IIRA Study Groups:

Future of Trade Unionism

Coordinator:
Dr. Timo Kauppinen
European Foundation for the improvement of Living and Working Conditions
Wyattville Road
Loughlinstown
Co. Dublin, Ireland
Tel.: (+353-1) 204-3143
Fax: (+353-1) 282-6456
E-mail: Timo.Kauppinen@eurofound.eu.int

The study group on the Future of Trade Unionism began its activities in the IIRA European Regional Conference in Helsinki 1994. Since then, the group members have met and presented papers at the IIRA Conferences. In the IIRA World Congress in Bologna 1998, the group published a very actual book on The Impact of EMU on Industrial Relations in European Union. At the moment the study group has the challenge to publish a book on the Future of Trade Unionism in the Accession Countries of the European Union from the comparative perspective.

The following are some topics of interest to members of the study group:

  • the system of industrial relations in the changing economic, political, social, and legal environment;
  • the partners of industrial relations: unionisation of employers' organisations, trade unions and the role of the state in industrial relations;
  • processes of industrial relations: collective bargaining in the national, sectoral and company level, conflict resolution mechanisms, workers' participation, labour code in practice;
  • outcome of industrial relations processes: content of collective agreements, wages, working hours and working conditions;
  • impacts of industrial relations: impacts on productivity, democracy, wage differences, equal opportunities and so on.