What's the point of European Sectoral Social Dialogue? Effectiveness and polycontexturality in the hospital and metal sectors

• Author: Bengt Larsson,Barbara Bechter,Manuela Galetto,Thomas Prosser,Sabrina Weber
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12305
• Published date: 01 September 2020
• Date: 01 September 2020

What’s the point of European Sectoral

Social Dialogue? Effectiveness and

polycontexturality in the hospital and metal

sectors

Bengt Larsson,*Manuela Galetto, Sabrina Weber,

Barbara Bechter and Thomas Prosser

ABSTRACT

Drawing on pragmatism and systems theory, this article analyses how participants in

the European Sectoral Social Dialogue in the metal and hospital committees under-

stand its effectiveness. We find that the participants have a broad understanding of ef-

fectiveness compared with the European Commission and existing research.

Participants do not dismiss the importance of direct effects on working conditions

in member states but downplay it in comparison with indirect effects from, and effec-

tiveness in, European Sectoral Social Dialogue. That is, horizontal learning, knowl-

edge sharing and pragmatic bottom‐up work to reach consensus are emphasised as

more prominent than top‐down regulatory effectiveness.

1 INTRODUCTION

Since the establishment of European Sectoral Social Dialogue (ESSD) in 1998, its ef-

fectiveness has received both political and scholarly attention. The European Com-

mission (EC) has expressed expectations that employer organisations and trade

unions negotiate European‐wide sectoral agreements, thereby contributing to EU in-

tegration and the cross‐industry European Social Dialogue (ESD). The EC has tried

to develop a strongly outcome‐oriented social dialogue, emphasising that ‘Effective

social dialogue is the cornerstone of the European social model. It is a prerequisite

for the functioning of Europe’s social market economy and crucial to promote both

competitiveness and fairness’(EC, 2015; cf. EC, 1998; 2010a; 2010b; 2016).

The number of sectoral committees has more than doubled from 20 in 1999 to 43

today, covering most sectors and 80 per cent of the European workforce

(Eurofound, 2019). These committees have produced over 900 documents co‐signed

by employers and unions—in addition to the 100 outcomes from the cross‐industry

❒Bengt Larsson, Department of Sociology and Work Science, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg,

Sweden; Department of Social Studies, Linnaeus University, Växjö, Sweden, Manuela Galetto, Warwick

Business School, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK, Sabrina Weber, Institute for Human Resources

Research, Pforzheim University, Pforzheim, Germany, Barbara Bechter, Durham University Business

School, Durham University, Durham, UK and Thomas Prosser, Cardiff Business School, Cardiff

University, Cardiff, UK. Correspondence should be addressed to Professor Bengt Larsson, Department

of Sociology and Work Science, University of Gothenburg, Box 720, 405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden;

Department of Social Studies, Linnaeus University, Växjö, Sweden email: bengt.larsson@socav.gu.se

Industrial Relations Journal 51:5, 410–426

ISSN 0019-8692

© 2020 The Authors. Industrial Relations Journal published by Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution‐NonCommercial License, which per-

mits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for

commercial purposes.

ESD.

1

However, scholarly research has expressed scepticism regarding the actual im-

pact from ESSD at national and European levels, because of the non‐binding nature

of most outcomes (De Boer et al., 2005; Degryse, 2015; Keller, 2003; 2008; Léon-

ard, 2008; Léonard et al., 2012; Perin and Léonard, 2011; Pochet, 2005).

This raises several questions. If the ESSD does not deliver according to expecta-

tions, why does it endure? Are the expectations from the EC and in scholarly research

unreasonably high? Or has the ESSD other ways of being effective? In short, what is

the point of ESSD if it does not deliver in regulating working conditions in EU Mem-

ber States (MS)? Starting from existing analyses, we delve deeper into the

conceptualisations and expectations on effectiveness in ESSD. In particular, we want

to compare external expectations on ESSD coming from the EC and from academic

research with the practical experiences of the ESSD participants.

Most assessments of ESSD have focused primarily on the downward implementa-

tion of outcomes and less on the functioning of ESSD committees as an upward lobby

channel and arena for horizontal learning (Voss et al., 2018). Few attempts have been

made to understand the national social partners’engagement and strategies (Léon-

ard, 2008). Only recently have some studies focused on partners’interactions, goals

and nuanced interests (Perin, 2014; Weber, 2013). The present article contributes to

such bottom‐up and horizontal approaches by studying the experiences and expecta-

tions of national social partners taking part in ESSD.

Our aim is to understand the ESSD participants’perceptions of effectiveness in re-

lation to the EC and external observers’expectations and assessments. We will also

discuss the extent to which these perceptions resonate with varying national industrial

relations traditions and comment briefly upon sectoral differences. The analysis fo-

cuses on national social partners from five countries [Germany (DE), Italy (IT),

Poland (PL), Sweden (SE) and the UK] participating in ESSD committees in the hos-

pital and metal sectors.

Theoretically, the study is positioned at the intersection of pragmatism and systems

theory. This was inspired from previous studies using such theories in the analysis of

cross‐industry ESD (Hartzén, 2017; Seeliger, 2019; Welz, 2008). We explore the po-

tential of these theories in analysing ESSD, while adopting slightly different catego-

ries compared with previous research. More specifically, we apply the systems

theory‐related idea of polycontexturality to capture how effectiveness is observed

and evaluated from different perspectives (Luhmann, 2018; cf. Jansen, 2017).

The next section begins with the theoretical and methodological approach. There-

after, we reconstruct the accounts of effectiveness from the EC and scholarly research,

followed by a thematic analysis of the respondents’experiences and

conceptualisations of ESSD effectiveness. The article concludes on the found

polycontexturality and paradoxes in how effectiveness is observed. A discussion of

how these resonate with national traditions of industrial relations is also included.

2 THEORY: OBSERVING EFFECTIVENESS

European Sectoral Social Dialogue is often approached from expectations that its

outcomes should affect working conditions and industrial relations in the EU MS

(EC, 2010a; 2010b; 2016; cf. Tricart, 2019). Thus, the number of binding agreements

1

European Commission Social Dialogue Texts Database accessed 1 July 2019.

411What’s the point of ESSD?

© 2020 The Authors. Industrial Relations Journal published by Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd