Strengthening collective bargaining power across the European Union

Key points

The EESC:

• stresses that wage coordination plays a key role in helping social partners account for the macroeconomic effects of wage agreements on competitiveness;
• maintains that trade unions together with employers' organisations continue to play an important role in shaping economic, employment and social policy. However, the number of workers covered by either company-level or sectoral agreements continues to fall, thereby weakening the bargaining power of trade unions;
• highlights that trade unions, employers and governments must assume greater importance in a dynamic labour market and to identify opportunities for ensuring the viability of sound and solid structures for social dialogue, collective bargaining power included, and respecting the autonomy of the social partners as well as national industrial relations;
• notes that innovation in the workplace is critical for the success of any business and therefore recommends that, as part of the collective bargaining process, innovation processes in the workplace are addressed as part of collective bargaining and social dialogue in general;
• believes that collective bargaining and social dialogue can support industrial strategy in changing economic conditions and boost productivity at the workplace, in line with national industrial relations;
• notes that the most extensive and most stable collective bargaining coverage in Europe exists in those countries whose bargaining systems are characterised by multi-employer bargaining, where negotiations mainly take place at sectoral or even at cross-sectoral level;
• calls for governments to use public procurement in appropriate cases as complementary means to promote and recognise collective bargaining.