"The construction of supranational collective bargaining: Why and how did they do it?"

Kim, Haknoh. (1997) "The construction of supranational collective bargaining: Why and how did they do it?". In: UNSPECIFIED, Seattle, WA. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

The paper challenges one of the central arguments of the pessimists on the prospects for social policy in the European Community (EC). The "pessimists on social Europe" have been skeptical about the possibility of constructing collective bargaining between organized labor and capital at a European level. I examine three critical developments in the recent history of EC social policy to gainsay the pessimistic view about the construction of collective bargaining at an EC level. First, the Social Protocol of the Maastricht Treaty, which set a cornerstone for institutionalizing collective bargaining at an EC level. Second, the European Works Council Directive case (1994), in which the first attempt at collective negotiation at a European level failed. Finally the Parental Leave Agreement (1995), the first ever framework agreement concluded between organized labor and capital at the EC level. To analyze how and why organized labor and capital came to engage in collective bargaining at a European level, I focus on the interactions in the 1990s between UNICE (Union of Industrial and Employers’ Confederations of Europe) on the capital side and the ETUC (European Trade Union Confederation) on the labor side and between them on the political authorities at the EC level.

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