Theme & tracks

The theme for the IIRA 2010 is

European Employment Relations - Crises and Visions

Throughout Europe, the financial crisis has had severe impact on national labour markets. Growing unemployment and downward pressure on wages have marked an abrupt end to the economic boom. Still, the effects of the crisis vary across borders, sectors and industries. So do the responses to the crisis: from conflict with, and criticism of, capital-owners to new forms of dialogue and agreements. Climate change is a crisis emphasising the need for greener technologies, which might lead to both job destruction as well as creation of new jobs.

The current economic crisis coincides with a wide range of other changes that challenge employment relations in Europe and emphasise the calls for a balance between flexibility and security in employment regulation. Especially challenging is the move from a manufacturing to service economy, the rise of multinational companies, and the ageing of the population together with EU enlargement. But also increases in precarious work alongside growing labour migration put European countries to the test.

The various challenges facing European employment relations will be addressed at the congress, which is organised around the following four tracks.

Track 1: The diverse labour force - new and old challenges

Intensified globalization, migration of labour and a new flexible capitalism have increased the diversity of the labour force and led to new challenges. Rights, pay and working conditions have become more diverse - within as well as across labour market models. Employment relations now vary more than ever along several dimensions: legal-illegal, formal-informal, inclusion-exclusion. At the same time, old challenges and conflicts remain unsolved. Unequal pay between men and women, unequal representation along both gender and ethnic lines in labour market organisations and problems related to employees' work-life balance are still widespread. The new and old challenges are closely related and interlinked, and to varying degrees reinforce one another.

During the last decade, trade unions have widened their agenda in order to make union democracy more inclusive and to protect employee rights and pay regardless of employment contract or relation to unions. Moreover, trade unions have developed new organisational strategies and have entered new forms of collaboration, e.g. with NGOs, local communities and MNCs. All these developments have had consequences for the national labour market models.

An important question is whether the economic crisis will further increase the challenges regarding labour force diversity and the conflicts related to them? Will labour migration decline? Will we see new bargaining agendas and new patterns of cooperation - or even a new division of responsibilities between the actors involved? Will labour migration and other demographic changes transform trade union strategies? And just as importantly, will old challenges still be addressed?

Track 2: Workplace relations and HR - back to collectivism?

Over the last 15 years, varying HRM practices have had a major impact on management-employee relations. Spurred by a general economic upturn and a decentralisation of negotiations, relations between management and employees seem to become increasingly company-based and in some cases even individualised. Low levels of unemployment combined with a trend towards job designs with more autonomy and increased job satisfaction appear to enhance enterprise loyalty and to erode employee interest in collective representation at company level. In some cases, the HR manager seems to have replaced the shop steward as the link between the employee and management.

The present recession may affect relations between management and employees at company level, but in many cases HR policies and developments just build on ongoing trends. Management may use the present situation to put wages and working conditions under pressure, but high investments in employees might entail that employers are reluctant to downsize the core work force and will choose other measures to stay competitive. Do SMEs apply different strategies than MNCs when under pressure? What is the interplay between national IR systems and HRM when adjustments are needed? Traditionally, well-educated and native employees have been less likely to be laid off during downsizing. However, still more employers experience migrant workers as more flexible, mobile and less unionised than native workers. How does that affect workplace relations? And to what extent do work place relations affect the overall IR system?

Track 3: Employment policies - labour demand, demography and social partners

While some European countries and sectors have experienced labour shortages in recent years, other countries suffer from persistently high unemployment rates. And while the demographic development contributes to labour shortages, the current economic crisis contributes to increasing unemployment.

European governments and social partner organisations have taken several steps to address these and other challenges to growth and jobs. The Lisbon Agenda and the European Employment Strategy seek to coordinate employment and economic policies. More recently, the European Commission has adopted the flexicurity concept from some of the Union's better performing labour markets. However, do pan-European policies have any effects? And is learning from best practices possible across countries?

At national level, activation policy has developed into a standard tool for balancing supply and demand for labour. More and more often, activation policy includes 'make-work-pay' elements such as tightening the criteria for receiving unemployment benefits or reducing the level of them. Can these policies help to increase employment during the economic downturn? And what is the connection between recent changes in governance structures and policy content? Other policy areas of interest for the social partner include lifelong learning policies. Also pension reforms have been central in recent attempts to address the demographic challenge deriving from ageing societies. However, do these policies have a tendency to focus on quantitative dimensions such as employment rates whilst ignoring the quality of work?

The diversity of the European employment policies have been analyzed within the Varieties of Capitalism typology as well as other approaches. Are these typologies still relevant? And how do the different models respond to the challenges of the new millennium?

Track 4: Regulating employment in Europe - processes, actors and governance

The nature of employment regulation has changed significantly in Europe during the last two decades. To varying degrees and in varying forms, collective bargaining systems have been decentralised across European countries. In some countries, the bargaining actors have developed strong coordination between national and local level bargaining processes; in others existing institutions regarding the relationship between employers and trade unions have been dismantled. The coverage rate of collective agreements has declined in some countries, and trade unions have experienced a weakening of their membership base in most European countries.

Existing agendas have to a large degree been overthrown by the current economic crisis; however, it is uncertain how this will influence employment regulation in a wider sense. Further, will we see a revitalisation of trade unions? It is often said that 'politics is back' due to the failure of neo-liberal policies. However, does this mean that the regulatory state will play a more explicit role in future labour market regulation; and in the processes of collective bargaining? Will we see a re-emergence of tripartite agreements or pacts?

European social and labour market integration is a diverse phenomenon - embracing EU directives, autonomous agreements and the open method of coordination. Recent rulings from the European Court of Justice - especially the case of Laval - have raised debates on the relationship between national labour market regulation and EU legislation. What are the dominant processes and dynamics of the European social dialogue? Has the dialogue more or less been paralysed by the double challenge of enlargement and economic crisis?

In general, this track will focus on new forms of governance regarding the employment relationship (national and EU level) whilst emphasising the traditional actors and forms of regulation in European labour markets.