Collective Bargaining for Self-Employed Workers in Europe Approaches to Reconcile Competition Law and Labour Rights Founding Editor: Roger Blanpain General Editor: Frank Hendrickx Edited by Bernd Waas & Christina Hießl The increase in the number of self-employed workers, partially in response to the advent of the platform economy, has raised the spectre of horizontal price-fixing by self-employed members of a profession. This perception, however, is at odds with international labour standards, under which self-employed persons should also be able to conclude collective agreements to some extent. It is now commonplace for companies to offer various forms of non-standard employment that shift risk from the labour engager to the labour provider – which may increase the likelihood of those workers to fall outside the legal concept of ‘employee’ and because of that affects their legal protection. Legal practitioners may then face a dilemma: what may be required under labour law may be prohibited under antitrust law. In the first comprehensive analysis of these intensely debated issues, the authors argue that there is an urgent need to address the current legal puzzle, including through regulatory measures. This must include, in particular, the existing regulation at the level of the European Union (EU), which dominates competition law in the Member States. The book combines an analysis of the supranational framework by experts in labour law as well as competition law with in-depth country reports from Member States of the EU in which regulations and/or practices of collective bargaining for the self-employed exist. Among the many issues discussed in this book are the following: collective bargaining and international labour rights; self-employed individuals and the concept of undertaking in EU competition law; the concept of ‘social dumping’; the importance of the case law of the European Court of Justice; the concept of ‘vulnerability’; competition authorities’ enforcement strategies and priorities; the concept of ‘false self-employed’; and the possible introduction of exemptions, presumptions, safe harbours, or smart regulation solutions in competition law. The book gives an insight into the legal situation in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden. These reports discuss the current practice of collective bargaining and how the current law is reflected in the academic discourse on the right of self-employed people to bargain collectively. This important book, in its presentation of legally sound and effective ways to shape the application of the right to bargain collectively that are attuned to the business and technological realities of the twenty-first century, promotes an understanding of the consequences for current law and practice and offers a basis for a discussion of regulatory measures addressing existing challenges. Practitioners of labour law and competition law, national competition authorities, and other interested parties will benefit from the detailed analysis and extensive findings.

The insertion in June 1997 of a Title on employment in the Treaty on European Union has accelerated the drafting of European policy in this field over the last few years. This European dynamic has had widespread impact on the themes and mechanisms that characterise national systems of industrial relations. On the one hand, employment is increasingly governed by rules negotiated between the social partners and, depending on the circumstances, the State. This phenomenon of joint labour market regulation is confirmed by a marked desire on the part of employers' associations and trade unions to integrate employment-related issues into their actions and negotiations. On the other hand, the incorporation of employment-related themes by employers’ associations and trade unions, usually in concertation with government policies, is related with greater coordination of bargaining and concertation mechanisms established at European level and within each Member State. Today, the various national realities appear to be directed to various degrees by these two general tendencies. These phenomena active in the field of employment bargaining must therefore be analysed on three counts: the first focuses on the development of the coordination mechanisms that structure these negotiations, and more specifically raises the issue of co-responsibility for the labour market; the second deals with the strict content of employment bargaining, and examines the question of negotiated flexibility of working conditions and employment; the third addresses the autonomy of collective bargaining in Europe. This analysis informs our research, which is in turn intimately linked to recent changes taking place in national systems of industrial relations.

Does collective bargaining play a role in employment in the European Union today? The European Employment Strategy implemented in the European Union since 1997 invites social partners in all member states to participate in the promotion of employment at all levels. Is this the role of trade unions and employers organisations? Do social partners in the member states negotiate employment? Do they contribute to an objective of full employment? Do they want to improve 'employability'? Do they, finally, negotiate and reach agreements on such issues? Building on a in-depth study conducted by a European-scale network of experts for the DG Employment and Social Affairs of the European Commission, this report addresses these crucial issues. It analyses processes of collective bargaining and agreements on employment in the fifteen member states in 2000 and 2001. It includes national insights as well as comparative analyses of current trends. Researchers at the Institut des Sciences du Travail, a Department of the Catholic University of Louvain, here produce a fourth review of recent developments observed in the field of employment bargaining in Europe. This analysis, which has been conducted at the request of DG Employment and Social Affairs, focuses on agreements negotiated in the field of employment, and on the identification of the coordination mechanisms that structure these negotiations. The study contains 15 national contributions.

This unique book offers a comprehensive systematization and overview of the EU´s emerging ‘acquis’ and practice of Collective Labour Law. Although the core aspects of Collective Labour Law lie outside the EU’s competence to regulate, the laws and industrial relations systems of Member States are undoubtedly influenced by the EU, and the involvement of Social Partners, i.e. representatives of employers and workers, is essential for many aspects of EU law and policy.

Collective bargaining and workers’ voice are often discussed in the past rather than in the future tense, but can they play a role in the context of a rapidly changing world of work? This report provides a comprehensive assessment of the functioning of collective bargaining systems and workers’ voice arrangements across OECD countries, and new insights on their effect on labour market performance today.

In many EU Member States, the various economic crises of recent years provided grounds for a rarely equalled level of state intervention in the regulation of labour relations with an explicit aim: the decentralisation of collective bargaining. An extensive body of research – summed up and analysed expertly in the chapters of this very important book – reveals that the process of decentralisation has more often than not led to a situation where salaries and labour conditions are ever more frequently determined by direct negotiations between employer and employees, with the State becoming the sole guarantor of employee protection even as it encourages decreasing labour costs to ensure that companies remain competitive. The comparative approach offered in this book adds to this synthesis by providing examples of speci c recent developments in fourteen Member States and Turkey. Among the numerous topics and issues that arise are the following: – ‘opt-out’ clauses that derogate unfavourably from sectoral agreement standards; – extension of the employer’s unilateral decision-making power; – ‘memoranda of understanding’ imposed by the ‘troika’ (EU, ECB, and IMF); and – ‘stand-by arrangements’ imposed by the IMF. However, notwithstanding the strong emphasis on changing the structure of collective agreements by shifting the centre of gravity closer to the company, research nds promise in the reconstituted support for sector-level agreements increasingly found among very small businesses, networked businesses, and work via digital platforms. This is the rst book to take stock of the current state of collective bargaining in Europe. It is an essential study for labour and employment law practitioners, and an exemplary analysis of immeasurable value to policymakers and academics in the eld.

A large set of recent studies tends to show that employment is currently gaining increased importance in the content of collective bargaining in the European Union member states. The notion of bargaining on employment refers to negotiation processes that may take place among unions and employers' organizations and, sometimes, the state, and that aim to increase employment levels and to reduce unemployment. In other words, this type of bargaining consists in defining joint rules organizing, or at least attempting to organize, employment volumes and flux, with the objective of preserving or creating jobs, on the one hand, and of assisting the unemployed to find a job, on the other. It is sometimes contrasted with bargaining focused on more traditional issues such as wages or working conditions, because it has a specific objective, trying not only to regulate employment relations, but more generally to regulate employment as such, defined in terms of number of jobs. In the European Union, and more precisely in the EU-15, this takes place in a context where employment rates steadily remain below those of Japan and the United States, the two countries with which comparisons are traditionally made in the official figures published by the European Commission. Similarly, even if some countries have now virtually achieved full employment, such as Austria and the Netherlands, for instance, average unemployment rates in the European Union remain around 8%, higher than in either Japan or in the USA. It is important to keep this context in mind when one considers the fact that social partners in the European Union participate in various bargaining processes aimed at building joint solutions for a more efficient labour market. This takes place at several levels: first, at the European level, social partners are invited to participate in the “European employment strategy” that annually defines guidelines for all member states and that stresses the contribution of unions and employers' organizations in the preparation and implementation of those guidelines at national level; second, within the member states, it also includes tripartite agreements and “social pacts” that reflect the revival of neo-corporatism in European countries since the early 1990s and that include not only wage moderation clauses but also joint projects for employment; third, employment is also taken into consideration at lower levels of bargaining, e.g. at the level of branches, regions and companies. The article examines collective bargaining on employment issues with a focus on the nature of the processes involved and shows that they represent a specific type of bargaining, both in terms of the rules produced and in terms of the relationships between the actors involved. The first part briefly summarizes some important data on the context of employment in Europe and key points of the European employment strategy. It also discusses the notion of bargaining on employment and refers to the concept of regulation to analyse this type of bargaining. The second part examines the characteristics of bargaining on employment, successively looking at the subjects negotiated, the uncertainty that accompanies this type of bargaining, the relationship between the state and social partners and, finally, the nature of emerging compromises. In terms of content, bargaining on employment touches a very wide range of issues, extending from measures oriented towards the protection of existing jobs to programmes to support the unemployed, through changes in work organization intended to preserve or to create jobs. In fact, if there is in Europe a broad consensus on the fact that employment is a priority for all, and here more particularly for states, unions and employers' organizations, the specific content of bargaining behind the general objective is much less consensual. It is, moreover, highly uncertain as arrangements concluded aim to stimulate employment but very rarely include a clear and quantified commitment to a specific number of jobs. In terms of processes, bargaining on employment, to the extent that it contributes to the regulation of the labour market, implies intertwined roles between governments and social partners. More generally, neo-corporatist processes have attracted renewed interest in European countries since the 1990s, and the search for joint solutions to regulate the labour market has contributed to these developments. Tripartite programmes for employment along with social pacts reflect the search, on the part of social actors, for transformed trade-offs organizing the labour market, in which the notion of “employability” holds a growing place. In conclusion, collective bargaining on employment tends to reflect an apparent paradox: it opens greater space for flexibility, for company-based solutions, for a notion of “employability,” but through the means of joint regulation from the state and social partners. As such, it raises original issues on the role of collective bargaining in the definition of the rules organizing current labour markets in Europe, in other words on the role of collective bargaining as a regulator of the labour market, beyond the regulation of employment relationships.