National Industrial Relations and Local Bargaining Power in the US and German

Keywords: call centres, Germany, outsourcing, telecommunications

■ This article compares the process and outcomes of collective negotiations over the outsourcing of call centre jobs in US and German telecommunications firms. In the USA, the Communication Workers of America relied on coalitions with politicians and other organizations to lead successful public campaigns; while in Germany, ver.di used coordinated bargaining with works councils to leverage their strong codetermination rights. Variation in access to resources between countries helps explain differences in the unions' ability to negotiate strong collective agreements on outsourcing and to influence restructuring decisions.

telecommunications firms. It has two goals: to examine the dynamics of collective negotiations over outsourcing in different national settings; and to analyse the factors that explain company-level variation in the outcomes of those negotiations. Industrial relations scholars have debated whether the institutions that influence bargaining outcomes are primarily national or increasingly heterogeneous at the regional or firm level (e.g. [START_REF] Locke | The Demise of the National Union in Italy: Lessons for Comparative Industrial Relations Theory[END_REF]. Today it is widely recognized that unions in both liberal and social market countries rely on a variety of resources to build bargaining power at a time of declining union density and influence [START_REF] Frege | Union Revitalization Strategies in Comparative Perspective[END_REF]. The notion of a coherent national industrial relations system has been undermined by the growing prevalence of company-level bargaining and flight of employers from peak-level associations [START_REF] Katz | Converging Divergences[END_REF][START_REF] Marginson | Between Decentralization and Europeanization: Sectoral Bargaining in Four Countries and Two Sectors[END_REF], which has been particularly severe in Germany [START_REF] Hassel | The Erosion of the German System of Industrial Relations[END_REF]. Under these conditions, do national institutions still matter for the kinds of tactics and resources unions use to influence local bargaining outcomes?

I argue here that the resources at the sub-national level that are critical for building bargaining power in negotiations over restructuring vary between countries, reflecting differences in bargaining structures and bargaining rights. In Germany, internal coordination between different worker representatives through coordinated bargaining between unions and works councils has long been viewed as the key to union strength [START_REF] Thelen | Union of Parts: Labor Politics in Postwar Germany[END_REF]. Today, unions' ability to maintain or build these relationships with works councils and the workforce is diminishing, but remains crucial for extending their influence to new sectors and groups of workers across supply chains. Local unions in the USA also benefit from information-sharing and strategy development with the national union [START_REF] Frost | Explaining Variation in Workplace Restructuring: The Role of Local Union Capabilities[END_REF], but have fewer options to institutionalize these relationships and leverage them in negotiations. This lack of strong institutional supports means that external coalitions and member mobilization are more important for building countervailing power.

In the following sections, I describe the cases and outcome variables; discuss recent changes in markets and industrial relations institutions that have encouraged firms to outsource call centre work; and then analyse variation in union influence over outsourcing. Findings are based on over 200 interviews conducted between 2003 and 2005 with corporate and local managers, works councillors and union representatives, as well as on collective agreements and archival materials.

Case Studies

The US cases -Verizon Communications East (formerly NYNEX and Bell Atlantic), BellSouth, and AT&T -are three of the largest competitors in the landline segment of the industry, providing local, long-distance and broadband services. All grew out of the former monopoly known as the 'Bell System'. NYNEX, Bell Atlantic, and BellSouth were Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs), or 'Baby Bells', that were divested from AT&T, or 'Ma Bell', following a court order in 1984. All companies have a long tradition of collective bargaining with the Communication Workers of America (CWA), which since divestiture has remained the dominant union in the industry.

The German cases -T-Com, T-Mobile, and T-Online -were three separate business units of Deutsche Telekom (DT), the former German monopoly provider, at the time of this study. In 2005, T-Online was brought back into the parent company to take advantage of growing synergies between Internet and voice services. However, in 2003 each still serviced different market segments and owned separate networks of call centres. T-Com was the core business unit focusing on local landline and long distance, T-Mobile was responsible for the company's wireless network and services, and T-Online focused on Internet services. All three had strong works councils that negotiated collective agreements and elected representatives to DT's group works council. T-Com and T-Mobile also negotiated company agreements with the service union ver.di, while T-Online never concluded an agreement with ver.di.

In order to analyse variation in negotiations over outsourcing between incumbent firms, it was necessary to accommodate the different structure and history of the incumbent firms in each country. I use two measures of union 'success' to compare outcomes across cases. First, agreements that either bring union-represented jobs in-house or restrict the outsourcing of these jobs are typically advantageous from the union's perspective, as they can increase both the pool of potential union members and workers' job security while limiting management's ability to use the threat of outsourcing to gain concessions. The extent to which unions make concessions on pay and working conditions in exchange for these agreements indicates whether limits on outsourcing are secured using bargaining power or simply traded for job security. Second, the number and kinds of jobs outsourced provides a measure of the impact of these agreements on outsourcing strategies.

Changing Markets and Industrial Relations in Telecommunications

Until the late 1990s, DT retained its monopoly in fixed line services, but competitive conditions have since become increasingly similar in the two countries. In the USA, the 1996 Telecommunications Act opened up competition in the local telephone market while 1998 legislation in Germany ended DT's monopolies for network infrastructure and fixed-line voice These changes in markets have contributed to the growing fragmentation of collective bargaining in both countries. In the USA, the CWA and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) continued to represent workers at the regional Bells and AT&T following divestiture in 1984. However, national bargaining was soon eliminated, and today bargaining occurs at company, business unit or regional level, depending on the topic and the geographical scope of the company [START_REF] Keefe | United States[END_REF]. In Germany, the Deutche Postgewerkschaft (DPG) negotiated a series of company agreements with DT and its subsidiaries, but no employers' association has been established to negotiate sectorally [START_REF] Sako | Strategy Meets Institutions: The Transformation of Labor Relations at Deutsche Telekom and NTT[END_REF]. In 2001, the DPG merged with four other service unions to form ver.di, which currently has formal responsibility for representing workers in the industry. However, new competitor firms have either negotiated company agreements with other unions such as IG Metall or remained non-union.

As price competition grew and the non-union sector expanded in both countries, incumbent firms began looking for ways to cut labour costs and improve flexibility, with service and sales jobs a central focus. Reduced long-distance costs and new call distribution technologies made it easier to shift jobs to remote call centres or outsource work to third party vendors -most of which had no or weak collective bargaining institutions. The major telecommunications unions in both countries sought to influence these decisions, but with variable success.

United States: Regional Bells and AT&T

The CWA has consistently opposed outsourcing, viewing it as a threat to members' jobs and its own bargaining power. However, the union enjoyed strong leverage over outsourcing at Verizon, moderate success at BellSouth, and failed in negotiations with AT&T. In all firms, the union encountered different challenges for three areas of call centre work: traditional customer service and sales work, operator services and directory enquiries, and new work, such as outbound sales and technical support.

Verizon East

Traditional customer service and sales jobs are often difficult to outsource because of their complexity and strategic importance for winning and retaining customers. However, telecommunications firms have attempted to outsource peaks in call volume or 'hive off' lower-skilled tasks to send to third party firms. The CWA has negotiated the strongest contractual limits to moving these jobs at Verizon East, prohibiting outsourcing that would involve layoffs or part-time work and the permanent transfer of more than 0.7 percent of CWA-represented jobs from the county or state where it is currently performed. In addition, the union negotiated rules in New York and New England that prevented consolidation of call centres across 'Interdepartment Transfer Areas'. In New York, the company could not close down locations if employees would have to commute more than 35 miles from their original work location. The CWA won an arbitration case prior to 2003 bargaining, forcing Verizon to reinstate over 2000 employees whose jobs had been cut.

Local contracts in the former NYNEX and Bell Atlantic regions also prohibited the subcontracting of certain jobs, like telemarketing or inbound calls. In the mid-1990s, Bell Atlantic formed a non-union subsidiary called Bell Atlantic Plus and began moving some of its core customer service and sales work to the new company at lower pay. In 1998 bargaining, the CWA made this a key issue, and during the ensuing strike the union used a public campaign that highlighted poor customer service at the new subsidiary. Bell Atlantic eventually agreed to bring all of the work in-house and to limit future subcontracting [START_REF] Katz | The Revitalization of the CWA: Integrating Collective Bargaining, Political Action, and Organizing[END_REF].

US telecommunications companies downsized operator services in the 1990s and established separate directory enquiries centres, which managers often argued were 'new work' and thus not covered by the contract. Verizon East was the only company where the CWA has succeeded in both keeping this work in-house and avoiding steep pay concessions. Operators were moved into directory enquiries jobs, and pay remained at between $10 and $20 an hour.

Other new categories of work, including service and sales for new products, technical support and telemarketing, were not covered by contracts at any of the companies, and thus have been most vulnerable to outsourcing. The CWA was successful in in-sourcing a number of these jobs at Verizon. When Verizon East first started selling DSL high speed Internet services, it outsourced inbound sales. The CWA led a successful campaign to bring this work back in-house, arguing that because it was bundled with traditional phone services it fell under 'protected' work in their contract. In New England, the CWA set up a formal partnership with Verizon management in 2003 to reduce absenteeism and improve productivity in the call centres. Committees of local managers and stewards were established, and federal mediators began facilitating regular meetings. After the partnership proved successful in reducing costs, managers agreed to in-source DSL campaign and billing work. As a result, the company's New England customer service and sales centres hired over 200 new representatives between 2004 and 2005, despite losing customers in the region.

Strong agreements limiting outsourcing also gave Verizon incentives to find creative ways of using its higher-cost, difficult-to-downsize eastern workforce. For example, as call volumes dropped across New York, local call centres had a surplus of employees, and local managers succeeded in getting some inbound campaign work brought in-house. The union has not been able to halt outsourcing entirely: for example, it was not able to secure an agreement to in-source some 5000 technical support jobs for DSL Internet services, which Verizon continues to outsource to US and offshore locations. However, union representatives were optimistic that they would be able to negotiate an agreement to bring these jobs inhouse.

BellSouth

The CWA had more limited success at BellSouth, and was forced to make more substantial concessions to keep work in-house. As at Verizon, the contracts prohibited outsourcing if it would involve layoffs or parttime work. However, they did not restrict moving work between locations, which allowed management to consolidate call centres. A small number of jobs that were viewed as less desirable, such as final collections, were outsourced with little resistance from the CWA.

The CWA made more substantial concessions to keep directory enquiries in-house. BellSouth management informed the union in 1997 that it was planning to outsource this work, in anticipation of intensified competition in local services. The CWA agreed to an alternative plan: the company created a new subsidiary to serve BellSouth and other clients, and negotiated a new contract with fewer benefits and pay at roughly half the in-house rate. At the same time, it was also the only contract with BellSouth that prohibited contracting out of work, and the CWA obtained an agreement that BellSouth would not transfer any operator work that had been performed in-house to the new company. According to one CWA representative, the union was faced with 'lose it all or try to build a new bargaining unit'.

The CWA has had similarly mixed results with the outsourcing of 'new work'. In the early 2000s, the company started to outsource its online customer support, but the union was able to use political pressure to convince management to perform the work in-house. Now 125 'web reps' handle these jobs in a separate call centre, under the traditional customer service contract. In 2004 bargaining, the company signed a letter of agreement with the CWA to work together to move other 'jobs of the future' -such as Voiceover Internet Protocol, wireless Internet, and video sales and support -into the bargaining unit. However, union representatives remained sceptical whether management would follow through on this pledge, and had not yet begun negotiations on pay or working conditions for the new jobs. BellSouth also outsourced all telemarketing work in 1998 and some outbound collections work in 2000.

AT&T

The CWA has had the least success at AT&T. Managers circumvented contract provisions prohibiting outsourcing by moving core customer service and sales work outside the 'Geographic Service Area' of 35 miles. Before 1997, AT&T routed 'low value' customers, with bills of under $50 a month, to a vendor, while the higher-value customers were still serviced by the in-house workforce. Then in the late 1990s, AT&T began to outsource and offshore most remaining long-distance work, keeping several domestic call centres open as benchmarks for vendor performance. By 2004, AT&T was outsourcing 45 percent of its calls, including two-thirds of its long-distance calls. Between January 1999 and December 2003, the number of in-house customer service employees dropped from 7500 to 3300, while the number at subcontractors employed on AT&T's accounts grew from 830 to around 3500.

In 2001, the CWA initiated a partnership with AT&T to develop a joint plan to in-source this work, using leverage over the regulatory approval that the company needed to divest its wireless, broadband and manufacturing equipment. AT&T provided detailed information on its outsourcing activities and data on the cost difference between the in-house and outsourced workforce, which it estimated at around 40 percent. After recalculating to reflect higher quality, productivity and sales at union centres, the CWA narrowed the cost difference to 15 percent for domestic outsourcing and 30 percent for outsourcing to India. The CWA and AT&T also formed a joint committee to address absenteeism at in-house call centres, which resulted in a pilot project to introduce job rotation and flexible scheduling. The union demonstrated positive effects on morale, and management agreed to extend the pilot.

These various initiatives were cut short in 2004 when AT&T decided to pull out of the residential long distance market following a regulatory change. AT&T subsequently closed several of its own domestic call centres, leading to a loss of around 550 union jobs, and cut a thousand vendor jobs. AT&T also unilaterally outsourced directory enquiries work, moving all new calls to several vendors in the early 1990s. In 1997, managers approached the CWA to discuss bringing some of this work in-house, and eventually created a separate group of operators at a lower pay scale, starting at $6.30 an hour at a time when other operators in the company were making over $20 an hour. However, AT&T was unable to create sustained demand for the new service, and in 2004 it closed the centres and laid off the last of their dwindling workforce. AT&T was also the first of CWA's employers to outsource outbound telemarketing work on a large scale. Following divestiture, AT&T moved all telemarketing calls to its nonunion subsidiary Transtech, with hourly wages at roughly half the equivalent pay for union members. The CWA attempted to organize Transtech in the early to mid-1990s, but was unsuccessful.

Comparison

Table 2 compares contractual protections against outsourcing work and outsourcing strategies. Verizon East had the strongest agreements and least extensive outsourcing, AT&T had the weakest agreements and most extensive outsourcing, while BellSouth had mixed outcomes.

What explains the differences between these three cases? Competitive pressures varied: AT&T came under earlier pressure to cut costs when the long-distance market was liberalized in the late 1980s. However, Verizon East and BellSouth also faced growing price competition from the late 1990s, and still kept more core customer service and sales work in-house than AT&T. In addition, the CWA was able to prevent directory enquiries and 'new work' from being outsourced under strong agreements at Verizon but had more mixed outcomes at BellSouth, although both companies enjoyed stable regional monopolies.

A second difference may be in employer strategies. AT&T adopted a cost-cutting strategy earlier than the two 'baby Bells', in response to intense price competition in the long-distance segment. This encouraged management to outsource aggressively while Verizon and BellSouth continued to view their in-house call centre workforce as a key asset for building sales in new segments. However, two pieces of evidence suggest that outcomes are not solely or primarily driven by these differing strategies. First, interviews with managers at both Verizon and BellSouth made it clear that they would prefer to increase their use of outsourcing or offshoring to cut costs, but were explicitly limited from doing so by their union contracts and the threat of negative publicity from union-led campaigns. Second, at all three firms, management had adopted similar outsourcing strategies, such as setting up non-union subsidiaries or subcontracting lower-skilled jobs; but only reversed these strategies following union pressure at Verizon (and to a lesser extent at BellSouth).

The case studies suggest that variation in agreements on outsourcing and actual company practices were strongly influenced by the CWA's success in building bargaining power at company level, using the resources of external coalitions and member mobilization. Before divestiture, the CWA played an important role in lobbying state Public Service Commissions (PSCs) on behalf of employer applications for rate increases. The union learned to leverage this support, together with joint campaigns with other unions, community groups, and local politicians, in exchange for favourable agreements with the regional Bells. These coalition strategies in turn relied on the union's ability to show strong internal solidarity through strikes and other forms of direct action.

The CWA could best combine these resources at Verizon East because of strong membership density, location in states with strong labour laws, a tradition of local militancy and a legacy of strong collective agreements secured through several successful campaigns in the 1980s and 1990s.

During a 17-week strike in 1989 against reductions in health care provision the union also adopted a new set of strategies that combined political lobbying and coalitions with community groups to bolster its position at the bargaining table, working with the IBEW for the first time to coordinate a campaign of public petitions, rallies and pickets. For the first time it opposed a rate increase that NYNEX had requested from the PSC; and CWA representatives used their personal connections with New York's democratic Governor, Mario Cuomo, to build additional pressure. This resulted in a largely successful settlement, when broader concessions were made in other former Bell companies.

The CWA later used a similar approach when it publicly supported the merger between NYNEX and Bell Atlantic in 1998 in exchange for a series of agreements that would become important for preventing or reversing outsourcing. In addition, the union coordinated a campaign in 1998 that embarrassed Bell Atlantic into bringing core work from its non-union call centre subsidiary back in-house. This relied on strikes and public advertisements highlighting poor customer service, both of which were supported by a well-organized membership base.

At BellSouth and AT&T, the CWA sought to use similar tactics, but was less successful. BellSouth was based in 'right-to-work' states where the CWA could not apply a closed shop, which made it more difficult to organize members and to mount prolonged strikes. The union also enjoyed less political support in these regions. In contrast to the Bells, AT&T was a national company, and so had broader scope for moving work to regions with cheaper labour costs and looser regulations. AT&T was also regulated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rather than state PSCs, which made it more difficult to use state-level lobbying [START_REF] Batt | Institutional Determinants of Deregulation and Restructuring in Telecommunications: Britain, Germany and the United States Compared[END_REF]. To compensate for this weaker position, the CWA relied more heavily on partnership agreements at the two companies, without the kind of backing from a militant membership and external coalitions enjoyed at Verizon East. However, these were discontinued following unpopular restructuring measures in the late 1990s and early 2000s (including outsourcing) that were imposed unilaterally by management.

Germany: Deutsche Telekom

At DT's three core business units -T-Com, T-Mobile, and T-Online -the DPG (later ver.di) and the works councils initially viewed outsourcing as a compromise that allowed management to cut costs while protecting members' working conditions. However, they began to oppose outsourcing as market growth slowed, as benchmarking with subcontractors increased, and as management began to push more aggressively for layoffs. As in the USA, the union's success in negotiations over outsourcing varied across firms, with strong agreements at T-Com, mixed outcomes at T-Mobile and general failure at T-Online. Because there has been less segmentation of call centre work in Germany compared to the USA, I focus here on strategies toward core customer service and sales work and lower-skilled jobs such as directory enquiries and telemarketing.

T-Com

DT's landline division, T-Com, faced growing price competition and a declining customer base in the late 1990s, as in AT&T and the regional Bells. However, management did not outsource its core customer service and sales jobs. This was due in part to the complexity and strategic importance attached to this work [START_REF] Matuschek | Subjektivierte Taylorisierung: Organisation und Praxis medienvermittelter Dienstleistungsarbeit[END_REF], but was also influenced by strong collectively negotiated constraints, including Standortsicherungsverträge (location security agreements) and job security protections. As a former public company, T-Com retained a number of Beamten (civil servants) who enjoy lifetime job security. The DPG also succeeded in maintaining and extending job security agreements that prevented involuntary layoffs.

The difficulties this posed for reducing employment shaped subsequent organizational strategies. Between 1995 and 2004, DT cut 110,000 positions in its core operations, largely through early retirement, voluntary redundancy and natural turnover. Redundant employees who did not accept these options were moved into a 'temporary employment and qualification company', or Beschäftigungsgesellschaft, set up in 2002, which placed employees on short-term assignments both within and outside the company. These arrangements were expensive, and management began to put pressure on union and works council representatives to cooperate with cost-cutting measures [START_REF] Holtgrewe | Flexible Menschen in flexiblen Organisationen: Bedingungen und Möglichkeiten kreativen und innovativen Handelns[END_REF]. In 1998, the DPG agreed to allow management to shift directory enquiries jobs to a vendor in exchange for pay increases for the in-house workforce. T-Com outsourced 2800 of its 3500 directory enquiries jobs, and surplus employees were moved to new jobs in T-Com or in DT's other subsidiaries. The company also reorganized special campaign work, remaining directory enquiries work and late night work into a subsidiary and outsourced some outbound telemarketing work to third-party vendors.

By 2003, DT's internal temporary placement agency had close to 20,000 employees, entitled to their former rates of pay even if managers were unable to find work for them. In January 2004, DT set up a new call centre subsidiary to provide employment for these workers called Vivento Customer Services (VCS), to handle the corporate group's lower-skilled service and sales work, allow the company to in-source directory enquiries jobs, and eventually compete in the call centre vendor market.

In 2003, DT announced future cuts of up to 40,000 jobs and made it clear that without concessions, management would not extend job security agreements. In March 2004, ver.di concluded an employment pact with the company that reduced working time from 38 to 34 hours with only partial wage compensation. In return, job security protections were extended until the end of 2008. Ver.di was also able to keep VCS under the DT collective agreement with guaranteed job security but with a 8.75 percent reduction in pay.

Ver.di saw the creation of VCS as a positive development that would allow the company to take back thousands of jobs that had been outsourced to vendors under a strong collective agreement. With a planned expansion to over 5000 employees, it would be the largest call centre vendor in Germany. This represented a shift in ver.di's position, since union officials came to view outsourcing as a threat to their members and their organization as managers started benchmarking costs against vendors. Works councils were more divided, as they feared that more work would be moved from T-Com's call centres to VCS. Ver.di and the T-Com works councils were thus cautiously cooperating with the new VCS plan, helping DT to find new markets for the workforce while keeping the pressure on management to keep 'core' work in the company's sales and service centres.

T-Mobile

In contrast to T-Com, T-Mobile enjoyed stable growth in call volume and employment throughout the 1990s as the wireless market expanded. This allowed the company to increase its use of subcontractors for core service and sales calls without threatening the jobs of its in-house workforce. T-Mobile built up its call centres and brought in surplus employees from T-Com, while simultaneously outsourcing peaks in call volume, vacations, night shifts, and outbound campaigns to provide additional flexibility and benchmark agent performance.

Works councils at T-Mobile originally saw outsourcing as a complementary strategy to improving job security and avoiding unsocial working times. By the late 1990s, however, growth in the market had slowed and several alternative network providers had expanded their market share. In early 2000, T-Mobile closed one of its call centres and began subcontracting a larger proportion of its core work. As a result, job security and outsourcing became central issues in the 2002-03 bargaining round. Management wanted to outsource more work while the union and works councils were strongly opposed. After difficult negotiations, T-Mobile agreed that no locations would be closed until 2008 but that additional call volume could be subcontracted out as long as no jobs were lost. In return, the works councils approved a more flexible working time Doellgast: Industrial Relations and Local Bargaining model that they had previously opposed and ver.di agreed to a 1 percent pay rise instead of the 2.1 percent it had demanded. They also agreed that calls during 'unsocial' hours -when employees had been entitled to overtime pay -could be outsourced to cheaper providers.

T-Online

T-Online was the only subsidiary without a union-negotiated collective agreement, although it did have works agreements negotiated by the company's strong works councils. T-Online took over call centre locations from T-Com as the online business expanded, allowing some continuity in works council leadership. In the late 1990s, the company first began focusing on customer service in response to rising call volume and complaints, and in a few years grew to five locations with between 300 to 350 employees in each.

Then in 2002, T-Online sold three of these locations to different call centre vendors. The company retained two locations in Kiel and Oldenburg, which today handle mostly second-level technical support. Managers kept around 10 percent of first-level technical support inhouse to benchmark vendor performance, but subcontracted out the other 90 percent. Ver.di and the central works council went through four rounds of negotiations, and eventually secured an agreement that pay and working conditions would remain the same for 18 months after the new companies took over, along with full job security and extension of previous agreements with the works councils. After this time, the new companies were free to renegotiate their employment contracts or to move the calls to their other locations.

The decision to outsource these jobs increased pressure on the in-house workforce to agree to concessions, given the growing difference in pay and working conditions between in-house and outsourced call centres. For example, the T-Online works council negotiated strong agreements protecting its call centre employees from silent monitoring and individual evaluation. However, some works councillors considered relaxing these rules to improve their 'competitiveness', following a successful pilot at the company's vendors of a new monitoring programme that allowed supervisors to collect and analyse detailed data on individual agent performance. One works councillor described being verbally attacked by employees at the annual meeting for not giving in to employer demands and thus threatening their jobs.

A new round of negotiations with ver.di followed DT's decision to bring T-Online into the parent company in 2005. The original agreement between T-Online and DT laying out the conditions of the merger included a plan to outsource the Kiel and Oldenburg locations, but ver.di won an agreement to integrate all locations and employees into T-Com. Managers also agreed to a 38 hour week across T-Online, and were not able to lay off employees or close locations until a new collective agreement was negotiated under T-Com. At the same time, most of the company's online work would continue to be outsourced.

Comparison

Table 3 compares collective agreements on outsourcing and outsourcing strategies in the German cases. T-Com had the most favourable outcomes, T-Mobile traded limits against larger concessions on pay and working conditions, while T-Online had no formal agreements and outsourced the majority of call centre jobs.

What explains the variation across the three companies? Again, competitive pressures differed. T-Mobile and T-Online expanded employment in the 1990s in response to market growth, and thus works councillors were more willing to accept some outsourcing of core work; while T-Com's works councillors opposed restructuring measures that could lead to job cuts at a time when their company was downsizing. However, these differences explain the strength of union resistance rather than differences in external pressures on employers -if anything, T-Com had more of an incentive to outsource work than the mobile and online subsidiaries, as it faced the most intense price competition (like AT&T). In addition, cost cutting pressures and worker attitudes towards outsourcing have become more similar in the three firms as competition increased and market growth slowed across the sectors.

Employer strategies may also help to explain variation in outcomes. T-Com management has more continuity from the old Bundespost and still values close relationships with worker representatives. T-Online's managers were more often recruited externally and developed a reputation for independence from the parent company, which may explain both their aggressive approach towards outsourcing and their resistance to negotiating a collective agreement. However, as with the US cases, managers at T-Com and T-Mobile made it clear in interviews and through their actions that they did not feel free to pursue a unilateral strategy of outsourcing, despite the attractiveness in terms of cost savings and flexibility.

As in the USA, variation across the companies in the union's bargaining power provides an important explanation for these differences. However, while the CWA relied on strong external coalitions, ver.di depended on access to strong coordinated bargaining structures at company level, again supported by its ability to mobilize a well-organized base of union members. After DT adopted a divisional structure in the late 1990s, T-Com was the only major division that remained legally within the parent company. This meant that there was continuity in employment and bargaining structures from the old public monopoly. Membership density remained close to 70 percent, and around 30 percent of employees were Beamten with lifetime job security. When T-Mobile and T-Online were established as separate subsidiaries, managers sought to recruit a younger, more flexible workforce. Employees had the option to move from T-Com to the subsidiaries, typically with higher pay, but were required to take temporary leave from their Beamte status, which they would then lose after five years if they did not transfer back. Younger employees were more likely to take this option. Both these transferred employees and new hires lacked the strong historical ties to the DPG found in T-Com, and union density was lower, at around 15 percent at T-Mobile and 5 percent at T-Online. While most works councillors at the three companies were ver.di members, communication with their colleagues at other locations or with the union remained strongest at T-Com, was being strengthened at T-Mobile, but was still quite weak at T-Online.

This difference in the history and structure of bargaining influenced the level of information exchange and coordinated strategy development between worker representatives. At T-Com, considerable consultation occurred at different levels. Union and works council members on the supervisory board were informed about organizational restructuring decisions well in advance, and in some cases, special committees provided an additional forum for consultation over issues that unions and works councils viewed as strategically important. For example, a joint Innovation and Employment Advisory Committee (Innovations-und Beschäftigungsbeirat) was established in the late 1990s. T-Com managers felt that they could not implement major restructuring decisions without consulting the union, and every month a permanent board of company representatives informed works council representatives about re-engineering plans. This bargaining power, combined with the strong job security protections that were a legacy of the company's public sector history, meant that ver.di was able to negotiate an agreement to in-source directory enquiries with only marginal pay concessions, while extending job security protections.

At T-Mobile, works councillors felt that ver.di played an important role in negotiating collective agreements and supporting the works councils, but noted that they were not in frequent contact with the union and received more support from the central works council. Worker representatives at all three companies agreed that the union was considerably weaker in the subsidiaries, which made it more difficult to convince works councils to take a solidaristic position on outsourcing across locations. Several T-Mobile works councillors said that while they supported ver.di, they did not see it as their job to convince workers to become members.

As at T-Com, T-Mobile union and works council representatives also pointed to coordinated bargaining as the key to their success in getting a collective agreement in 2003 that improved job security protections and limited future outsourcing. At the same time, the works councils made substantial concessions in working time flexibility and the union settled on a small overall pay increase to secure this agreement.

At T-Online, this kind of coordinated campaign was not possible during negotiations over the 2002 decision to outsource three call centres to thirdparty vendors. Ver.di did not yet have a collective agreement with T-Online and played only a marginal role in working with the works councils to develop a coordinated strategy. This exacerbated the problem of competition across locations for jobs, which was manifest in the lack of solidarity among T-Online's works councils at the time of negotiations over outsourcing. Works councils at locations that remained in the company did not oppose the decision, as they had secured job security agreements for their own members.

Since the conclusion of my research, outsourcing has become an even more contentious and public issue at DT. In 2006, it transferred five of the 19 call centres in its Vivento CS subsidiary, with around 700 employees, to two subcontractors. Employees' pay and working conditions were secured until 2008, but after that time the new employers will presumably renegotiate contracts at a lower level. In 2006, ver.di also agreed to reduced starting pay for new hires in T-Mobile's call centres. This followed an emotional campaign in which management threatened to sell its call centres to a vendor if its terms were not accepted.

Then in 2007 DT announced plans to shift 50,000 of its technical service, technical infrastructure, and call centre jobs into three new subsidiaries, and demanded the renegotiation of pay and working conditions in these subsidiaries. Although ver.di led a six week strike with strong support from its membership, both parties eventually agreed to reduce wage levels for current employees by 6.5 percent over 42 months and increase working time from 34 to 38 weeks without pay compensation. In addition, new employees will earn 30 percent below the current level, the use of variable pay will increase, and the regular working week in call centres will include Saturdays. Management agreed to extend job security until 2012 and to not sell the new service subsidiaries until 2010. An important factor in ver.di's decision to return to negotiations was management's threat to transfer employees to the new companies without a collective agreement. This will have further negative implications for the coordination of bargaining within DT, as works councils will be obliged to develop a new structure for decision-making at each business unit and across the corporation.

These recent developments suggest that the decentralization of collective bargaining, growth of a non-union sector, and increased price competition in the German telecommunications industry are further weakening ver.di's ability to rely on its traditional forms of bargaining power -even in the company's traditional 'core' business. The result will be growing convergence in employment conditions and outsourcing strategies across DT's business units, as well as increased labour market segmentation across the corporation and its subcontractors.

Discussion

Industrial relations scholars have long argued that national institutions provide German unions with distinctive forms of bargaining leverage in negotiations over restructuring decisions. The causal relationship between national institutions and local bargaining outcomes is less transparent today, as union density and bargaining coverage decline and as employer strategies become increasingly varied at the firm-and establishment-level. One argument holds that strong representation rights and encompassing bargaining structures in Germany continue to provide workers with the tools to exercise some measure of industrial democracy lacking in the USA [START_REF] Croucher | Flexible Working Time and Interest Representation in German and British Banking[END_REF][START_REF] Katz | Converging Divergences[END_REF]. Other scholars argue that unions' bargaining power has been substantially weakened as decentralization allows firms an 'exit' from expensive collective bargaining arrangements [START_REF] Hassel | The Erosion of the German System of Industrial Relations[END_REF][START_REF] Menz | Old Bottles -New Wine: The New Dynamics of Industrial Relations[END_REF]. This article has contributed to this debate by shifting the focus away from macro-level trends in the scope and organization of bargaining, and exploring how unions actually use different institutions to build bargaining power and influence restructuring outcomes.

The case studies show that union success in engaging with management over outsourcing decisions differed within rather than between the USA and Germany. Unions in both countries had uneven access to three resources identified in past studies of work restructuring: internal coordination, external coalitions and member mobilization. However, the relative importance of these resources to unions' success differed between the countries. In the USA, the CWA relied on external coalitions backed up by member mobilization to compensate for weaker bargaining rights and more fragmented bargaining structures. Bargaining power was strongest at Verizon East because of favourable labour laws, high union density, a militant and well-organized membership base, relationships with local politicians and other unions and lobbying influence at state regulatory agencies. In Germany, ver.di relied on strong internal coordination, again supported by a well-organized membership base. The union enjoyed the greatest influence over outsourcing decisions in T-Com, where it was able to use its close relationships with works councils and its members to negotiate strong collective agreements and encourage alternative investment strategies.

These findings suggest that the distinctive features of national industrial relations institutions continue to play an important role in negotiations over restructuring, but are becoming less useful as static variables that explain company-level variation in restructuring outcomes. Worker representatives remain embedded in their respective political and economic environment and are still dependent on labour laws and bargaining arrangements to gain advantage at the bargaining table. However, in both the USA and Germany, decentralization has put unions under similar pressure to innovate, using old resources in new ways. This is by no means a new development -the meaning and use of industrial relations institutions have varied more considerably over time than their formal rules and structures. [START_REF] Jackson | Contested Boundaries: Ambiguity and Creativity in the Evolution of German Codetermination[END_REF], for example, has pointed out that German codetermination has gone through considerable changes as actors used relatively stable institutions in creative ways in response to new challenges. What does seem to be new is the extent of variation in the outcomes of this process within social market countries like Germany, where unions were traditionally able to extend bargaining gains across firms in an industry. DT's recent unilateral decision to move its call centre jobs to a separate subsidiary suggests that even established sources of bargaining leverage can be undermined by increasing cost-based pressures and shifting organizational strategies.

The generalizability of these findings may be limited by several factors. First, the telecommunications industry has a number of unique characteristics. In both the USA and Germany, it was long organized as a national monopoly that negotiated with one major union, and its market position continues to be heavily dependent on national and regional regulation. The CWA's bargaining power is strengthened by its ability to leverage established relationships with regulatory agencies and politicians. Meanwhile, ver.di's bargaining position has been substantially weakened by the rapid entry of non-union firms to the German telecommunications market and the lack of a sectoral agreement. A comparison with negotiations over outsourcing in other industries, such as car manufacturing, may reveal greater cross-national variation in outcomes. At the same time, it is striking that such large differences can be observed across the business units of DT, a single, large German employer, that are comparable to those found between the separate companies of the former Bell system in the USA.

By focusing on core employers, I have chosen cases where unions are most likely to enjoy institutionalized channels of influence. German unions may adopt similar strategies to US unions in new industries or firms, where they lack strong relationships with works councils or established positions on supervisory boards. At the same time, several recent studies have found that German unions have had broader difficulties implementing new strategies that rely on coalition-building or external forms of public pressure to organize new industries and groups of workers [START_REF] Aust | Von der Ignoranz zur Organisierung? Gewerkschaftliche Strategien im Umgang mit atypisch Beschäftigten am Beispiel von Callcentren und Leiharbeit[END_REF][START_REF] Baccaro | The Politics of Labour Movement Revitalization: The Need for a Revitalized Perspective[END_REF]. The lack of a tradition of more confrontational strategies, which developed in the USA under conditions of weak labour laws, may prove a greater obstacle to new organizing efforts.

Unions' influence over management practices and working conditions increasingly depends on their ability to negotiate agreements that limit outsourcing. The findings from this study demonstrate that unions in both liberal and social market countries can gain an independent voice in these restructuring decisions through using traditional forms of bargaining power in innovative ways. However, they are unlikely to sustain their access to increasingly scarce resources and to shape the future production strategies of firms without considerable effort, creativity and organized political action.

TABLE 1 . Characteristics of the US and German Cases (2003)

 1 At the same time, firms in new, less regulated segments such as mobile phones and cable began competing for market share in Internet services and local and long-distance calls.

	Union density		~70%			~75%	~40%		~70%		~15%	~5%
	Call centre	employees	~11,000			~9750	~6600		31,000		2200	650
	Employees		~80,000			~63,000	~47,000		~140,000		~9000	~3000
	Annual revenue		$37.3 billion	(including Verizon	West)	$17.2 billion	$22.8 billion		€25.3 billion		€8.5 billion	€1.7 billion
	Market share		33% access lines	(including Verizon	West)	16% access lines	29% long distance	revenue	39% leased lines; 79%	landline connections	39% subscribers	~50% subscribers
		US firms	Verizon East			BellSouth	AT&T		German firms	T-Com	T-Mobile	T-Online

TABLE 3 . Collective Agreements on Outsourcing and Outsourcing Strategies, Germany (2004)

 3

	Collective agreements limiting outsourcing

Doellgast: Industrial Relations and Local Bargaining

European Journal of Industrial Relations 14(3)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The research was supported by grants from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Council for European Studies, the Fulbright Foundation, the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies at Cornell University, the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies and the Russell Sage Foundation. The author thanks Stephen Bach, Rose Batt, Debbie Goldman, Howard Gospel, Ian Greer, Marco Hauptmeier, Ursula Holtgrewe and Gregory Jackson for detailed comments on earlier drafts.

TABLE 2. Collective Agreements on


Hermes Augusto Costa

Pedro Araújo

Keywords: European Works Councils, Portugal, trade unions

■ This article analyses the impact of the European Works Councils (EWCs) Directive in Portuguese multinationals. Though seven Portuguese companies are covered by the provisions of the Directive, only one EWC exists. Some of the main obstacles to the establishment of EWCs in Portugal are identified. The experience of the Banco Espírito Santo Group, where the only Portuguese EWC currently exists, is discussed.

Introduction

In September 1994, the Council of Ministers adopted the European Works Council (EWC) Directive. The Directive was enthusiastically welcomed by European trade unions, especially because it was the first EU Directive which prescribed employees' right to information and consultation, an issue over which unions had been campaigning for a quarter of a century. Theoretically, EWCs have both a regulatory and an emancipatory dimension. They are, on the one hand, the result of a topdown process of Community regulation [START_REF] Miller | Towards a "European" Works Council[END_REF], aiming to create a transnational information system that is adequate to the transnational structure of Community-scale companies or groups of companies. On the other hand, behind the establishment of the EWCs lies also the prospect of bottom-up action founded on the possibility (or aspiration) that they will become genuine European institutions acting as collective actors -where common interests are aggregated at supranational level and EWCs have managed to develop a common identity -instead of acting in a parochial and fragmentary way [START_REF] Knudsen | European Works Councils: A Way to Employee Influence in Multinational Companies?[END_REF]. This issue is all the more pertinent as we know that EWCs are not naturally solidaristic organizations [START_REF] Stirling | Power, Process, and Practice: Communications in European Works Councils[END_REF] and that the development of a European labour identity remains a challenge for the vast majority of EWCs (Whittall et al., 2007).

The aim of this article is to focus on the impact of the Directive in multinational companies (MNCs) based in Portugal. Of the seven companies which meet the specified employment thresholds (at least 1000 employees in the EU, including 150 or more in at least two countries), only one has established an EWC (which is mandatory only if 'triggered' by employee representatives). We report the opinions of trade union representatives and members of workers ' commissions (comissões de trabalhadores), which indicate that their sceptical view of the benefits of the new institution is one of the main factors that have so far limited the establishment of EWCs. But to counterbalance this rather negative perspective we examine the experience of the sole EWC so far established within a Portuguese MNC, at the Banco Espírito Santo (BES) Group. We also consider the opinions of Portuguese representatives on EWCs in foreign MNCs. This will allow us to highlight some signs of greater, even if cautious, optimism which provides a contrast with the greater pessimism of the workers' representatives in Portuguese MNCs.

The Directive can be viewed as a compensation for the deficit in employee representation and participation at European level and within MNCs. EWCs might be though in principle particularly valuable for employee representatives in semi-peripheral countries such as Portugal, since the locus of decision-making on corporate policy may be geographically distant. Thus in theory, EWCs might constitute important structures complementing existing national institutional arrangements. This 'functionalist optimism' (Hancké, 2000: 37) figures to some extent in the comments of Portuguese representatives who have participated in EWCs. However, as noted above, employee representatives in Portuguese MNCs where EWCs have not been set up appear more sceptical as to the potential benefits. As will be explained below, this defensive attitude depends, among other factors, on the policies adopted by the major Portuguese trade union confederations. These tend to be inspired by short-term national and local goals, which in turn limits the construction of genuine labour internationalism [START_REF] Costa | Sindicalismo global ou metáfora adiada? Os discursos e as práticas transnacionais da CGTP e da CUT[END_REF]. Additionally, the right to information and consultation provided by EU legislation is not regarded as an added-value, insofar as it is already laid down in the sections of the Portuguese Constitution (Articles 54 and 55) which regulate both workers' commissions and trade union delegates (delegados sindicais).

EWCs in Portugal

In Portugal, there is a deficit of information on the role and objectives of EWCs. Almost ten years after the Directive was transposed into domestic law (June 1999), Portugal appears to be still going through a learning process. There are few training opportunities for EWC members and little attempt to share their experiences in a trade union context. The significance of EWCs tends to be discounted, both within the main structures of workers' representation (trade unions and workers' commissions) and among academics themselves. The lack of information on EWCs extends to the main government agencies: the Portuguese National Institute for Statistics (Instituto Nacional de Estatística) and the Ministry of Labour and Solidarity (Ministério do Trabalho e da Solidariedade Social). To some extent this reflects a more general void to be filled on the role of southern Europe in the development of EWCs.

Systematic research into EWCs in Portugal is therefore urgently required. This article presents some results from a research project that was recently concluded at the Centro de Estudos Sociais of the Universidade de Coimbra. 1 The aim is to provide a detailed analysis of the situation, giving special attention to four main topics of research: first, the state of play regarding the establishment of EWCs in Portugal; second, an analysis of the agreements establishing EWCs in which Portuguese representatives participate; third, the experiences of Portuguese employee representatives in EWCs; and fourth, management views of EWCs.

The first theme was addressed through systematic analysis of the European Works Councils Databases (Kerckhofs andPas, 2004, 2006); these enabled us to draw a quantitative picture of the application of the Directive in multinationals with both their head office and operations in Portugal. Underlying the development of the second research theme -the study of the content of agreements -was the assumption that the negotiation of these agreements constitutes an important moment in the life of an EWC. On the one hand, the terms of the agreement may limit its functioning in the future; on the other, the negotiating process may immediately bring to light the power relationships which come into play once the EWC is established. However, we share the view held by some authors that the letter of the agreements and the dynamics of EWCs once established do not necessarily coincide [START_REF] Telljohann | The European Works Councils -A Role Beyond the EC Directive?[END_REF]Waddington, 2003).

The third theme -the evaluation of the experiences of Portuguese representatives on EWCs, as well as the attitudes of workers' representatives in Portuguese MNCs which did not set up an EWC -was addressed through a series of semi-structured interviews. Finally, the fourth research issue -management views on EWCs -was studied by means of a survey. Managements in companies with Portuguese representatives in EWCs were asked their views on the following topics: the process of establishing the EWC; the participation of the management representatives in its activities; their assessment of the role and impact of the EWC; and the main advantages and limitations of the institution.

MNCs Operating in Portugal and Portuguese EWC Representatives

According to the European Works Councils Database [START_REF] Kerckhofs | European Works Councils Database 2006[END_REF] Finally, the number of Portuguese representatives elected or appointed to EWCs provides a clearer picture of Portuguese involvement. These representatives were identified from the EWC agreements in the 2004 and 2006 European Works Councils Databases (Kerckhofs andPas, 2004, 2006). Companies where Portuguese representatives are not mentioned in either the databases or the agreements have been excluded from this study. Where the agreements have been revised or reformulated, the number of representatives considered was that of the most recent agreement. Given these criteria, we identified 201 representatives in 163 EWCs.

As Table 1 shows, the main home countries of MNCs with Portuguese representatives are the USA (42), France (39), Germany and the UK (27 each). In sectoral terms, they are found primarily in metal-working (63 representatives in 55 EWCs), chemicals (37 representatives in 36 EWCs), financial services (30 representatives in 16 EWCs); hotels and catering (27 representatives in 20 EWCs) and textiles (13 representatives in six EWCs).

Obstacles to the Establishment of EWCs in Portuguese MNCs

As noted above, there are seven Portuguese-owned MNCs which meet the employment threshold of the Directive. 3 Of these, only the BES Group has established, in 2003, an Information and Consultation Procedure which was converted into an EWC in 2005. The other six MNCs are Caixa Geral de Depósitos and Millennium BCP (finance), Corticeira Amorim (which manufactures cork-based products), Sonae Indústria (wood-based products), the cement manufacturer Cimentos de Portugal-CIMPOR and Galp Energia-Petrogal (petrochemicals).

To explore why no initiative had been taken to establish an EWC in these companies, we conducted interviews between September and December 2006 with members of workers' commissions and trade union representatives. Their responses allowed us to identify several factors inhibiting the constitution of EWCs. It is important to note that each of the factors identified applies to more than one company but not necessarily to all of them. According to our analysis, it is distinctive combinations of these factors that obstruct the creation of EWCs in Portuguese MNCs.

As indicated previously, most workers' representatives in Portuguese MNCs see little need to establish an EWC. This is partly a result of the fact that the Portuguese trade union confederations (to which those representatives are directly or indirectly connected) fail to assign much priority to EWCs. There are two main confederations, the Confederação Geral dos Trabalhadores Portugueses (General Confederation of Portuguese Workers, CGTP) and the União Geral de Trabalhadores (General Workers' Union, UGT), and these have conflicting opinions Source: [START_REF] Kerckhofs | European Works Councils Database 2006[END_REF].

on EWCs. The CGTP -which was historically anti-EU -has always taken the view that EWCs are accorded too much significance in the European trade union movement, in the light of their limited powers and functions. The position of the UGT is more positive, perhaps because of its stronger tradition of inclusion in transnational trade unions organizations. It affiliated to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) in 1979, and to the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) in 1983. Because of its communist background, the CGTP was admitted to the ETUC only in 1994 and is not yet affiliated at international level.

The CGTP gives primary attention to its penetration and representativeness within companies (not only MNCs but also in small-and medium-sized enterprises, which account for around 90 percent of Portuguese employment). It is concerned above all with developing directly representative structures: delegados sindicais (which represent the trade union members in the company) and comissões de trabalhadores (which represent the entire workforce). In general, the number of worker representatives who identify with or are affiliated to CGTP structures is considerably higher than for the UGT. However, banking is one of the few sectors where the UGT is predominant, and the BES Group EWC was initiated by a majority of UGT-affiliated unionists.

We distinguish two main sets of obstacles to the formation of EWCs: one associated with the social and economic background; the second, more related to the features of the Portuguese industrial relations system.

Social and Economic Background

National Priorities Take Precedence Over the Establishment of EWCs. According to the interviewees, this is the major obstacle to the constitution of EWCs. Faced with many problems at local and national levels, the establishment of EWCs is relegated to second place. The defence of employees at workplace level is the priority, and this priority is reinforced by the fact that the elected bodies are the direct representatives of their own workers and are obliged to respond to their wishes.

If supranational pressures on Portuguese multinationals might suggest the need for EWCs to coordinate cross-national responses, the reverse is in fact the case. Defending 'their' employees' interests becomes more aggressive at local level. As Weston and Martínez Lucio (1997: 766) highlight, fostering competition between locations has become integral to management strategy: the constant cross-referencing . . . by management within companies, on matters related to production and human resource management, is inspired by the notion that employees will feel that disinvestment is a likely prospect should they not react to the 'higher' levels of activity in foreign plants. This is more likely to hinder than amplify unity and solidarity.

The possibility of EWCs acting as collective actors, instead of acting in a fragmented way, depends on a diversity of conditions and circumstances [START_REF] Knudsen | European Works Councils: A Way to Employee Influence in Multinational Companies?[END_REF]. In some cases, EWCs have developed a common identity by aggregating different interests at supranational level; in many others, conflicting national interests override international solidarity [START_REF] Hancké | European Works Councils and Industrial Restructuring in the European Motor Industry[END_REF]. In our interviews with the representatives of Portuguese employees, it was clear that economic imperatives and inter-plant competition are obstacles to the development of unity and solidarity. What participation in EWCs has made obvious to Portuguese representatives is that the global mobility of MNCs represents, in extreme form, the volatility of local jobs. Despite the expectations generated by EWCs and their possible success when in operation, it is a fact that when insecurity shapes the background it becomes more difficult to meet the challenge of unity and solidarity, in so far as the defence of local interests and employees gains in aggressiveness.

The Privatization Processes. The privatization processes affecting public and semi-public companies, in addition to the other problems they entail, contribute to a decrease in the 'participation culture' within the company. The admission of new employees to the companies, under new contractual conditions, constitutes in this context a considerable obstacle to participation. In our research we noticed that all the Portuguese representatives in EWCs have permanent employment contracts. It seems plausible to infer that the predisposition to participate in EWCs, as with participation in other structures of worker representation, varies directly in accordance with the stability and security afforded by the employment relationship. As a member of the comissão de trabalhadores at CIMPOR commented:

The various phases of privatization led to successive job reductions and alterations in the organization of work . . . It would be very good for us to have young employees participating, but the young employees who join CIMPOR are fixed-term employees and, therefore, don't get involved . . . Other young people who join the company have university degrees and hold posts of responsibility; they're given objectives to fulfil, and, at this level, there's some prejudice against being a member of a trade union. The privatization of the company did nothing to improve workers' participation. EWCs also suffer from this situation.

Conflicts between Employers and Worker Representation Bodies and Trade

Unions. As is generally recognized by the Portuguese trade union organizations, workers' participation is lower at company level, a situation which is even more apparent when compared with the rest of Europe. In general, it is frequent to find 'the deficit of democracy in the work place, where the rights and union practice of workers are arbitrarily curtailed or repressed by the employers' (CGTP, 2004: 118). The low level of labour participation sometimes goes hand in hand with a culture of subjection that is certainly a remnant of the dictatorship under which Portugal lived during almost half the 20th century, and the trade union law, passed in 1975 soon after democracy was restored, has not yet erased this [START_REF] Costa | Portuguese Trade Unionism Vis-à-vis the European Works Councils[END_REF]. In some cases, workers' representation bodies or trade unions organizations are nonexistent at company level. This has been particularly emphasized by trade union officials in the construction and woodwork sectors, who point to the absence of trade unions or even comissões de trabalhadores in Sonae Indústria as a reason for the lack of an EWC. However, a management representative, contacted by phone and by email (January 2007), insisted that this was not the company's responsibility and should instead be attributed to the absence of a tradition of trade union and labour organization in Portugal. The absence of effective employee organization in these MNCs means they lack a key prerequisite for the establishment of EWCs.

The Portuguese Industrial Relations System and Relationships between the Main Actors in Employee Representation

Proximity to the Head Office Diminishes the Need for an EWC. Although it might facilitate the establishment of EWCs, proximity to the head office seems to constitute a disincentive. It means that employee representatives already have access to company information, and in the Portuguese case the right to such information is already enshrined in national law. As one representative commented:

The issues that an EWC in CIMPOR would approach are not very distant from the issues that the workers' commission has been discussing with central management. In other words, the reason to establish a different forum of participation lies in the possibility to address different matters. Here, we hold regular meetings with central management and discuss issues related to other countries, which means that we already deal with cross-border information. This may be one of the aspects that results in our not considering an EWC to be a priority. Lecher et al. (1999: 222) call their 'home advantage'. Proximity to the head office guarantees them access to information and gives them a negotiating advantage with local management, reinforcing the tendency identified by Waddington (2006b) for home-country representatives to block the establishment of EWCs on the grounds that these could diminish their privileged influence within the company.

Portuguese representatives seem unwilling to lose what

In contrast, Portuguese representatives participating in EWCs in foreign MNCs hold a different view. Participation in a cross-national representative structure is viewed as a source of added value, since the exchange of experiences between EWC members reveals the existence of a wide variety of local working conditions. This makes Portuguese representatives perceive EWCs as a means through which working conditions may be levelled to their advantage. During the interviews with these representatives, we noted that they look on EWCs mainly as mechanisms for transferring their demands from a local to a transnational level, as a means of access to a higher decision-making platform, and as additional sources of pressure on local management. Nevertheless, Portuguese representatives equally recognize that representatives from company headquarters have privileged access to information and that this access represents an important factor towards imbalance in participation, especially when the information is not shared in a transparent way among EWC members.

Notably, select committees have been gaining in strategic importance in EWCs. Waddington (2006a) shows that select committee members and other office-holders are more satisfied than other EWC members with the quantity and quality of the information they receive; there is a division between insiders and outsiders (Waddington, 2006b). This reinforces the existence of differentiated and asymmetrical participation within EWCs [START_REF] Stirling | Power, Process, and Practice: Communications in European Works Councils[END_REF], and emphasizes the importance of power relations in a body which should, in principle, be guided by horizontal equality in its relationships.

Alternation in the Leadership of Worker's Representative Organizations.

Although it is often seen as an essential democratic principle, the alternation in the leadership of workers' representative organizations appears as a justification for not placing the 'EWC issue' high on the agenda. Portuguese representatives on EWCs acknowledge that this may hinder their functioning, as the replacement of a Portuguese representative on a national representation body half-way through their EWC mandate may break the connection with this transnational institution.

The Lack of Capacity to Take on Duties Beyond Those Already

Performed. This is a further obstacle, since the time they are able to devote to representative functions is often limited. As one representative commented, 'people have better things to do! They don't want to get involved. And there's the tendency to let things fall on the same people over and over again. That's really a problem.'

Portuguese representatives are generally elected or appointed to EWCs as members of other structures of representation at national company level: trade unions and workers' commissions. In the case of BES Group, for example, this dual membership proved to be fundamental, not only for the establishment of the EWC, but also for the dynamic which it later gained. Nevertheless, what is equally clear from our interviews is that this dual membership would have more consequences if the representatives had the opportunity to devote themselves full-time to the representative structures. This is not, however, the case for the majority of representatives whether nominated by trade unions or workers' commissions. This reflects a contrast between Portugal and many other countries, such as France or Germany, whose representatives are seen as more professional.

Conflicts between Workers' Commissions and Trade Unions. At the heart of this conflict lies a differentiated view of the role which workers' commissions and trade unions should play in the establishment and subsequent operation of EWCs. On one side are those who believe that workers' commissions should be primarily responsible, because they represent the whole workforce of the company. On the other are those who insist that unions should predominate; in some sectors we interviewed representatives who were fighting for a stronger 'unionization' of their EWCs. In reality, the weight of trade union representatives in EWCs is far greater (and a large number of workers' commissions are in fact influenced by the ideological orientations of trade unions) than that of workers' commissions, although there are also cases where the union representatives are simultaneously members of the commissions. At times, the existence of several trade unions with distinctive sensitivities is also a source of additional conflict.

The Banco Espírito Santo Group EWC

The BES Group has activities in some 20 countries and employs over 5000 staff. However, some 4500 of these are in Portugal and 400 in Spain. 4 As the one Portuguese multinational where an EWC was established, BES deserves in-depth study. Two interconnected aspects will be highlighted: first, the initial conditions which permitted the establishment of the EWC; second, the features that most decisively contribute to its current activity.

Conditions for the Emergence of the BES Group EWC

The possibility of establishing an EWC was first suggested by the workers' commission after the 2000 workplace elections. It cooperated with both Portuguese and Spanish trade unions to provide the impetus for the creation of a Special Negotiating Body (SNB). Negotiations resulted in the Information and Consultation Procedure (ICP) in July 2003, formalized as an EWC in March 2005, with equal representation for the commissions and the unions. From the outset, both UNI-Europa and the ETUC were informed of the process by the Portuguese trade unions, but they took no part in the negotiations. The key factors that facilitated the adoption of the initial agreement are the following.

A good relationship between workers' representatives and BES Group central management. In its negotiations with the SNB, management suggested an agreement to establish an ICP, with the option for it to function in effect as an EWC.

A good relationship between the BES Group workers' commission and the Portuguese trade unions. This good relationship stemmed from the fact that some workers' commission members were simultaneously trade union representatives. In this context, the importance of personal relationships and trust between the various actors proved to be a fundamental requirement for the establishment and subsequent functioning of the EWC. As one of the EWC members commented, I was a member of the workers commission at the same time I was on the executive of the Sindicato dos Bancários do Centro [Bank Employees Union of the Central Region of Portugal]. In other words, I held two positions, distinct but complementary: an internal one at BES Group and another at an overall level . . . It is only possible to make progress with a certain kind of undertaking, notably at union level, when people hold more than one position of responsibility at the same time.

As happens in other institutions, EWCs are dependent on the individual role played by key actors. As the President of a German-based EWC points out, learning to operate an EWC is also learning the art of diplomacy [START_REF] Namuth | European and Supportive[END_REF].

A good relationship between the BES Group workers' commission and Spanish trade unions. The EWC benefits from the geographical proximity of Portugal and Spain, the only foreign BES Group operation with a significant number of employees. The cooperative relationship was crucial for the constitution of the EWC, with ten Portuguese representatives and one from Spain.

Thanks to our good relationship with the Spanish unions -the Spanish UGT and the Comisiones Obreras -we managed to take advantage of a meeting held in September 2001 . . . to trigger the negotiations. The three Portuguese unions and the representatives of these two major Spanish unions then signed a petition for the beginning of negotiations. Negotiations took place, the SNB was set up … and we signed the [ICP] agreement on 16 July 2003.

Subsequently, when BES acquired the Spanish bank Inversión and shifted its strategy in Spain, this partnership proved indispensable to its increasing importance and dynamic, including the conversion of the ICP into an EWC. The bilateral relation between Portugal and Spain tends, however, to make the EWC more Iberian than European.

The Dynamism of the EWC

A number of factors make the EWC an effective and dynamic body.

Its activities extend beyond the 'rigid boundaries' of the agreement. This is one of the most marked features of the functioning of the EWC. The terms of the formal agreement match the minimum requirements stipulated by the Directive. However, the EWC is not in practice restricted by these terms, and has been able to hold frequent meetings with central management and to meet employees in the Group's operations abroad who are not represented. This is in line with the finding of other researchers that the letter of the agreements and the actual practice of EWCs do not necessarily coincide [START_REF] Telljohann | The European Works Councils -A Role Beyond the EC Directive?[END_REF]Waddington, 2003).

As noted above, when the EWC was still simply designated an ICP, the BES Group began the acquisition of the bank Inversión. Management envisaged job reductions in Spain and the integration of both Portuguese and Spanish workers under new contractual conditions. The EWC came to play a successful mediation role between central management and the Spanish trade unions, which negotiated with central management exclusively through the EWC. According to the Portuguese EWC representative, the dialogue and conciliation of interests were only possible because of the mediation of a supranational and more flexible structure such as the EWC.

The acquisition of information and development of a holistic outlook on the Group's activities. The experience of the BES Group EWC is further evidence that access to information tends to shift bargaining demands and outcomes in qualitatively new ways, which suggests that EWCs might indeed exert an important impact on the balance of internal power relations and on employee empowerment [START_REF] Müller | EWC Research: A Review of the Literature[END_REF][START_REF] Weston | Trade Unions, Management and European Works Councils: Opening Pandora's Box?[END_REF].

Proactive rather than merely reactive. The EWC's proactivity involves, for example, shaping the agenda of the meetings between workers' representatives and central management. In this regard, in-depth knowledge of the Group's activities and strategies is crucial. It is at this precise point that the cognitive dimension of the EWC -the ability to improve its knowledge of the Group's structure and activities -and their practical capacities -the possibility actually to achieve something -will converge [START_REF] Didry | La construction et les enjeux d'un système de relations professionnelles européen[END_REF].

Furthermore, it has been acknowledged that the strengthening of EWCs should involve continuous action both in times of crisis (restructuring, mergers, take-overs) and in times of stability [START_REF] Béthoux | Les comités d'entreprise européens en quête de légitimité[END_REF]. In the first case, the EWC should mobilize and articulate the responses of the different actors within the various national arenas. In the second, their actions should anticipate company strategies. According to [START_REF] Moreau | Restructuration et comité d'entreprise européen[END_REF], EWCs possess a natural vocation to intervene, for example, in situations where undertakings are subject to restructuring. As the sole company-level body for transnational representation, their composition and organization enable them to combine and coordinate the practices and actions of the various representatives of European workers. EWCs are thus part of a 'Europeanization' of labour relations, which reflects the emergence of new synergies between social and economic actors.

Maximizing networks and informal contacts which, combined with 'trips to the source', that is, to the company's national and international branch offices, facilitates access to 'credible information' upon which the EWC may base its action. This is a crucial issue since information and consultation, the two pillars on which the Directive is founded, are still widely debated in the literature on EWCs. This is a result since many EWC researchers question whether the Directive has in fact improved the extent, quality and timeliness of information and consultation for employee representatives.

The accumulated experience of EWC members both in terms of its functioning and the accumulation of social capital. The first enables workers' representatives to maximize their potentialities for influence, while the second favours the development of networks among the various representatives.

The mediation role fulfilled by the EWC between central management, Portuguese and foreign worker representation bodies or trade union organizations and workers, notably over matters likely to affect workers' interests considerably, such as mergers and take-overs. As noted above, the role of the EWC during the Inversión acquisition enhanced its legitimacy. The interviews conducted with Portuguese representatives from MNCs based in foreign countries demonstrate that the ability of an EWC to deal successfully with a potential crisis is crucial to turn it into a success story [START_REF] Hyman | Editorial[END_REF]. This was clearly what occurred in the Inversión, as a member of the EWC explained:

In 2004, the EWC faced its first challenge, a major operation in Spain. Because the EWC is a supranational structure we were requested by the Spanish trade unions to collect the necessary information and to follow up the operation. This would not be possible at any other negotiating table .  No other structure has the capacity to have all these worker representation bodies and trade unions represented simultaneously . . . We met leaders from all trade unions represented at BES . . . Why? Because they all understood that the setting up of this EWC had come at the right time to defend, on the one hand, the existing staff at BES and, on the other, the new workforce from Inversión. BES Group central management also understood that this was a structure that would create obstacles if certain situations were to arise, that we would be paying close attention to the unfolding of the operation. What is important here? To preserve the rights of those who are here and to safeguard the rights of workers coming from the other company. Because we know that in cases of mergers or take-overs in the banking sector there is a great number of workers whose jobs have an expiry date.

The positive feedback between EWC members and workers. The EWC's visibility results, to a great extent, from the information disseminated by a Newsletter specially designed for that purpose.

Final Remarks

As explained in the analysis presented earlier, the case of the BES Group EWC constitutes an 'isolated island' at present. In fact, EWCs continue to be viewed with scepticism by the representatives of workers' organizations in most Portuguese companies and are not a practical priority for the time being. EWCs are viewed as incapable of remedying the problems currently affecting workers within the framework of economic globalization (restructuring processes and unemployment being the most commonly cited here). Furthermore, the information potentially acquired through the participation in EWCs is not regarded as an added value, and the decision-making process is perceived as a prerogative of central managements that will remain so independently of the greater or lesser capability of any given EWC to intervene.

Nevertheless, the representatives of Portuguese MNCs do recognize, at least theoretically, some positive aspects to EWCs: the achievement of more in-depth knowledge about the company; the contact with and understanding of employment conditions in different countries; the exchange of experiences with different worker representation bodies and trade union organizations that are confronted with similar problems; the creation of conditions to attenuate the effects of restructuring; the development of transnational dialogue and transnational action; and the creation of international solidarity.

In addition to being one of the oldest aspirations of the labour movement, this challenge of international labour solidarity is perhaps the greatest one, as it combines with several other challenges. However, the results underlying international solidarity are not always what might be expected. For example, the only GM-Europe factory in Portugual (at Azambuja) was closed in December 2006. This was regarded by workers' commission members and trade union representatives in Portuguese MNCs -and also by several Portuguese members of EWCs in foreign multinationals -as a sign that EWCs lacked real power. And this was despite the wave of protests which paralysed several GM plants in June 2006 (the 'Euro-Strike', as it came to be known), one of the few examples of cross-national strike action; and despite the transnational agreements on restructuring negotiated between the EWC and GM becoming a point of reference in other European MNCs [START_REF] Da Costa | European Works Councils and Transnational Bargaining about Restructuring in the Auto Industry[END_REF]. Nevertheless, for the Portuguese representatives on the GM EWC (whom we interviewed a month before the closure of the plant), the role of the EWC deserved praise, as it prompted solidarity actions which transcended the competing interests of the transnational labour force in the GM Group.

In general, we might say that the representatives of Portuguese MNCs appear divided between the urgency of national issues and the inadequacy of their representation mechanisms, when faced with a change in the scale of multinational operations. Despite being relatively recent, the experience of the EWC from BES Group may serve as a reference not only for the financial sector but for other sectors as well. Both the evolution of this EWC and the experience of Portuguese representatives in other EWCs has enabled us to draw a conclusion about the Portuguese case: there is an urgent need to set up a network of Portuguese representatives at EWCs both within and between the various sectors, for the purpose of exchanging experience, discussing possible joint strategies and maximizing the positive effects provided by EWCs.

Moreover, it remains urgent for information about EWCs to be disseminated among the workers' representatives in Portuguese MNCs. Learning from 'good practice' (and it should be noted, for example, that the GM EWC was seen by its Portuguese representatives as an example of good practice, even though it failed to prevent the closure of their plant), instead of fruitlessly bemoaning the unsuccessful cases, is probably the best way to convert the pessimism of Portuguese workforce representatives towards EWCs into a more optimistic attitude. Portuguese multinationals have undertakings: the integration of Portugal into the EU has primarily involved economic relations with its larger neighbour, that is, an Iberianization of its economy. Reis and Baganha (2001: 21) state that 'at a time when the emblematic term is globalization, the economic space of [Portugal's] foreign relations is increasingly more European than global and increasingly more Iberian than European'.

TABLE 1 . Portuguese EWC Representatives, by Country of Ownership

 1

	313

NOTES 1

 1 The research was undertaken between June 2005 and September 2007. It was conducted as part of the project Os Conselhos de Empresa Europeus: entre a responsabilidade social da empresa e a participação laboral (European Works Councils: between corporate social responsibility and labour participation' (POCI/SOC/59689/2004), funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology). 2 There are actually 343 EWCs, since a few MNCs have created separate bodies for subsidiary operations. There are 482 actual agreements, since some companies have negotiated more than one. 3 The European Works Councils Database lists nine MNCs based in Portugal and covered by the Directive. However, two are included in error, Pão-de-Açucar and Companhia Ibérica de Distribuição (both in the retail distribution sector). Since 1996, both these undertakings have been subsidiaries of the French Group Auchan. 4 It is notable that Spain appears to be the only country in which all

Costa & Araújo: European Companies without European Works Councils

European Journal of Industrial Relations 14(3)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors would like to thank the anonymous referees and the editor of the journal for their insightful comments and suggestions concerning the earlier versions of this article.


rhythmanalysis urges us towards a more cadenced understanding of the worlds, whichever worlds, we choose to investigate.

Lefebvre's is never a naïve analysis of rhythms, of course. The Marxist roots of his analysis are rarely far from the surface, he never loses sight of how everyday rhythms are produced elsewhere as well as here, by what is not obviously present (though embedded in architecture, in space), by the structuring rhythms of the state and capital. For Lefebvre, humans are produced both by 'natural' rhythms of respiration and the heart and the 'social' rhythms of contemporary cultural processes. These rhythms converge on the body, in 'the everyday'. 'The everyday is simultaneously the site of, the theatre for, and what is at stake in a conflict between great indestructible rhythms and the processes imposed by the socio-economic organisation of production, consumption, circulation and habitat ' (p. 73).

Overall, this is a welcome addition to Lefebvre's work available in English. As the most comprehensive translation of his studies of time and rhythm so far, it will be of very wide interest. Yes, Lefebvre's writing can be infuriatingly hard to follow, and repays substantial effort, concentration and revisiting. But this work on time is remarkably transdisciplinary and, correspondingly, there is something here for anyone interested in time, irrespective of disciplinary perspective. Whoever we are, Rhythmanalysis will enrich our theoretical and empirical investigations of time.

Dave Horton, Lancaster University, UK Sandy Torres, Travels in Time, in Fiction and in Science. Paris: L'Harmattan, 2004. ISBN 2-7637-8069-5.

According to a recent poll in The Guardian (htpp://film.guardian.co.uk) scientists' favourite science-fiction (SF) films are, in order, Blade Runner, 2001: A Space Odyssey and the trilogy of Star Wars. Magnetic Tarkovski's Solaris and other famous movies follow in the list. The reasons of this choice, according to physicists and biologists, must be found in the way these films use science as an integral part of their narrative, making difficult concepts understandable and helping new theories to penetrate common people's imagination and language. This is also the idea of sociologist Sandy Torres, who researched science-fiction films, focusing on time.

'Science-fiction films and the knowledge of time' form the central focus of this compelling book which examines and analyses more than 150 films, with the author undertaking more than a quarter of this work. The first part of the volume deals with the most relevant ideas of time in philosophy, in physics, in sociology, in narratology, discussing ancient sources, classical metaphors of time and the contemporary state-of-the-art. While there are some significant omissions, such as details of the work of J. T. Fraser and Paul Davis, the author provides a clear engagement with competing definitions in this huge and interdisciplinary field.

After facing the definitions of SF films genre (including social and speculative fiction), Torres enters the core of her study: how time manipulations are presented in SF movies and how they cooperate to build a diffused time culture. Later on in the survey it becomes evident that the key theme of the book is the time travel. In the central chapter of the book 'Jeux avec le temps', Torres catalogues a series of SF movies according to the different motivations and modalities of time travel, advancing the following classification: providential, initiatory, heroic, cathartic, and regenerative -a modality producing paradoxes and loops. Films categorized include The Time Machine, Back to the Future, Highlander, Terminator and Planet of the Apes, but the analysis extends beyond the SF genre including, for example, Peggy Sue Got Married, where the main character travels in the past.

While there are different ways to deal with narrative manipulations of time, many mises-en-scène des temporalités, a linear sequential approach mirroring spatial navigation dominates the book in order to avoid issues of temporal reversibility. The cultural humus of all these travels must be found in the assimilation of scientific thought. Einstein's theory of relativity ('a fourni le cadre scientifique le plus prolifique aux manipulations du temps') dominates, while quantum theory has a minor influence. Following 'frame by frame' the evolution of time travels (with their technical devices and narrative structures) in films from the beginning of 1960s up to the 1990s, the book suggests that one can deduce from them both the current time consciousness of a society and emergent changes. Capturing from scientific theories those aspects that can express people's imagination about time, SF films deeply entwine science and society through fiction. SF films transpose scientific knowledge into fictional experience that permeates consciousness, via the viewing process, with the gleam of new temporal arrangements. They not only popularize difficult theories (as scientists have admitted), but they change to some extent the meaning of theories themselves, moulding them according to the public's awareness and expectations about time. Altogether, SF films are a collective repository of time knowledge, time representations and time experience, from which one can draw plenty of clues and indications. Torres's book also contains the nucleus of a printed relational data base (films are classified by different keys), that could be set on-line to the benefit of many interested people, who could add examples and update it in real time, playing with the categories of time travel.

Antonella Sbrilli, University of Rome 'La Sapienza', Italy

TIME & SOCIETY 14(1)