CESI calls for inclusive social dialogue in Europe

The resolution follows up on a recent initiative of the European Commission to strengthen social dialogue in Europe, which comprises a Communication focussing on measures it aims to purse to enhance social dialogue at the EU level and a proposal for a Council Recommendation with suggestions for the Member States to reinforce social dialogue at the national level.

In the resolution, CESI welcomes the European Commission’s initiative on strengthening social dialogue but regrets that the initiative is overly focussed on the needs of majoritarian unions and established social partners and is, in several respects, a missed opportunity to strengthen sectoral social dialogue and independent unions.

In particular, CESI:

• notes that a proposed further deepened of involvement of cross-industry European Social partners for instance through a new ex-ante consultation on the European Commission’s annual work programme or even more topical ad-hoc topical Dedicated Hearings and additional meetings with the Employment Committee and Social Protection Committee should not be pursued while these remain categorically closed for independent European sectoral social partners which are not part of a recognised European cross-industry trade union organisation. Rather than focussing even more on cross-sector social partners, a better inclusion of independent sectoral social partners and their national members could bring further added value to policy making and social dialogue.
• hails the stated need that European sectoral social dialogue committees should always “strive to be inclusive” and “maintain and increase [their] representativeness.” The legitimacy of a committee is a factor of its representativeness. The more inclusive and representative a committee is, the less will its output be called into question, and the higher be will the acceptance and pick-up of its output among the workforces and their representatives across Europe.
• welcomes the objective to review the approach to representativeness studies that Eurofound conducts at the request of the European Commission. Their methodology and structure, which is in several ways tilted towards established European social partners at the disadvantage of new actors that strive to become newly recognised, needs to be adjusted. Moreover, there needs to be more transparency and automaticity in the recognition process of new social partners. Even where Eurofound studies acknowledge their representativeness, established social partners with vested interests can just ignore this and obstruct any efforts from new organisations to accede to committees. The European Commission – as financier and organiser of the European social dialogue – should take the necessary steps to ensure that organisations which representativeness studies deem representative in a given sector can also effectively access the European social dialogue committee for that sector in a meaningful, proportionate way and maximise its representativeness and legitimacy

The full resolution is available here.