Rob De Boer

Hester Benedictus

Marc Van Der Meer

Broadening without Intensification: The Added Value of the European Social and Sectoral Dialogue

The framework of the European social dialogue (ESD) has enabled interest organizations at the European level to conclude agreements on a wide range of social policy issues. This applies both at the inter-sectoral level and within the various sectors, and has led in the last few decades to the creation of a large number of joint texts. This article addresses the issue of the added value of these results for the parties concluding them. It is argued that the ESD does not constitute a system of industrial relations at the European level, but serves as an alternative lobbying channel for the social partners involved.

Introduction

In his inaugural speech to the European Parliament in 1985, Jacques Delors -the newly appointed Commission President -said: 'I put the question: when shall we see the first European collective agreement? I want to insist on this point: the European collective agreement is not a slogan' (Tyszkiewicz, 1999: 39). It is clear that Delors had high hopes when he invited ETUC, UNICE and CEEP to joint discussions in Val Duchesse in 1985.

However, not all of Delors' expectations have been met. Even after the introduction of a legal framework for European social dialogue (ESD)which enabled the social partners to conclude agreements to be submitted to the Council for approval as directives -no agreement comparable to what is understood as a collective agreement in most national contexts has been concluded. However, this is not to say that nothing at all has happened: over the years, the European social partners in both the intersectoral and the sectoral social dialogue produced (up to August 2002) 268 official outcomes. 1 This article discusses the framework for ESD and the results that have been produced. 2 The question is: if European collective agreements have not been concluded, why have there been so many outcomes? The next section presents a brief introduction to the ESD and addresses the obstacles to the establishment of social dialogue committees and to the achievement of results. There follows a discussion a number of crucial methodological points concerning the research project from which the empirical data for this article were drawn. We then discuss the content of the results achieved within the framework of the ESD; in other words,

we seek an answer to our research question. Finally we summarize and conclude the article.

European Social Dialogue: Characteristics and Obstacles

The Maastricht Treaty: Towards the First 'Euro-collective Agreement'?

The Single European Act (article 118b) marked the insertion of 'social dialogue' in the acquis communautaire. In 1992, the Maastricht Treaty was adopted, along with a social protocol signed by all Member States except the UK. In effect, this committed all signatories to the protocol as though it were part of the Treaty. In 1997, after the Labour Party took office in the UK, the protocol was included in the Treaty. What is now Article 136 of this Treaty states that: 'the community and the Member States . . . shall have as their objectives the promotion of . . . dialogue between management and labour at European level'. 3 To this end, the social partners were assigned the right to be consulted on any Commission proposal in the field of social policy. Moreover, and more importantly, it opened up the possibility for the social partners to conclude agreements on these issues and to request the Commission to submit such agreements to the Council as proposed directives. The other option for the social partners is to implement an agreement through the member organizations, using the national systems of industrial relations. Articles 136 to 140 entrench these procedures in the Treaty Establishing the European Union and lay down the conditions of the ESD. It should be emphasized that these procedures apply not only to the abovementioned inter-sectoral organizations, but also to the European peak organizations in the various sectors.

Using the ESD procedures, the social partners in the inter-sectoral dialogue have so far reached five framework agreements, namely on parental leave (1996), part-time work (1997), fixed-term work (1999), telework (2002), and most recently (October 2004) on work-related stress. The first three have been implemented as directives by Council decision. Strikingly, they have been coined 'Euro-collective agreements' (Falkner, 1997: 7-8), which implies that the wish of the Delors Commission has come true. The fourth and fifth agreements result from article 138 consultations, which allow the social partners greater autonomy to implement and monitor the agreement themselves. The agreement on telework has so far been implemented only in the electricity sector and in local and regional government. In the sectoral dialogue up to 2002, 16 framework agreements were concluded in various sectors; some officially confirm the establishment of a social dialogue, while others regulate working time. A number of these working-time agreements (in sectors temporarily excluded from the general directive of 1993) were implemented as Council directives, while in other cases the social partners preferred to let their national affiliates implement the agreement.

Although these framework agreements are indeed collectively concluded agreements, they are not like any form of collective agreement as commonly understood in the traditional (i.e. national) conception. The scope of the issues is much narrower, they do not concern wages and their practical impact remains limited, especially for the more advanced welfare states. The minimum provisions laid down in the agreements are usually far below those that are already in place in the individual countries [START_REF] Dølvik | ETUC and European Social Partnership: a Third Turning-Point?[END_REF]Keller and Bansbach, 2001: 424-5).

If we define industrial relations as a system of strategic choice, collective action by labour, business and governments, their mutual relationships of conflict, cooperation and power, affecting the content and regulation of employment relations (Visser, 1996: 2), it seems that this has not developed at the level of the EU. Although agreements are in fact concluded, the subjects addressed cover only a small part of the content and regulation of the employment relationship, and the actual impact remains limited. From a neo-functionalist perspective, the opposite could be expected. Since the conclusion of the Maastricht Treaty, the range of social issues that can be determined by qualified majority has been broadened. On the assumption that this would create spill-over effects for adjacent policy areas -in this particular case, in the area of industrial relations -the expectation could reasonably have been that this would lead to the development of a 'European industrial relations system based on supranationally organized classes' (Streeck, 1994: 167), including collective bargaining on the content and regulation of employment relations. However, this is clearly not the case. In other words, the ESD should not be considered a system of industrial relations. This is contrary to what is argued by [START_REF] Jensen | Phases and Dynamics in the Development of EU Industrial Relations Regulation[END_REF]. While acknowledging that the effects on workers and employers of what they refer to as 'European IR regulation' is limited, and that there are large differences between European-level organizations and procedures and national systems of industrial relations, they argue that there are important parallels with the structures and mechanisms in the national systems of industrial relations. The presence of a number of actors, a number of rules and procedures, and a number of results can -in their view -be seen as a starting point for a system of industrial relations at the European level. It should, however, be emphasized that these actors do not directly represent workers or employers, and that the rules and procedures that are in place do not allow the results to cover issues that have a substantial impact on working conditions in the Member States.

Obstacles to the Development of a European Social Dialogue

Two main factors may explain why there has been only a limited development of a European system of industrial relations. The first is the diversity across countries with respect to national sectoral boundaries, the representative structures of interest organizations, and the institutional structure and traditions of industrial relations. If national sectoral domain definitions do not coincide, this presents serious difficulties in organizing an 'action set' of interest organizations pursuing a common purpose at EU level (Visser and Ebbinghaus, 1992: 208). Moreover, the national member organizations often have very different organizational and representative structures. This applies both to trade unions and -arguably to a greater extent -employers' organizations (Lanzalaco, 1992: 193-200). For example, some national affiliates of European employers' associations are trade or lobbying organizations rather than employers' associations, and are thus not mandated to address social issues, which immediately calls into question the legitimacy of joint texts concluded within the framework of the ESD. These differences in sectoral domains and representative structures originate in the variation across countries in the institutions and traditions of industrial relations (Rhodes, 1995: 115-8). Differences in the degree of centralization and coordination within the national systems of industrial relations are reflected in differences in the dominant level of social dialogue in a country. The authority of national federations and associations, or the extent of 'vertical integration', differs widely across trade union movements in the various Member States, and this can cause problems of mandate and implementation in the sectoral dialogue [START_REF] Visser | Making the Most of Diversity? European Integration and Transnational Organization of Labor[END_REF]. In brief, cross-national differences inhibit the establishment of representative structures at EU level capable of concluding framework agreements.

The second and perhaps more important issue is that because the social agenda of the EU is substantially narrower than at national level, the power of the Commission to cast a 'shadow of hierarchy' over ESD is very limited. The Commission as a third party to the social dialogue is much more constrained than are national governments in its capacity to force the other two parties to negotiate. Although the Maastricht Treaty opened the possibility for qualified majority voting for more subject areas than was previously the case, many issues remain subject to unanimous voting or are explicitly excluded from European regulation. As a result, the scope for European social policy is quite restricted and thus the bulk of social and labour market policy is still developed at national level [START_REF] Ebbinghaus | European Labor and Transnational Solidarity: Challenges, Pathways, and Barriers[END_REF]. For interested organizations this implies that the most appropriate level at which to address these issues remains the national one. There is no strong incentive to discuss social and labour market policy at the European level, since there is simply a lot less to be gained. Social partners 'shoot where the ducks are', and most ducks swim around in national ponds. This is particularly relevant to the involvement of the inter-sectoral social partners in social policy development in the EU, through the co-decision procedure, although it also applies to the sectoral dialogue. As there are no means to 'bribe' European peak organizations to come to the bargaining table, as there are in national corporatist systems, they retain their 'power of nondecision' [START_REF] Streeck | European Social Policy after Maastricht: The "Social Dialogue" and "Subsidiarity[END_REF].

No Added Value, No Social Dialogue

In the light of the wide cross-national differences and the Commission's limited 'shadow of hierarchy', it is clear that the success of ESD depends on the voluntary cooperation of at least two parties, that is, employers' organizations and trade unions. If either is unwilling, there will be no favourable prospect for the development of a fruitful dialogue. It has been observed that problems are often found in the representation of employers' interests (Keller and Sörries, 1998a). In the words of Streeck (1994: 170), European employers, like employers generally, prefer markets to institutions, and free markets to regulated markets. But agreements on social issues will be concluded only if both employers (associations) and employees (unions) see a distinct added value for themselves. In the end, the decision of the social partners to engage in social dialogue hinges predominantly on their perception of potential benefits. If there seems to be a lack of such benefits at European level, it is not worth the effort to overcome the above-mentioned problems of diversity. The potentially powerful position of the Commission as the initiator of social policy that can force the social partners to come to the bargaining table (Keller and Bansbach, 2001: 427) is constrained by the EU's limited social agenda. The evident question is why one would want to discuss issues, or even negotiate agreements within the framework of the ESD, if a more favourable outcome can be achieved through other channels available in the multi-level system of European policy development, principally the national system of industrial relations.

Taking into account these obstacles to the development of a European social dialogue one may be surprised to see that in addition to the framework agreements mentioned earlier, up to August 2002 a total of 243 joint statements were concluded in the inter-sectoral and sectoral dialogue. Moreover, while the social partners in some sectors are apparently very active in concluding joint statements, so far those in other sectors have not even established the necessary dialogue committee. The conditions under which ESD develops are discussed in this article. Since it has been made clear above that social dialogue will not occur if either of the social partners does not perceive an added value, our research question was formulated as follows: what is the added value of the ESD for the sectoral social partners, and why has it developed in particular sectors and not in others?

Methodology

The empirical evidence presented in this article originates from a research project on the ESD carried out by Amsterdams Instituut voor Arbeids Studies (AIAS) in 2002 (Benedictus et al., 2002). In the project, two methods were used to gather empirical data.

First, all joint texts and framework agreements drawn up before August 2002 were extracted from the EC and the CIRCA websites 4 and entered into a database. This was designed to store all documents that had been produced by joint committees and informal working groups (pre-1998) and by the sectoral social dialogue committees (post-1998). 5 Any joint text drawn up and endorsed by both sides in the social dialogue is described as a 'result' of the ESD. The following fields (in addition to title, organizations involved, date, etc.) are included in the database:

• The status, namely whether or not a joint text contains binding obligations. If it imposes certain commitments on the signatory parties it is termed a 'framework agreement'. Conversely, when a joint text comprises informal commitments, recommendations or anything else without direct binding power on the parties involved, it is termed a 'joint statement'. It should be stressed that these joint statements are concluded on a wide variety of occasions, for example: when consulted within the framework of the ESD regarding a specific proposal for a directive on social policy; when commenting, on their own initiative, on a specific Commission Green or White Paper (not necessarily on social policy); when expressing their concern about an issue that has not yet been addressed by the Commission but which they feel requires European-level policy action; and when making non-binding recommendations to the member organizations. It should be emphasized that this list is not at all exhaustive. • The policy area, namely the main subject addressed in the joint text.

In the first instance, the classification drawn on the Commission website was used. For those results achieved after June 2000, the CIRCA (EU Communication and Information Resource Centre Administrator) website was used, and the policy area was assigned after reading the full text. The policy areas distinguished are employment, working conditions, working time, training, health and safety, social dialogue, studies and statistics, enlargement, and policy and economy. It should be stressed that in many cases these individual labels do not cover all subjects addressed in a joint text, since these often contain elements of more than one policy area. 'Policy and economy' seems to be a category used by the Commission to classify all texts that do not fit any of the other policy areas. Results in this category in most cases contain comments on particular policy proposals made by the Commission, or on the economic situation. • The purpose, namely whether a joint text is targeted at European politics (the Commission, the Council or all national governments) or at the affiliates of the European peak organizations. In the former case, the European social partner organizations advise European policy makers on the aim and contents of a specific policy proposal, within the framework of the consultation procedure laid down in the Treaty, or on policy-making in a specific area in general, on their own initiative. In the latter case, European organizations advise their members -either with or without binding force -to take a certain course of action.

In addition, five case studies were carried out, involving a total of 23 semi-structured interviews. Sixteen of these were with representatives of European peak organizations in various sectors. Other interviews were with Commission functionaries involved in the ESD (two interviews), representatives of the inter-sectoral dialogue (three interviews) and experts on the ESD (two interviews).

The research addressed the development of the social dialogue over time, taking into account all joint statements and framework agreements on all policy areas, in four of the sectors: commerce, construction, metal and telecommunications. Within the constraints of the research project, the cases were selected in order to display the widest possible range of situations: sectors with many joint results (telecoms, commerce) and those with few or no results (metal, construction); private-sector (metal, commerce, construction) and public or former public sectors (telecoms); sectors with predominantly large firms (metal, telecoms) and those with predominantly small and medium-sized enterprises (construction, commerce); those with much sector-specific European policy (telecoms, construction) and those with little or none (metal, commerce). 6 In the fifth case, the responses of the five transport sectors to a single European policy initiative -the Working Time Directive of 1993 -were compared. This case provided not only crucial information about the Directive, but also valuable additional insights into the research question.

Opportunities and Influence for the Social Partners at EU Level

Despite the obstacles to the development of the ESD mentioned in the introduction, a substantial number of results have been achieved within its framework. Table 1 reveals two major facts, that the ESD had spread to 28 sectors by 2002, and that the number of results each year generally increased during the 1990s but subsequently declined.

Starting from the observation that social dialogue will develop only if both parties perceive an added value, it is clear that where a sectoral dialogue committee has been established and results have been achieved, both the employers' organizations and the trade unions thought that there was something to gain by achieving a result. Since one single result should thus have advantages for both sides, this is obviously a shared added value.

Market Liberalization Creates Common Goals

A striking fact illustrated by Table 1 is that the vast majority of results were achieved between 1992 and 2000, with a strong peak in 1996/7. A priori this could reflect the ongoing liberalization of the European market for various public services, such as telecommunications, postal services, gas and electricity, and transport. Table 2 shows that, indeed, three of these sectors are among the top four in terms of the number of results. The second highest number of results is in agriculture, which can be considered an exceptional case since the first result in this sector dates back to 1978, and between that year and 1986 this was the only sector in which a dialogue committee existed. 7 A closer look at the results achieved in the telecommunications, railways and postal sectors reveals some striking similarities. The vast majority (61 out of 72, or 85 per cent) are joint statements and are targeted at one or more institutions at EU level. Moreover, the content of 76 per cent of the results in these sectors is categorized by the Commission as 'employment' or 'policy and economy'. In practice, these joint texts usually voice the concerns of both social partners about the 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 a Sectors with at least one result (cumulative) Note: a To August. Source: Benedictus et al. (2002: 47).

position of their sector. In many cases, these statements are targeted directly at the Commission and often entail comments or recommendations on liberalization policies and their expected effects on the competitive position and the employment situation in the sector. In other cases, these comments target liberalization policy more generally, but the practical concerns are the same. It seems that the liberalization of previously shielded markets gives employers and employees a common goal: employers fear a loss of competitiveness for their own (formerly monopolistic and public) companies, while the unions fear loss of employment as a result of strong competition from new entrants. Companies in these sectors -which often are heavily burdened by large investments in infrastructure (cable networks, railway lines) -will experience the most drastic change in their environment as a result of liberalization. In railways, these competitive pressures not only develop within the sector, but are also exerted by 'other modes of transportation', such as road transport or inland waterways, as is emphasized in numerous joint statements. In effect, the concerns about competitiveness and employment are two sides of the same coin. By concluding these statements, and by addressing the Commission, the social partners try to influence the content of European regulation. The added value of the ESD for employers and employees seems to be the entry it provides into the policy process in the EU.

European Social Dialogue as an Alternative Lobbying Channel

The observation in the previous section can be broadly generalized by extending the scope of analysis to all sectors and to all results achieved within the framework of the ESD. When considering the distribution of results by status, it is clear that voicing common opinions is greatly preferred negotiating binding agreements: there have been 243 joint statements but only 21 framework agreements. It was shown above that the framework agreements in the inter-sectoral dialogue cannot be equated to collective agreements. This leaves 17 framework agreements concluded at sectoral level. The case study on the Working Time Directive shows that three of these were a direct result of pressure from the Commission and contain stipulations on the maximum number of working hours. Although these results are arguably the most far-reaching in the sectoral dialogue, they are not comparable to encompassing collective agreements. The other framework agreements in the sectoral dialogue appear to be mutual commitments to the establishment of a sectoral dialogue committee or the continuation of social dialogue, 'formal' recommendations on employment issues in the sector, or guidelines on teleworking. The content of these agreements shows that the impact on employees in the Member States will most likely be small or non-existent. Three-quarters of all joint statements are targeted exclusively at EU politics, which means that these results are in no way intended to commit the national affiliates to anything, but are targeted purely at influencing European policy in some way. If one adds those statements that are targeted at both the member organizations and EU politics, the percentage is even higher, 85 per cent (see Table 3).

The results in the other categories hence constitute only 15 per cent of the total. Those targeted at the member organizations could be considered collective agreements were they to contain binding elements; but what distinguishes a joint statement from a framework agreement is the absence of such elements. Examination of these texts reveals that they usually contain quite general statements on such issues as child labour, fundamental labour rights, training, lifelong learning, technology, violence and crime, racism and xenophobia, and health and safety. In no way do these results commit the signatories to anything beyond the endorsement or denunciation of certain practices. Table 4 supports the conclusion that the members of the European peak organizations have come to view the framework of the ESD as an alternative channel for lobbying; the results in all sectors show a picture similar to that in the three sectors discussed in the previous section. Those categorized as 'policy and economy' represent 40 per cent of the total results in the sectoral dialogue, while together with those categorized as 'employment' these account for 52 per cent of the total. It should be emphasized that the subjects addressed in these results are not in all cases those social issues listed in Article 140 of the Maastricht Treaty; in fact, many of the subjects cannot be considered 'social' at all.

Table 4 shows that 33 results (14 per cent) are categorized as 'working conditions', which at first sight might lead one to believe that these are indeed results covering issues related to the content and regulation of employment relations. However, further investigation provides contradictory evidence: the subjects addressed range from early retirement in the agricultural sector to combating child labour in the footwear sector, and although both subjects are certainly relevant to the employment relationship, 30 of the 33 results in this category are joint statements and thus do not contain any elements binding on the signatory peak organizations or on their national affiliates. Moreover, the aim of the majority of the results categorized as 'working conditions' does not differ from that of those categorized as 'policy and economy' and 'employment'. In fact, 16 results in this category are targeted exclusively at European politics, while another five are targeted at both European politics and member organizations. This implies that almost two-thirds of these results are in some way intended to influence European policy. A good example in this category is a joint statement issued by the social partners in the road transport sector on 20 February 1990, which offers their opinion on the Commission's proposals concerning the use of top sleeper cabins in heavy goods vehicles. Because such cabins reduce the effective loading length of these lorries, the statement is intended to persuade the Commission to increase the fixed overall lengths to compensate for the decreased loading lengths and thus for the potential economic losses for the sector. So, although the name of the category may lead one to believe otherwise, the content and target of the majority of the results categorized as 'working conditions' show that these do not differ much from those in 'policy and economy' and 'employment'. The 16 results categorized as 'social dialogue' mostly entail a commitment to establish or continue a social dialogue in the particular sector. In the commerce, woodworking, cleaning, tobacco, sugar, and hotels, restaurants and catering (Horeca) sectors, this has even been formalized in a framework agreement. The other ten 'social dialogue' statements generally concern the informal mutual recognition of each other as a social partner.

The categories 'training', 'health and safety', 'studies and statistics' and 'enlargement' speak for themselves. None of the results in these categories is a framework agreement, 8 nor does any resemble a collective agreement. In fact, most results in these categories are aimed at influencing EU policy on these issues, in some cases in response to proposed policy measures, in other cases on the initiative of the social partners themselves.

The case studies conducted in the various sectors further confirm that particular policy measures may trigger ESD in a sector. A case in point is the European Working Time Directive of 1993, which provided for maximum working time and minimum rest periods for all workers in the EU, apart from certain sectors exempted from its stipulations. The exemptions covered in particular road transport, inland navigation, railways, maritime transport and civil aviation, because of the atypical nature of the employment of mobile workers in the transport sectors. 9 Interview respondents from most of these sectors confirmed that the Commission put substantial pressure on the sectoral social partners to negotiate agreements on working time suited to their particular sector. By securing the adoption of the original directive, the Commission had proved its ability to achieve European-wide regulation on this issue. The explicit threat 'negotiate, or we'll legislate' led to the conclusion of framework agreements in railways, civil aviation and maritime transport, the last two being transformed into a directive by Council decision. Negotiations in road transport and inland navigation broke down in 1998, and for these sectors the Commission kept its promise to regulate the issue via the normal legislative procedure [START_REF] Weber | The European Sectoral Social Dialogue[END_REF]. The majority of joint statements and framework agreements in the category of 'working time' are directly related to the EWD.

Construction is a sector in which comparable developments have occurred. Here, the two joint statements in the working conditions category both comment explicitly on the European Posted Workers Directive of 1996. As regards the establishment of a dialogue committee, an interview respondent from this sector mentioned that: 'the growth of the EFBWW [European Federation of Building and Wood Workers ] was caused by an increasing importance of European regulation, in particular the Directive on health and safety in temporary and mobile workplaces. This convinced the national affiliates that the European level mattered'. With respect to the position of the employers, the same respondent argued that 'the thought was that if we want to break into the legislative process, we are stronger together than alone'. Thus, the reason both employers and employees wanted to establish a social dialogue and to conclude joint statements is clear: they wanted to influence European policy, rather than to negotiate autonomous agreements on social issues. Conversely, the fact that EU policy measures have not had a great impact on the metal sector may partly explain why a dialogue committee has not been established. Once particular measures had been proposed by the Commission (e.g. the block exemption regulation for the garage sector 10 ) or there had been sector-specific international developments (e.g. the termination of the ECSC treaty in the steel sector), the social partners in the relevant parts of the metal sector started to apply themselves to establishing a sectoral dialogue committee to address these issues. The presence or absence of either European sector-specific policy or European general policy with sector-specific consequences is therefore an important explanatory factor behind the establishment of an ESD committee and the achievement of results. If Council directives, policy proposals, White or Green Papers have a potential effect on a sector, the social partners frequently use the ESD as a channel for access to the policy process in order to promote their sectoral interests. In most cases, this does not concern social or employment policy issues at all.

Laeken: The Future of the ESD in Non-binding Agreements

In December 2001, the social partners in the inter-sectoral dialogue set out their vision on the future of the ESD in the Laeken Declaration. In this declaration, they opted for more emphasis on autonomous, bipartite dialogue aimed at the conclusion of voluntary, non-legally binding agreements. The social partners thus more or less ruled out the possibility of concluding framework agreements to be submitted to the Council for implementation as a directive. The conclusion of, respectively, the telework agreement in July 2002, and the work-related stress agreement in October 2004 confirms the new course announced in the Laeken Declaration. Agreements on telework concluded earlier in commerce and telecommunications indicate that some sectoral dialogue committees share these views. Interview respondents in other sectors indicated that their ambition is still to conclude legally binding agreements on certain issues. According to a representative of the railways sector, 'if safety is to be guaranteed, in order to be enforceable, it has to be legally binding'.

The declaration by the inter-sectoral social partners confirms that the direction in which the ESD is developing is clearly away from the path of legally binding agreements. While it has been shown that in terms of actual results, this path has not been much trodden before, this formal statement obviates any further prospects for the conclusion of European collective agreements, and further confirms the non-existence of a European system of industrial relations. By focusing on more voluntary agreements, the inter-sectoral social partners more or less confirm the limitations imposed by the cross-national diversity identified in the introduction to this article. Without a realistic threat of legislation enabling the Commission to pressure the social partners into negotiations, and with the wide differences on a variety of aspects of employment regulation both between and within countries, it seems unlikely that many framework agreements will be concluded in the future, let alone implemented by Council decision. In its communication on the ESD in 2002, the Commission stated that the social partners will have to make the first move towards negotiating a framework agreement, thus implicitly affirming its refusal any longer to steer the ESD (EC, 2002: 8). Both the Commission and the social partners thus endorse the path of voluntary, non-legally binding agreements.

This type of regulation fits well with the direction in which EU social policy formation in general is moving. Alongside the development of the European Employment Strategy, which originates in the White Paper on Growth Competitiveness and Employment of 1993, new policy procedures have been developed to strike a balance between cross-national variety and the achievement of common goals. These 'soft law' procedures generally combine the setting of a number of fixed targets for all Member States with substantial freedom for the individual States in deciding how to achieve these goals. Policy experiences are exchanged, which should enable mutual learning processes, and peer pressure ('naming and shaming') should guarantee compliance with the commonly agreed targets. Since the Lisbon Summit in 2000, this type of regulation has been termed the open method of coordination (OMC).

But while the soft character and the basic concept of 'same targets, different paths' are quite similar in both methods, there is one crucial difference that poses a serious problem for the viability of the 'new-style' ESD. While OMC relies on national governments for implementation of its targets, the implementation of agreements in the ESD relies on the institutions of industrial relations in the various Member States. Crossnational differences will play an even more important role in the 'newstyle' ESD than when implementing an agreement through Council decision, which is carried out by the national legislators. Given the problems of the level of bargaining authority and representative structures identified in the introduction, the legitimacy of these agreements is open to debate. Altogether, it is clear that the ESD has not developed, and most likely will not develop, into a system of industrial relations at the level of the EU, nor does the conclusion of a 'genuine' European collective agreement seem to be likely in the near future. However, this is not to say that the ESD is an empty shell.

The true value of the ESD seems to lie in the entry into the European policy process it provides the social partners. It has been shown that the framework of the ESD has provided the sectoral social partners with an alternative channel for promoting their shared sectoral interests. The ESD has not developed into an alternative or complementary level of industrial relations or collective bargaining, but has taken a position within the European multi-level system of policy development. The influence the social partners can exert through this channel is not limited to social policy (as it is in the consultation procedure laid down in the Maastricht Treaty), but extends to anything within the Commission's competences. As such, the most important value of the ESD is that it provides the social partners with a degree of influence in the European policy process.

Broadening without Intensification: So What?

It is beyond doubt that the social partners, employers as well as employees, perceive an added value in the framework of the ESD. On a general level, both the number of sectors and the number of results increased in the 1990s. However, these results do not resemble anything like a national collective agreement. The issues addressed are rarely 'social' and the texts are usually aimed at influencing European policy (in many cases economic policy) in some way, rather than at concluding agreements on the content and regulation of the employment relationship at the level of the EU. In other words, the expectation of former President Delors that the establishment of the ESD was a first step towards collective bargaining at the European level has not been met.

The obstacles posed by cross-national diversity and by the Commission's small 'shadow of hierarchy' can only be overcome if the social partners perceive an added value in engaging in social dialogue at the EU level. In response to the research question 'what is the added value of the ESD for the sectoral social partners, and why has it developed in particular sectors and not in others?', it has been shown that especially in the sectoral dialogue the possibilities provided by the framework of the ESD have enabled the social partners to voice their opinion on virtually any legislative proposal at the EU level that has an impact on their sector. Because the number of subjects that fall under the competence of the EU is continuously increasing, the ESD might prove a good way for interest organizations to retain some influence over these issues, and can as such be considered an alternative lobbying channel for their sectoral interests. In fact, it is precisely this feature that constitutes the added value of the ESD for the social partners. If there is no EU policy with an impact on a particular sector -in other words, if there is nothing to influence -there is no incentive for sectoral social partners to establish a social dialogue. This may largely explain why the social partners in the metal sector, for example, have so far not made an effort to overcome the obstacles posed by crossnational differences and to establish a sectoral dialogue committee.

The Laeken Declaration does not change this: it signalled the formal recognition of the limitations of the social partners to conclude legally binding framework agreements. In the 'new-style' ESD, they no longer aim for implementation through Council decision, but favour the use of voluntary bipartite agreements, to be enforced through collective negotiations by the national affiliates. It should be emphasized that this does not change anything as regards the conclusion of joint statements, nor has it any necessary impact on the sectoral dialogue. The ESD as an alternative lobbying channel thus remains untouched, and as such, in an EU characterized by an opaque multi-level policy environment, it may even be argued that this type of involvement of interest groups in the European policy process will strengthen the legitimacy of decisions.

3 In several language versions, the English 'management and labour' appears as 'social partners'. 4 URL: www.europa.eu.int/comm/employment_social/soc-dial/social/ euro_agr/index_en.htm and forum.europa.eu.int/Public/irc/empl/esdo_accords_europeens/home 5 In 1998, the Commission reformed the ESD, requiring all dialogue committees and informal working groups to 'reapply' for official recognition as a sectoral dialogue committee (EC, 1998). In all sectors except inland navigation this resulted in a continuation of the social dialogue. 6 Atypical sectors such as local authorities and agriculture (which has a very specific background as regards its position in the European integration process and policy development) were avoided. Larger sectors were favoured over smaller. 7 In agriculture, railways, inland navigation, commerce, road transport, civil aviation, sea fishing and maritime transport, a 'European social dialogue' already existed before the Maastricht Treaty. The inter-sectoral social partners also concluded their first result before 1992. 8 The draft framework agreement of May 2004 on 'work-related stress', now formally adopted, will fill this gap. In addition, in 2002 a framework for actions on the 'lifelong development of competencies and qualifications' was agreed, in which the social partners expressed a proactive commitment to promote training and lifelong learning. However, the practical impact of this statement of policy on the development of the 'knowledge' economy is not clear at the time of writing. 9 Other groups such as doctors in training were also exempted, but these were not covered in our research. 10 This is an instrument to exempt a particular type of agreement in the garage sector from Article 81(1) of the Consolidated Treaty, which bans agreements that could have anti-competitive effects. According to the Commission, the previous regulation did not sufficiently facilitate competition between car dealers, and disadvantaged consumers. The regulation on this issue (1475/95/EC) expired in September 2002, and the new Commission proposal entails a number of changes that are supposed to increase competition in the sector.

de

  Boer et al.: Broadening without Intensification

TABLE 1 . Number of Sectors with at Least one Result and Number of Results per Year Year

 1

European Journal of Industrial Relations 11(1) 60 TABLE 2. Number of Results per Sector

	Sector	Results	Sector	Results
	Telecoms	32	Sugar	5
	Agriculture	26	Journalism	4
	Postal services	20	Construction	3
	Railways	20	Public services	3
	Civil aviation	16	Textiles/clothing	3
	Sea fishing	14	Woodworking	3
	Commerce	13	Banking	2
	Maritime transport	10	Electricity	2
	Cleaning	9	Insurances	2
	Horeca	9	Leather	2
	Private security	7	Agency work	2
	Inland navigation	7	Personal services	1
	Footwear	6	Tobacco	1
	Road transport	5	Entertainment	1

Source:

Benedictus et al., 2002: 54.

de Boer et al.: Broadening without Intensification 61 TABLE 3. Target of Joint Statements

	Target
	EU politics	184
	Member organizations	25
	EU politics and member organizations	24
	Parties issuing the statement	10
	Other	1

Source:

Benedictus et al., 2002: 48, 52.

European Journal of Industrial Relations 11(1) 62 TABLE 4. Results per Policy Area

	Policy area	Results	Policy area	Results
	Policy and economy	92	Social dialogue	16
	Working conditions	33	Working time	15
	Employment	27	Studies and statistics	4
	Training	21	Enlargement	2
	Health and safety	18

European Journal of Industrial Relations 11(1)

Source:Benedictus et al. (2002: 59).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We express our gratitude to Richard Hyman and to two anonymous reviewers of this Journal for their suggestions. We also thank Jelle Visser, Wiemer Salverda and Marloes Zijl for their contribution to the AIAS project 'The European Social Dialogue: Development, Sectoral Variation and Prospects', commissioned by the Dutch Ministerie van Sociale Zaken en Werkgelegenheid.

NOTES

1 Since the completion of data-analysis for this article, the European Commission (2004: 5) has reported over 300 outcomes. 2 For other recent interpretations of the European social and sectoral dialogue, see Compston and Greenwood (2001); European Commission (2004); Falkner (1993) and Keller (1993).


Christian Welz

Timo Kauppinen

With the historic enlargement of May 2004, the European Union faces new challenges. How the industrial relations systems of the new Member States respond to the challenges of accession, the single market and, eventually, EMU will play a crucial role in determining the ease of their assimilation within the enlarged Union. This article, based on a research and development project undertaken by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, investigates and assesses a specific aspect of their industrial relations institutions, the mechanisms of extra-judicial conflict resolution. The existence of effective and efficient collective conflict resolution procedures and institutions strengthens social dialogue and the latter, again, plays an important role in the creation or reform of the existing dispute resolution procedures. Consequently, the article concludes that successful dispute resolution is directly correlated with the nature, scope and quality of collective bargaining and social dialogue in the new Member States.

Introduction

This article summarizes one theme from a broader study of industrial relations in the (then) acceding countries, undertaken by the European Foundation in Dublin. 1 Its focus is the functioning of extra-judicial mechanisms of dispute resolution in the new Member States (NMS). We begin with an overview of the incidence of industrial disputes, and their legal status, in the NMS. The body of the article then surveys the institutions and procedures of conflict resolution. We conclude with a brief assessment of the implications for the future of industrial relations.

Industrial Action in the NMS

Under the communist regimes which existed until 1990 in eight of the 10 NMS, strikes were a 'taboo issue' (EIRO, 2003a), but they have now become a legitimate and well rooted basic right of the trade unions and workers (EIRO, 2003b). In eight of the NMS (CY, CZ, HU, LT, LV, PL, SK, SI) the right to strike is indeed anchored in the national constitution. In the other two (EE, MT), strikes are regulated by national law. As Table 1 indicates, Cyprus has the broadest legal basis for strikes, with a regulatory framework based on the constitution, a national law and a collective agreement.

In discussing industrial action it is necessary to distinguish between strikes and lock-outs. The latter appear to be less comprehensively regulated. In five of the NMS the employers' right to lock-out is enacted in national statutes (CZ, EE, LV, MT, SK). In Cyprus the question is dealt with by a collective agreement. The other countries either have no legal basis for lock-outs (HU, PL, SI), or consider them an illegal form of action (LT) [START_REF] Boda | Social Dialogue in Hungary and its Influence on EU Accession[END_REF][START_REF] Borbély | Industrial Disputes in Hungary[END_REF][START_REF] Kocher | The Regulation of Conflicts in the German Industrial Relations System: Legal and Extra-legal Institutions and Procedures[END_REF].

The definiton of strikes appears to be rather similar in all NMS and is in line with international conventions [START_REF] Novitz | International and European Protection of the Right to Strike[END_REF] and the national regulations applicable in the EU15. A typical definition is that in Estonia: 'an interruption of work on the initiative of employees or a federation of employees in order to achieve concessions from an employer or a federation of employers to lawful demands in labour matters'. A lock-out, by contrast, 'is an interruption of work on the initiative of an employer or an association of employers to achieve concessions from the employees or a federation of employees to lawful demands in labour matters'. Notes: C = constitution; CA = collective agreement; L = law; 0 = no legal basis; LO = prohibited by law.

Practices and procedures, however, vary to a very large extent, consistent with the differing legal foundations indicated in Table 1. Many of the NMS have enacted regulations restricting the legality of strikes, as in EE, HU, LT, LV and SK. These provisions render strikes unlawful if they have not been preceded by a period of conflict resolution, violate the constitution, constitute a dispute of rights to be solved by the labour courts, endanger human life or the environment, etc. Some national statutes confirm the legality of solidarity strikes (CZ, EE, HU, SK), and warning strikes are a legitimate means of industrial actions across most of the NMS (EE, HU, LT, PL) (Woolfson and Beck, 2002-3: 84).

It is a generally acknowledged principle that participation in a strike is voluntary (CZ, EE, HU, SK). Trade union representatives must therefore allow employees who do not wish to participate in a strike to enter and leave the workplace, and it is prohibited to impede their performance of work. They may not threaten them with any detriment, but may discuss with them the purpose of the strike. Thus, picketing is explicitly allowed in some of the NMS (LT, LV, SK), in others it is not regulated or used in practice (HU).

Most of the NMS (e.g. HU, LT, LV, PL, SK) ban, or at least impose certain limitations on, strike activity in essential services. The definition of such services of general interest varies considerably, however, between countries (European Commission [EC], 2003: 6-7). Strikes are most extensively banned from the armed forces, the judiciary as well as the internal security services. Limitations on the right to strike are also widely imposed with regard to public transport, electricity supply, telecommunications and other public utilities.

As Table 2 shows, the actual incidence of industrial action in recent years has been rather low, although it is very difficult to provide reliable, objective and comparable statistics. For some of the NMS (CZ, LV) no such data are available at all, while for others data on the number of working days lost (CZ, HU, LT, LV, SK) and/or the number of workers involved (CZ, EE, HU, LV) are lacking. In addition to these limitations, for methodological reasons it is difficult to evaluate the quantitative data that do exist: statistical definitions of strikes in the NMS, as in the EU15, vary enormously from one country to another. 2 With these considerations in mind the following points are made very cautiously and only have the merit to reflect some preliminary, approximate trends. Out of the NMS with the most complete data sets (CY, EE, HU, LT, LV, MT, PL, SI, SK), in the period 1999-2001 Hungary, Poland [START_REF] Kloc | Labour Conflicts and Strikes in Poland in the 1990s and Methods of Solving Them[END_REF] and Cyprus have seen the most industrial action: on average 275,000 working days lost in Hungary, 72,000 in Poland and 11,000 in Cyprus per year. 3 In the case of Hungary it must be noted that both the peak strike figure in 2000 and the enormous annual fluctuations stem from industrial action at one single company, the Hungarian State Railways (Magyar Államvasutak, MÁV) (EIRO, 2003a). Among the less strike-prone NMS, 4000 days were lost in Slovenia, 2000 in Malta, and 400 in Estonia, while virtually no strikes were recorded in Slovakia in these three years. It was only in 2003 that the first real strikes surfaced in Estonia and Slovakia, in the latter mainly in the railway sector. In Estonia the Estonian Employees' Union Federation (TALO) called a one day strike involving more that 20,000 workers on 4 December 2003, which is considered to be the first real strike, in contrast to previous warning strikes and other protest actions, since Estonia gained independence: this strike had been officially authorized by the public conciliator (EIRObserver, 2004).

In some of the NMS, austere economic reforms entailing losses in real income rendered the socio-economic fabric rather fragile during the period of transition to a market economy and thus were a fertile ground for industrial action in the early 1990s (Iankova and Turner, 2004: 88). As a general trend, however, industrial action is on the decline since the mid-1990s in the NMS: this is also true for Poland, the transition economy which witnessed the most widespread industrial action in the course of the 1990s (Pollert, 1999: 156). In view of the latest developments of industrial protests in Lithuania, however, some scholars argue that the days of labour quiescence in the NMS may be over. High levels of material deprivation, the pursuit of neoliberal policies of deregulation and repressive anti-union legislation are the essential corrobation of this thesis and Beck (2004: 240).

Source: National reports. The formulae for calculating strikes, working days lost and participants may vary across countries. No data available for CZ. (Woolfson and Beck, 2004: 250-1). In Slovenia strike rates peaked in 1992 after the huge system transformation from 1988 but then declined.

Conflicting reasons have been offered for this fall; Stanojević (2003b) emphasizes the consolidation of a system of 'political exchange' within which Slovenian unions were able under a sympathetic political regime to achieve many of their objectives without the need for militant action.

In other transition economies, a sharp decline in strike action after the initial period of economic and political transformation has been attributed to such factors as the retreat of the state from the economy, growing unemployment, fragmentation of the economy, fragmentation and weakening of trade unions, reduced inclination and capacity for industrial action and a general unpopularity of strikes since they were prohibited in Soviet times (Dovydeniene, 1999: 26;Stanojević, 2003a: 28).

A feature of most NMS is that large-scale strikes tend to occur in the public services and public utilities, as a means by which workers try to put pressure on the government; in the private sector, by contrast, workplace-level industrial action predominates. The main categories of workers involved in strikes are thus public employees (especially teachers, nurses, doctors and judges), and in addition those working in large industrial enterprises, traditional heavy industries and 'privileged workers . . . in close contact with Western workers, and able to use comparators' such as airline pilots, cabin attendants, and workers in multinational companies such as S ˇkoda (Martin and Cristescu-Martin, 2003: 506-7)). Strikes are also frequent in sectors undergoing fundamental restructuring, for example, mining and energy in Estonia and textiles in Slovenia (EC, 2002b: 100-1).

Conflict Resolution in the NMS

The main focus of this article is on collective conflicts, in other words disputes that generally relate to collective agreements rather than the entitlements of individual employees. We adopt a definition stemming from Spanish procedural law: a collective conflict is one that 'affects the general interest of a generic group of workers and that deals with the enforcement or the interpretation of a statutory regulation, collective bargaining agreement or a corporate decision or practice' (Valdes Dal-Ré, 2002, 2003: 47). Since some EU15 countries (e.g. DK, SE) limit the scope of collective disputes to those involving collective agreements only, the boundary between collective and individual conflicts is somewhat opaque.

Collective disputes can be subdivided into two categories. The first involves 'conflicts of rights', or disputes on the interpretation of the content of an existing collective agreement. The regulatory framework of most of the NMS provides for judicial procedures for resolving such disputes (as is also the case in the majority of EU15 countries). An exception to this rule is Cyprus, where all collective conflicts are dealt with by the Ministry of Labour.

The second type of dispute, 'conflicts of interest', arises in the course of attempts to conclude a new collective agreement or to renew an existing collective agreement at the end of its period of currency. In this case, conflict resolution mechanisms normally involve extra-judicial procedures such as conciliation, mediation and arbitration. These provide the main focus of the present survey [START_REF] Gladstone | Settlement of Disputes over Rights[END_REF][START_REF] Goldman | Settlement of Disputes over Interests[END_REF].

As in the EU15 (Valdés Dal-Ré, 2003), the main conflict resolution mechanisms in the NMS consist of the classic triad: conciliation, mediation, arbitration (ETUC/ INFOPOINT, 2002). All three have in common that a third party is asked to intervene in order to resolve a conflict between the two sides of industry; it is then the nature and degree of the intervention that distinguish the three different procedures.

Conciliation is the 'softest' form of intervention by a third party, who acts only as a facilitator by maintaining the two-way flow of information between the conflicting parties and encouraging a rapprochement between their antagonistic positions. Mediation goes a step further: this mechanism allows the third party to take the initiative in tabling proposals directed towards a resolution of the conflict [START_REF] Casale | The Settlement of Labour Disputes in Central and Eastern Europe[END_REF]de Roo and Jagtenberg, 1994: 24-31;Valdés Dal-Ré, 2003: 51). The dividing line between conciliation and mediation is a narrow one and in some countries they are treated as identical procedures (Thaler and Bernstein, 2003: 14). In a number of NMS either the difference is not acknowledged (Malta) or the boundaries between the two mechanisms overlap (Estonia, Slovakia, Slovenia). Arbitration is at the other end of the scale of intensity of third-party involvement: it is for the arbitrator to decide how to solve the conflict. The character of arbitration itself can vary, in terms of whether the parties are bound (by law or by prior agreement) to submit certain disputes to arbitration, and whether they are bound to accept the arbitrator's award. In its least binding forms, arbitration is little stronger than mediation.

The ultimate goal of all procedures of extra-judicial conflict resolution is the maintenance of labour peace. Conflict avoidance is invested with all the characteristics of a public good: no third person has an incentive to provide the good, the service is public in nature, its consumption cannot be controlled. In a nutshell, labour peace 'helps to ensure a smooth running, efficient and growing economy, to be enjoyed by all of society, not just those who invest their money in the conciliation services that help to maintain labour peace' (Thaler and Bernstein, 2003: 6).

Given the large variety of national systems of conflict resolution, and the potential overlap between mechanisms it is not straightforward to assess the predominant procedure in specific countries; but Table 3 provides some indication of the main institutions in each NMS. The frequent form of conflict resolution is 'mediation', which is used for dispute settlement purposes in all ten NMS: in five countries it is also identified by the national experts as the principal form of conflict resolution. Conciliation is much less used, in only six of the countries. Arbitration as a final means of conflict resolution is to be found in all NMS except Estonia.

Basis of Extra-judicial Conflict Resolution

As in the EU15, the institutions and procedures of conflict resolution in the NMS originate in and are governed by either national legislation or voluntary agreements between employers and unions. As Table 3 indicates, most of the systems in the NMS stem have a statutory basis. The exceptions are Slovenia, Cyprus, with the non-statutory provisions of the Industrial Relations Code, and Poland where the mediation and arbitration procedures are, at least partially, rooted in voluntary collective agreements. This seems to be in stark contrast with the EU15, 'where the resolution methods for collective disputes are established and regulated by typically bargaining-based instruments such as inter-professional agreements and collective agreements' (Valdés Dal-Ré, 2003: 32-3). An explanation for the predominance of statutory procedures may be sought in the greater heterogeneity and fragmentation, and thus relative weakness of the social partners in NMS States (Kauppinen and Welz, 2003: 86). 4

Institutions and Processes

Most of the legal and industrial relations systems in the NMS distinguish between disputes of rights and of interest. The two are normally regulated differently: the former are to be settled in court, while the latter are to resolved through extra-judicial conflict resolution mechanisms. Only in the case of the latter are strikes and lock-outs permitted. In the NMS, as in the EU15, the actors have recourse to a wide range of different institutions and processes to resolve collective disputes of interest.

The first type involves a public institution or official within the labour administration. Such an arrangement is to be found in Belgium (social conciliators), Finland (national and district conciliators) (European Foundation, 2004a: 21) and Denmark (Statens Forligsinstitution) (Stokke and Thörnqvist, 2001: 247). In Estonia, the institution of Public Conciliator was established in the second half of 1995; he or she is appointed for a term of three years by the government on the basis of agreement between the Ministry of Social Affairs and central federations of employers and federations of employees. There are also 24 local conciliators. In Malta, too, the government performs a pivotal role in conflict resolution through the Department of Industrial and Employment Relations (DIER). It usually offers its conciliation services, following consultation with the Minister, as soon as there are indications of a potential industrial conflict. The present Director describes his role as one of 'trust building and confidentiality'. A similar internal resolution mechanism also exists in Cyprus.

A second mechanism involves an independent public conflict resolution agency, which is external to the labour administration, but supplied with organizational, financial and human resources by the public authorities. This procedure is quite widespread in the EU15, existing for example in the UK (ACAS), Ireland (Labour Relations Commission) and Sweden (National Mediation Office) (Elvander, 2002: 206). In the NMS a comparable agency exists only in Hungary: the Labour Mediation and Arbitration Service (Munkaügyi Közvetíto ˝i és Dönto ˝bírói Szolgálat, MKDSZ) was established through an agreement between the government and social partners in 1996. It is based at the Ministry of Labour and Employment, with a full-time director and secretary, and maintains a register of (currently 63) experienced mediators and arbitrators. The parties involved in a dispute normally use its services, though this is voluntary. The MKDSZ overseen by the tripartite National Council for the Reconciliation of Interests, but this does not limit the independence of its day-to-day operations (www.fmm.gov.hu/mkdsz).

A third procedure involves an independent private conflict resolution agency. In the EU15 such a mechanism exists only in Spain and Greece. The Spanish Servicio Interconfederal de Mediación y Arbitraje (SIMA, www.fsima.es) was created as a private foundation by the social partners through their joint Agreement on Alternative Labour Dispute Resolution (Acuerdo sobre Solución Extrajudicial de Conflictos, ASEC) of 1996. Though a private agency, SIMA is subsidized by public funds, thus rendering its services free of charge to the social partners. A similar procedure also exists in Greece: the Mediation and Arbitration Service (Organismós Mesolávisis ke Dietisías, OMED) is an independent agency established in 1992 and governed by a tripartite board. Its creation, on the basis of a law of 1990 designed to advance free collective bargaining, has been described as 'ground-breaking' (Yannakourou and Koukoules, 2003: 203). However, nothing of this kind exists in the NMS.

A fourth method of mediation involves a person independent of the labour administration, but chosen from a list of experts kept by the Ministry of Labour. This procedure is not widespread in the EU15. In the NMS, only the Czech Republic and Slovakia use a corresponding mechanism. According to the Czech Collective Bargaining Act, if the parties to a dispute cannot agree on a mediator from the official list, the Minister may make an appointment at the request of either of the parties.

In a fifth type of procedure, disputes are handled by voluntary, autonomous conflict resolution bodies set up by the social partners. In the EU15, such an approach can be found in Germany (Kocher, 2002: 663-5), for example. In the NMS, this model is followed in Latvia and Lithuania, in so-called conciliation commissions or via mediators chosen by the two parties to a conflict. A similar voluntary mechanism also exists in Poland and Slovenia, and represents the first stage of dispute resolution in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, where -if this fails -the Ministry of Labour appoints a mediator chosen from a pre-existing list.

Finally, no conflict resolution procedures and institutions may exist. In a few EU15 countries (for example, The Netherlands) there are no specific regulations or institutions for the resolution of labour disputes. This tends to reflect the strength of broader corporatist arrangements between the social partners. Such industrial relations structures are traditionally associated with a low incidence of industrial action. Similar preconditions do not exist in the NMS (Elvander, 2002: 208-9).

The Incidence of Extra-judicial Conflict Resolution

Unfortunately, data on the incidence of conciliation, mediation and arbitration in the NMS are even more scarce than statistics on industrial action. However, aggregate figures for 1999-2001 show that the largest number of disputes referred to conflict resolution was in Cyprus (587 cases), followed by Poland (383) and Malta (237). Far fewer cases were reported from the Czech Republic (86), Estonia (80) and Hungary (25).

It is interesting to compare the figures on cases referred to dispute resolution procedures with the reported incidence of strikes. In Hungary the numbers are almost identical: 25 cases, 24 strikes). In all other NMS there are far more cases referred for settlement than actual stoppages: in Estonia, 80 as against only three strikes; in Malta, 237 (as against 41); in Cyprus, 587 (compared to 52). The only NMS with the opposite relationship is Poland, where 975 strikes were recorded in the years 1999-2001, but only 383 cases referred to mediation. 5 Further research based and more reliable data would, however, be required in order to draw sound conclusions on the efficiency and effectiveness of the national conflict resolution systems.

Conclusion: Relative Labour Quiescence and Disparate Approaches to Conflict Resolution

Our survey has shown that in the majority of NMS, the right to strike is anchored in the constitution, and elsewhere is recognised by law. Lockouts are less comprehensively regulated. In the detailed regulation of industrial conflict, practice and procedure varies considerably between one NMS and another.

Data on the incidence of stoppages are deficient and provide little basis for comparative analysis. In those NMS with the most complete datasets (CY, EE, HU, LT, LV, MT, PL, SI, SK), Hungary, Poland and Cyprus have seen the most industrial action in the period 1999-2001. Even here it seems clear that, as in the EU15, industrial action in recent years has been infrequent (Crowley, 2003). Taking into account these rather low figures, it is certainly fair to conclude that 'the number and depth of collective actions in their first years of transition has not reflected the gravity of the social situation and the burden of the transition for the workers as well as the population' (EC, 2002b: 100).

The most frequent form of conflict resolution in the NMS is mediation. Conciliation is much less used, but arbitration as the final stage of conflict resolution is to be found in all NMS except Estonia. In terms of institutional arrangements, two mechanisms predominate: voluntary and autonomous conflict resolution organizations established by the social partners, and internal administraive procedures within the labour ministries. An independent public conflict resolution agency comparable to ACAS in the UK or the Labour Relations Commission in Ireland only exists in Hungary.

The existence of effective and efficient extra-judicial collective conflict resolution procedures and institutions strengthens social dialogueand the latter, in turn, plays an important role in the creation or reform of dispute resolution procedures [START_REF] Vaughan-Whitehead | Social Dialogue in EU Enlargement: Acquis and Responsibities[END_REF]. Effective and efficient national systems are the necessary prerequisite for any conceivable creation of a conflict resolution mechanism at EU level (Iankova and Turner, 2004;Schömann, 2002: 704;Valdés Dal-Ré, 2002) involved for a stoppage to be included in the official statistics, whether political stoppages are included, and whether workers indirectly affected by a stoppage are counted. Similar differences exist, however, across the whole of Europe [START_REF] Franzosi | One Hundred Years of Strike Statistics. Methodological and Theoretical Issues in Quantitative Strike Statistics[END_REF]. 3 A breakdown of the strike incidence per 1000 workers would have been more informative, but unfortunately these data were not available via the national reports. However, Employment in Europe reports total employment in 2000 of 279,000 in Cyprus, 3,807,000 in Hungary and 14,518,000 in Poland. On this basis, Hungary appears the most strike-prone of the NMS. For other aggregated data on working days lost per 1000 workers see Funk and Lesch (2004: 8).

4 Beyond the geographical scope of this report, it is interesting to note that one of the most important accomplishments of tripartism in Bulgaria is seen as the Law on the Settlement of Collective Labour Disputes adopted by the National Assembly in 1990. 5 This may reflect an exceptional situation in Poland: the strike figures for 1999 were extraordinarily high (920 cases of industrial action).

European Journal of Industrial Relations 11(1) 92 TABLE 1. Legal Basis for Industrial Action in the NMS

		Right to strike	Right to lock-out	Year of enactment
	CY	C + L + CA	CA	1960
	CZ	C + L	L	1991
	EE	L	L	1993
	HU	C + L	0	1989
	LT	C + L	L0	2002
	LV	C + L	L	1998/2003
	MT	L	L	2002
	PL	C + L	0	1991
	SK	C + L	L	1991
	SI	C + L	0	1990

European Journal of Industrial Relations 11(1) 94 TABLE 2. Working Days Lost in Strikes in the NMS

  : a data for CY January-November only; b All the 10 strikes since 1992, except for 2003, have been one-hour warning strikes; the number of working days lost was calculated on the basis of number of strikers ϫ 1/8 working day; c Data from Woolfson

		1999	2000	2001	2002	2003 a
	CY a	26037	1136	4778	7019	4915
	EE b	1.4	1088	5	37	20192
	HU	176375	636267	11676	na	na
	LT c	na	3000	1700	na	na
	LV	na	0	0	na	na
	MT	1261	2564	2792	744	3305
	PL	106900	74300	33400	na	na
	SI	7507	4775	0	0	na
	SK	0	0	0	0	na

Notes

Welz & Kauppinen: Industrial Action and Conflict Resolution 97 TABLE 3. Predominant Procedures for Conflict Resolution a

		Conciliation Mediation Arbitration Other Voluntary/ Institutional
						statutory	basis b
	CY	0	xx	x		V	a
	CZ	0	x	x		S	d/e
	EE	x	xx	0		S	a
	HU	x	x	x		S	b
	LT	xx	x	x		S	e
	LV	x	x	x		S	e
	MT c	x	xx	x		S	a
	PL		x	x	x d	V/S	e
	SK	x	xx	x		S	d/e
	SI		xx	x		V	e

Notes: a xx = dominant; x = exists, but not dominant; 0 = weak or non existent; b a = a public institution/official within the labour administration; b = independent public conflict resolution agency; c = an independent private conflict resolution agency; d = person independent of the labour administration, but chosen from a list of experts kept by the Ministry of Labour; e = voluntary and autonomous conflict resolution bodies set up by the social partners; c no distinction is made between conciliation and mediation; d autonomous negotiations between the two sides of industry and 'goodwill missions'.

  . NOTES 1 This study of 'Conflict Resolution Mechanisms in the Acceding Countries (AC)' derived from previous projects on the 'Impact of EMU on Industrial Relations', 'Europeanisation of Industrial Relations' and 'Social Dialogue and EMU in the Acceding Countries' (European Foundation, 2000, 2002a, 2003) which shaped to a large extent the present project design. The objective was to gather employers, trade unions, national governments and researchers from the new Member States in order to investigate and assess how social dialogue could best be utilized to adapt, refine and if necessary reform the existing mechanisms of extra-judicial conflict resolution. The European Foundation carried out this research and development project in cooperation with the Swedish Government 'Work Life and EU Enlargement' programme. The national researchers contributing to the project were: CY: Orestis Messios; CZ: Lenka Korcova; EE: Kaia Philips and Raoul Eamets; HU: Beáta Nacsa and András Tóth; LT: Grazina Gruzdiene; LV: Daiga Ermsone; MT: Edward Zammit; PL: Zbigniew Haijn; SK: Ludovit Cziria; SI: Metka Penko-Natlacen. The individual country reports are available at http://www.eurofound.eu.int/publications/ Industrial%20Relations.htm. For the full synthesis report see European Foundation, Social Dialogue and Conflict Resolution in the Acceding Countries, Luxembourg, OOPEC, 2004. 2 For example, countries vary in terms of the minimum duration and numbers

Welz & Kauppinen: Industrial Action and Conflict Resolution

European Journal of Industrial Relations 11(1)