public service management and employment relations in Europe: Emerging from the Crisis
(New York, Routledge), pp. 112-135.
Vignocchi, C. 2007. “Tre tornate di contrattazione negli enti locali: cosa salvare di un’esperienza
controversa”, in Dell’Aringa C., Della Rocca G. (eds), Pubblici dipendenti: una nuova riforma? (Soveria
Mannelli: Rubbettino), pp. 33-61.
Watt, A. 2008. The economic and financial crisis in Europe: Addressing the causes and the repercussions,
European Economic and Employment Policy Brief No. 3 (Brussels, ETUI).
Zeitlin, J.; Vanhercke, B. 2015. “Economic governance in Europe 2020: Socializing the European Semester
against the odds?”, in D. Natali and B. Vanhercke (eds): Social policy in the European Union: State of play
2015 (Brussels, ETUI and OSE), pp. 65-95.