Industrial Relations in Europe

A broad-ranging introduction to the changing nature and context of industrial relations in contemporary Europe is offered in this textbook.Through a coordinated analysis of industrial relations in specific European nations, the book gives a representative, up-to-date and dynamic understanding of the subject. Across the individual national case studies, a range of common elements is examined. These include: the differing roles of governments, business and labour as actors in the industrial relations system, and their mutual relationships; the dynamics of collective bargaining, conflict, consultation and worker participation; and the overall performance of industrial relations in economic, social and political terms.These issues are addressed within the wider context of changes affecting industrial relations in Europe in the 1990s: European unification; the globalization of production and markets, the information revolution; the destabilization of labour markets; the fragmentation of societies in the post-industrial era; and the crisis of welfare states.