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Labour relations
We keep members up to date with trends in trade union activities, employee involvement and collective agreements. We also provide guidance on procedures such as the development of a social plan to comply with collective redundancy rules in different European countries.
Trade unions across Europe: Is trade union membership growing or declining across Europe? How significant will trade unions be by the year 2010? Our summary of trade union trends includes a listing of the principal union bodies with details of their size and characteristics.
Industrial relations across Europe: Summary capsules for each country outline the present position on such issues as freedom of association, unionisation and the right to strike. We also include facts about the minimum working age, minimum wage, standard workweek and annual holiday entitlements, together with brief details on the role of the state in industrial relations, collective bargaining and employee representation. Those who are expanding their operations within Europe will be particularly interested in our European league table of strikes and lockouts.
Social Europe: Here we offer a brief
review of works councils and
also an account of how the social
dimension became an integral part of European Union's policy
agenda. You may also be interested in our outline of key developments
in the history of working time. This describes
how attempts to place statutory limits on working time date back
to the nineteenth century, with the 48-hour working week first being
introduced by the International
Labour Organisation in 1919.
EU Charter of Fundamental Rights: This measure was developed by a special convention that first met in December 1999. On 7th December 2000, the presidents of the European Parliament, the Council and the European Commission signed and proclaimed the Charter on behalf of their institutions. However, the current legal status of the Charter remains uncertain. It was not formally incorporated into the Nice Treaty, but it has been cited in European Court of Justice rulings and has become an important reference point during collective bargaining. It is now an integral part of the draft EU constitution and its future rests largely on the willingness of EU states to sign up to the constitutional agenda.
EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (pdf)
Labour courts: Here you will find descriptions of how individual and collective disputes are handled by specialist labour courts in six European countries - Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain.
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