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The International Labour Organisation's 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work prioritised four core labour standards' principles and led to a burst of new ratifications of the international treaties that are the subject of those principles. Ten years on there are important identified gaps in state implementation of the ratified Conventions that are the subject of the four principles. These gaps leave important holes in public policy and legislation. In a number of important substantive areas, these gaps have the effect of leaving it to private actors to figure out what would amount to fulfilling the norms of fundamental labour principle inspired codes of conduct. Inescapably left on their own to figure out approaches, corporate social responsibility (CSR)-respecting enterprises are subject to criticism levelled on the basis of interpretations of these principles given by civil society organisations and labour rights' campaigners. This chapter details this situation. The first part provides the necessary background information. The second part gives concrete examples of how this governance gap raises challenges to implementing CSR initiatives. The third part suggests that, considering the arguable origins of CSR in neo-liberal deregulatory fervour, social dialogue and reform by non-compliant state actors is the only sustainable solution.

This chapter considers the ways in which the social partners are involved in the making of EU policy. The discussion begins with the emergence of the social dialogue. This is followed by analysis of the Treaty articles, with more specific elaboration of the ways in which the social partners can participate in the making of social policy. The focus then turns to the role of the social partners in the making of agreements that can be transformed into formal law, the problems associated with this process and the justifications offered for this privileged position. The ensuing discussion shifts to consideration of what are now known as autonomous agreements concluded by the social partners, which do not have the formal status of law, but which are important nonetheless. The chapter concludes by looking at less formal texts produced by the social partners through sectoral social committees, and the efforts that have been made to render these more effective than hitherto.

This chapter discusses an alternate strategy that policy-makers tend to use when they do not enjoy sufficiently strong political power, and when they address reforms in broad-reaching sectors that affect a large fraction of the population. In the absence of a large parliamentary majority or in the presence of strong opposition in the economic or social arena, policy-makers widen the political base for their reform by resorting to social dialogue and to a more consensual style. The need to gather wider social and political support induces policy-makers to increase the share of winners from the reform, while raising expenses for the losers.

This chapter discusses the question of whether social partnership structures, in the new member states, are ready to receive the European social model (ESM) and respond to its demands. The focus is on organisational models, including the different countries' economic markets, highlighting the issue of the suitability of the ESM for these new members who carry strongly different traditions and historical backgrounds and whose future economic and social interests may also accordingly be rather different. The potential threats that these new member states represent for the future of European social dialogue and the ESM as a whole are also pointed out. There should be a crucial overall review both of a European-level social dialogue definition and of a more flexible European Employment Strategy in order to enable the new members to take the requisite resolutions. In the absence of such a process there exists a strong risk that the Anglo-Saxon model will become prevalent within the EU and thereby discredit the rather fragile ESM.

In this chapter the idea of the labour constitution is adopted as a framework through which to analyse the history of the EU and, in particular, the question of worker participation at different levels of economic organization—different sites of decision-making—within the Union. The focus lies with the European social dialogue at the supranational, cross-sectoral level, and its precursors in the Economic, and Coal and Steel, Communities. Viewed through the framework of the labour constitution, the key question to be addressed is taken to be that of the potential of the dialogue to function in a way comparable with the collective bargaining and corporatist arrangements of the (old) member states: to democratize the EU economic order, and to deliver improved substantive outcomes for European workers.

EU law recognizes the regulatory role of social partners—the bodies representing management and labour—but provides neither a legal nor a fully developed conceptual framework. An output analysis of the texts produced by the social partners demonstrates that they fulfil a variety of functions, both as stakeholders and co-regulators. However, only a small percentage of the documents produced in the European social dialogue have the status of EU collective agreements. It is the latter group which is most interesting from the point of view of regulation. A further analysis tracks the different interactions between EU law and EU collective agreements and highlights the tension between horizontal and vertical subsidiarity created by the REFIT agenda.

This chapter describes of the passage of the Social Protection Floor Recommendation idea through the International Labour Conferences of 2011 and 2012. As was described in the last chapter, having nurtured and refined the concept within the Social Security Department for several years, how would the ILO Secretariat try to ensure its smooth passage through these events? The chapter starts with an initial discussion of why getting agreement of the ILO to the SPF might be a challenge to in the context of the tripartite governance structure of the ILO. It then describes and analyses how the policy was steered through the 2011 and 2012 International Labour Conferences to final acceptance.

The aim of this chapter is to explore in the case of Denmark the influence of social dialogue on activation for disabled people, reflecting ongoing tensions in the context of recession. Specifically, the chapter (i) outlines the reforms of the 2000s, involving a more work first strategy for disabled people; (ii) analyses the devolution and municipalisation of activation and the shift to multi-agency approaches in the 2013 reforms, and (iii) assesses the impact of austerity and more intensified work first-based interventions on the Danish welfare ‘consensus’. The chapter argues that social dialogue has been important to the Danish model of supporting disabled people to remain in, or enter paid work, but has been compromised by the shift towards workfare. The more recent moves towards co-production are important, on the one hand, in incorporating the voice of disabled people, but, on the other hand, the availability of quality sustainable jobs for disabled people remains a challenge.

As states in the early twentieth century established labour ministries to manage and mitigate class conflict, the question of whether and under what conditions the public policy perspectives of the working class and their trade unions could find a hearing within the state became significant. As the labour-capital compromises that characterized the political economy of post-1945 liberal democracies unravelled and the internal architecture of states transformed with the rise of neoliberalism, the labour movement’s policy influence has declined, even within institutions of social dialogue. While it remains strategically important for trade unions to engage in state-oriented policy analysis and advocacy, the force of argument, of good rational analysis, is insufficient in the current era. This exploration of trade unions’ resulting reorientation of their policy advocacy tactics and strategies suggests a creative process of engaging members and the public is underway.

Chapter Six highlights the importance of social dialogue to the social politics of fatherhood in the European Union and the importance of scholarly involvement on bodies such as the European Observatory on National Family Policies, the Confederation of Family Organisations of the European Union, the European Commission Childcare Network, the Network on Leave and Policy Research, the European Union Network of Experts on Family Policy and the European Parliament Quality of Childhood Group. Chapter Six illustrates that the Swedish model was influential on the European Union parental leave directives and on the move in 2009 towards individualization and non-transferability of leave for fathers. Chapter six also illustrates that the EU is a site for contested debates concerning child support and broader issues of political economy, family policy, intersectionality and varieties of capitalism.

Industrial relations in the Netherlands are characterized by the rather harmonious collaboration of employers’ organizations, trade unions and the government. Various institutions have evolved that serve as a vehicle for social dialogue including the Social Economic Council, the Labour Foundation and – until recently – the Council for Work and Income. One of the specific characteristics of the Dutch ‘poldermodel’ is that these institutions not only play an important role in the traditional issues of industrial relations like negotiations on wages and labour conditions, but also in much wider issues including global competition, housing policies and social policies. In doing so, these institutions go beyond their traditional role of producing consensus on themes related to industrial relations, they become producers of negotiated policy analysis. Finally attention is paid to the most recent trends in the Dutch poldermodel, particularly the fact the influence of negotiated knowledge has lost some of its power. Is this temporary, or should we expect institutions that are built on unions and employer organizations to erode – just as these organizations do?