Global Labour‐Standards Advocacy by European Civil Society Organizations: Trends and Developments

In recent years, developments in intergovernmental organizations and transnational private governance organizations have created new opportunities and constraints for the promotion of global labour‐standards governance by civil society organizations (CSOs). This article describes how European CSOs (including trade union organizations and non‐governmental organizations (NGOs)) respond to these developments. It argues that European civil society is witnessing a threefold shift in priorities of labour‐standards advocacy: from pushing regulatory approaches to organizational capacity building; from corporate responsibility strategies focused on compliance to strategies focused on transparency; and from fair labour standards within the sustainable development agenda to a host of other issues. The overall result is that labour‐standards advocacy in general and private labour governance in particular are receiving less attention from European CSOs.     

Putting Partnership into Practice in Britain

The paper reviews industrial relations developments in Britain during 1999 by assessing how New Labour's policy commitment to encouraging 'partnership' is developing in practice. After a discussion of the Employment Relations Act, it considers the wider influence of European legislation. It then describes how partnership approaches have been developing in trade union policy and industrial practice. This leads to an analysis of the operation of two explicit 'social partnership' institutions, ACAS and the Low Pay Commission. The paper ends with a consideration of the developing arguments at the ILO and WTO over international labour standards.     

The War on Europe’s Waterfront — Repertoires of Power in the Port Transport Industry

When the European Commission proposed a Directive On Market Access to Port Services in February 2001, the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) issued a declaration of war on Europe’s waterfront. To protect established terms and conditions of employment in the port transport industry, the ITF developed a strategy of internationalization that required dock workers to engage in a new politics of scale wrought by globalization. A new repertoire of collective action — based on more effective union articulation (i.e. stronger interrelationships between the workplace, national and international levels of organization) combined with the activities of new labour networks that connected port workers at the trans‐national corporation, port range and pan‐European levels — enabled dockers to sink the Directive in the European Parliament in November 2003. The dockers’ victory will not be lost on other European unions or indeed other global union federations, although their success will doubtless prove more difficult for other occupational groups to emulate.     

PROTECTIVE LEGISLATION AND PART-TIME EMPLOYMENT IN BRITAIN

This paper analyses the likely impact of a proposed European Community Directive on part-time work, on part-time employment in Britain. The provisions of the Directive, which extends to part-time employees a number of legal rights currently only available to full-time employees, are contrasted with the complex and somewhat arbitrary present state of the law in Britain in the area of regulating part-time work. The impact is examined by testing models which identify the determinants of the supply and demand for part-time employees. The tests suggest that existing regulations have indeed affected the manner in which part-time employees are utilised but that there is no evidence that the present partial protective legislation has reduced the level of part-time employment. Government opposition to the Directive on such grounds may therefore be unfounded.     

The Italian way to functional separation: An assessment of background and criticalities

The paper describes the approach to functional separation followed in Italy. The analysis places the notion of functional separation in the context of the reform of the European Regulatory Framework in particular the Access Directive of the European Commission. It concentrates on the two main aspects of functional separation in the Italian telecommunications market: (i) the creation of an Open Access unit and (ii) the undertakings suggested by Telecom Italia and approved by AGCOM with the Decision 718/08/CONS. The paper shows that even if these measures are primarily aimed at fostering transparency, promoting equal access and non-discrimination practices, some doubts remain with respect to the impact of functional separation on incumbency of Telecom Italia. It proposes that the outcome of functional separation will have to be determined by joint efforts of regulation by AGCOM and changes in the strategy of Telecom Italia.     

Labelling policy in the EEC

After describing the aims of the Community with regard to ‘harmonization’ and the legal basis for its activities in working towards that aim, the author discusses the relation of EEC labelling policy to that of other international organizations and then sets out in detail the proposals in the draft Directive currently before the Council of Ministers. In conclusion, she discusses the adaptation of UK legislation to comply with the Directive, and examines the reasons behind the slow completion rate of Community provisions, which ‘has been acutely disappointing for those who favour a free European market in foodstuffs’.     

Behind the European Works Councils Directive: The European Commission's Legislative Strategy

The aim of the draft European works councils Directive is to bridge the gap between increasingly transnational corporate decision-making and employees' nationally-defined information and consultation rights. The proposal seeks to accommodate existing national systems of employee representation, but in the UK auxiliary measures would be needed to designate employee representatives in the absence of voluntary trade union recognition by employers. Although the Directive is strongly opposed by the UK government, the Maastricht social policy protocol has boosted its prospects of being adopted by the other 11 EC countries, with important repercussions for UK-based multinationals.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:
Harry C. Katz and Owen Darbishire Converging Divergences: Worldwide Changes in Employment Systems
Peter Leisink (ed) Globalization and Labour Relations
Herbert Kitschelt, Peter Lange, Gary Marks and John D. Stephens (eds) Continuity and Change in Contemporary Capitalism
Andrew Martin and George Ross The Brave New World of European Labor: European Trade Unions at the Millennium
Alan Felstead and Nick Jewson (eds) Global Trends in Flexible Labour
Brendan Burchell, Diana Day, Maria Hudson, David Ladipo, Roy Mankelow, Jane P. Nolan, Hannah Reed, Ines C. Wichert and Frank Wilkinson Layerthorpe Job Insecurity and Work Intensification: Flexibility and the Changing Boundaries of Work
Gerhard Huemer, Michael Mesch and Franz Traxler (eds) The Role of Employer Associations and Labour Unions in the EMU: Institutional Requirements for European Economic Policies
John D. R. Craig Privacy and Employment Law
Gerrit de Geest, Jacques Siegers and Roger Van den Bergh (eds) Law and Economics and the Labour Market
Tom Juravich and Kate Bronfenbrenner Ravenswood: The Steelworkers' Victory and the Revival of American Labor
Linda Markowitz Worker Activism after Successful Union Organizing     

European policies and regulation

This article describes the three main objectives of the European Community's programme of regulatory reform in the telecommunication sector: liberalization, the separation of regulatory and operational functions, and the realization of scale economies. Particular attention is paid to the new Directive on Open Network Provision.     

Book Reviews

Towers, Brian, (ed.) Employment Relations in Britain: 25 years of the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration services
Rigby, Mike, Smith, Roger and Lawlor, Teresa, (eds.) European Trade Unions: Change and Response
Turner, Lowell, Fighting for Partnership: Labor and Politics in Unified Germany
Elliot, Robert, Lucifora, Claudio and Meurs, Dominique, (eds.) Public Sector Pay Determination in the European Union
Lind, Jens and Hornemann Möller, Iver, (eds.) Inclusion and Exclusion: Unemployment and Non‐standard Employment in Europe
Clark, Ed and Soulsby, Anna, Organizational Change in Post‐communist Europe: Management and Transformation in the Czech Republic
Dark, Taylor, The Unions and the Democrats: An Enduring Alliance
Freeman, Richard and Rogers, Joel, What Workers Want
Whetten, David and Godfrey, Paul, (eds.) Identity in Organizations: Building Theory through Conversations
Tsutsui, William, Manufacturing Ideology: Scientific Management in Twentieth‐Century Japan
Barker, James, The Discipline of Teamwork: Participation and Concertive Control     

The Year 2005 at DG Competition: The Trend towards a More Effects-Based Approach

This first review of the European Commission’s Directorate General for Competition (DG COMP) gives an overview on DG COMP’s mandate and the main developments of 2005. The discussion includes institutional and policy developments, as well as the main competition policy decisions and Court judgments in the merger, antitrust, and state aid areas. It is argued that the trend towards a more effects-based analysis in EU competition policy had an impact on the assessment of competition cases, as well as on the development of soft law. For example, the effects-based approach was put high on the agenda with the publication of the Article 82 discussion paper. Similarly, the publication of the State Aids Action Plan (SAAP) launched a “more economic approach” in European state aid assessment. In line with its objective to focus resources on key sectors, two major inquiries were launched in the energy and financial sectors.The views expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not in any way represent an official position of the European Commission. Until 1 September 2006, Lars-Hendrik Roeller was the Chief Economist at DG Competition. He is now the President of the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT) in Berlin and a Professor at Humboldt University.     

Regime Effects of EU Market Integration Policies on the UK Financial Sector

Standard equity capital market methods are used to estimate the share price effects in the UK market of the recent change in regime implied by passage of key provisions implementing the European single banking market. Empirical results indicate that events associated with increasing the likelihood of passage of the new Merger Control Regulation and the Second Banking Directive had positive valuation effects for the portfolio of UK firms involved in banking services.     

Social power as an antecedence of governance in buyer-supplier alliances

Buyer-supplier alliances require certain governance mechanisms to be successfully controlled and coordinated. However, relatively little is known about how power differentials between the actors affect the applicability of those governance mechanisms. This paper follows the assumption that different sources of social power among firms directly influence the governance mechanisms and indirectly their performance. Our study utilizes a sample of 250 European firms to test the influence of four social power sources on three different governance mechanisms. We find different influences of social power on certain governance mechanisms. Suppliers' perception of buyers' coercive power leads to stronger contractual governance and stronger buyer directives but reduces the use of relational norms. Reward power only relates to contractual governance. Expert power steers towards buyer directives and relational norms. Referent power stimulates the development of relational norms. A cluster analysis of power types provides additional insights and enriches our managerial implications.     

Initial Responses to the Statutory Recognition Provisions of the Employment Relations Act 1999

We report how trade unions and employers initially reacted to the introduction of the statutory recognition procedure in the Employment Relations Act 1999 (ERA). Interview data indicate that the ERA and the drift of EU influence have acted to shift employer attitudes towards greater approval of unions and have accelerated the rate at which employers are redesigning their relationships with unions. Although they are restricting unions’ influence over traditional issues such as pay‐setting, employers are increasingly seeking their assistance in implementing organizational changes. We explore the impact of these developments on union activity and on collective representation more broadly.     

Ownership and Pay in Britain

Drawing on principal–agent perspectives on corporate governance, the article examines whether employees’ hourly pay is related to ownership dispersion. Using linked employee‐workplace data from the British Workplace Employment Relations Survey 2011, and using a variety of techniques including interval regression and propensity score matching, average hourly pay is found to be higher in dispersed ownership workplaces. The premium is broadly constant across most of the wage distribution, but falls at the 95th percentile to become statistically non‐significant. This contrasts with earlier papers which indicate that higher level employees are the primary beneficiaries of higher pay from dispersed ownership. The dispersed ownership pay premium is not readily explained by efficiency wage perspectives but is consistent with a managerial desire for a ‘quiet life’.     

From mutual recognition to mutual scientific opinion? Constitutional framework for risk analysis in EU food safety law

Regulation 178/2002 (the so-called General Food Law – GFL) codifies risk analysis as the core principle of the modern food safety policy. This article places the GFL in EU multi-level food safety governance and analyses the impact of risk analysis, the precautionary principle and mechanisms of scientific governance introduced by the GFL on both national and Community legislation. It discusses the case law of the European Courts dealing with scientific evidence and the precautionary principle applied to both European and national food safety measures. The article concludes with some observations on the role of the risk analysis methodology in the Community internal market.     

A ‘Common Food Policy’ for Europe: How governance reforms can spark a shift to healthy diets and sustainable food systems

More than half of adults in the European Union (EU) are now either overweight or obese (53%). Non-communicable diseases (NCDs), many of which are diet-related, account for 70% of mortality in Europe and a growing share of healthcare costs. While eating habits have an important role to play in NCD prevention, consumption patterns across the EU are diverging significantly from recommended diets. There is growing consensus on the solution: a series of coordinated and wide-ranging policy interventions to build healthy ‘food environments’.This article argues that EU governance structures remain ill-adapted to the systemic nature of this and other challenges in food systems (e.g. climate change, biodiversity loss, food poverty): conflicting objectives and missed synergies are identified between different policy areas (agriculture, trade, health, environment, etc.) and between different levels of governance (EU, national, local). An integrated food policy framework – a ‘Common Food Policy’ – is therefore required to meet the EU’s public health and sustainability objectives. It identifies four distinct aspects of the governance shift required to promote healthy diets and build sustainable food systems in Europe: (i) coherence across policy areas; (ii) coherence across governance levels; (iii) governance for transition; and (iv) food democracy. Blueprints for a Common Food Policy are already emerging, and are ripe for consideration, development, and implementation by the European institutions.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article
Technology and the Labour Process
Under New Management: Australian Organisations in Transition
Technological Development and the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions: Options for the Future
Information Technology in European Services: Towards a Microelectronic Future
Skills, Wages and Productivity in the Service Sector
The Spatial Context of Technological Development
The Technical Challenges and Opportunities of a United Europe
Technology and the Pursuit of Economic Growth
New Explorations in the Economics of Technological Change
R&D Management: Managing Products and New Processes (2nd edition)
The Employment Impact of New Technology
The Strategic Management of Technological Innovation
New Firms in the Biotechnology Industry: Their Contribution to Innovation and Growth     

An evolving science-society contract in India: The search for legitimacy in anticipatory risk governance

This article analyzes evolving institutions and practices of anticipatory risk governance in India, through the lens of two recent and highly controversial developments in governing genetically modified crops in Indian agriculture. These developments include, first, conflicts over approving (or not) the very first genetically modified food crop in India and a related experiment in participatory decision-making; and second, proposals to revamp the existing biosafety regulatory system (with its checks and balances across diverse sources of authority) with one that elevates scientists and scientific expertise to the pinnacle of decision-making power. The article analyzes the distinct means by which legitimacy is sought to be conferred upon the means and ends of anticipatory risk governance, as reflected in these two examples. I contrast claims to legitimacy deriving from innovative experiments in participatory democracy with legitimacy claims based upon “objective” science, showing that despite acknowledged need for the former, the latter is still being prioritized. The article concludes by identifying the contours of an evolving science-society contract in India, as revealed by these cases.     

Copyright Protection in the Digital Single Market: Potential Consequences for Content Platform Competition

This paper scrutinizes the effects of the European Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market on platform competition. Platforms that are online content-sharing service providers must have a license agreement with collective management organizations that control the content platform that users may – or must not – upload to the platform. The paper shows that the new directive may imply market concentration and an aggregate welfare loss. The reason is that only users of the large platform (in a dual platform setting) will be allowed to upload content if the content assets are sufficiently valuable and if network effects are strong.