This title was first published in 2001. The emergence of the European Works Councils (EWCs) is one of the most important developments in international industrial relations and the most significant intervention by the European Union in the industrial relations field. This volume is the second of three studies into the establishment and operation of EWCs conducted by the authors. It examines the development of a typology of EWCs and explores the prospects for establishing networks of EWCs, using case studies drawn from the food, banking and insurance sectors. The book is an informative text for researchers, academics and practitioners who wish to locate empirical material and practical experience in a developmental and theoretical framework.

This title was first published in 2002: Negotiated Europeanisation is the final study in a three-volume series on European Works Councils by an international research group. The first two studies have already been published by Ashgate. The current study is rooted in an analysis of the establishment of EWCs under Articles 5 and 6 of the 1994 EWC Directive. This is now a mandatory procedure and completes the development of EWCs from bodies set up purely by voluntary negotiation to bodies set up within a binding statutory procedure. The study is based on cases of five (named) major European firms in a variety of industrial sectors. As well as a detailed consideration of how negotiations using the mandatory procedure took place, there are more general reflections on the 'quality' of the actors involved, the negotiating process and the outcomes. As well as their analytical value, these observations offer a number of practical pointers on the establishment of information and consultation arrangements internationally. The study also asks why EWCs have been set up in only one third of eligible companies and why the pace of establishing new EWCs slowed after the mandatory procedure came into force in September 1996. This part of the study is based upon a pan-European questionnaire and offers the first empirical findings on this issue. European Works Councils exemplify a new mode of regulation at the European level, not only within industrial relations but in the field of European integration more widely conceived - Europe as a multi-level system of governance within a framework of devolved subsidiarity. This study is of both academic and practical interest, particularly in view of the continuing process of change in this area, exemplified in new Directives on the European Company Statute and information and consultation at national level.

First published in 1999, this volume evaluates the context, role and development of EWCs through eight case studies and asks whether EWCs will promote the Europeanisation of Industrial relations. The EWCs were the first European institution in the field of social policy and went far beyond simply requiring national implementation of a common framework. They were innovative in their requirements for a judicious blend of subsidiarity, shared responsibility and flexibility. This study represents the culmination of research carried out between September 1996 and September 1997 and sets out to anchor a number of qualitative case-studies in a systematic, nationally comparative approach.

Industrial relations has traditionally been a national affair, characterized by distinct local laws, practices and cultures. The process of European integration, exemplified by the Single Market Programme, the Maastricht Treaty and the imminent prospect of Economic Monetary Union, has created a framework within which national practices have been exposed to growing cross-border influences - including European Union legislation requiring European Works Councils to be set up in large transnational firms. Might European integration create the basis for a new distinctly European-level of industrial relations? And what impact would this have on exisitng national systems? This volume explores the prospects for the emergence of a distinctly European pattern of industrial relations, in which the European-level organizations representing employers and trade unions gain in importance vis-a-vis their national organisations. In particular, individual contributions analyze the impact of the "Social Chapter" to the Maastricht Treaty, which created a new institutional framework within which European-level employers and trade unions can negotiate.