focus of pioneering initiatives in bargaining co-ordination on the part of trade
unions. An implication is that European co-ordination of bargaining may flow
from arrangements that embrace varying geographical configurations of
European countries, thereby intensifying the tendency toward multi-speed
Europeanization.
An unstable balance?Like the EU polity’s multi-level governance system, the trajectory of the multi-
level industrial relations system is uncertain. It is by definition a system ‘in the
making’ and there is no ‘pre-assumed end point’ for developments. Tensions
abound. For example, there is the issue of the balance of responsibilities
between the different levels, which ‘subsidiarity’ deals with only superficially.
These involve not only the balance between the EU and member states, but
also the responsibilities of Community, EU sector and Euro-company levels.
Similarly, within countries there is the balance between national and sector
arrangements and between sector and company arrangements. Employers’ rep-
resentatives complain about the costs and time involved in so many levels,
whereas their trade union counterparts worry about the ‘hollowing out’ of
higher-level agreements and the resulting diversity at company and workplace
levels.
The corollary of the greater convergence across countries is greater diver-
sity within countries. ‘Globalization’ and ‘Europeanization’ are intensifying
the long-standing differences between ‘sheltered’ and ‘unsheltered’ sectors,
complicating the achievement of national-level ‘social pacts’. At the same time,
they are exaggerating the equally long-standing differences between large and
small employers, making it more difficult for employers’ organizations to
achieve the necessary consensus to arrive at meaningful sector agreements.
Here the emergence of ‘new’ sectors and activities associated with ‘tertiariza-
tion’ is creating further difficulties: incorporating these into existing agree-
ments has further significant implications in terms of their scope and form
(Hornung-Draus, 2001).
Complicating matters further are the informal processes at work. Perhaps
most obviously there is the sharp asymmetry in focus on the part of trade
unions and employers at EU levels (Marginson and Schulten, 1999). On the
trade union side, initiatives aimed at cross-border co-ordination are focusing
on the sector level. At company level, the potential offered by EWCs appears
to remain largely unfulfilled. Instances where action has been co-ordinated
through the EWC have occurred, particularly in the highly organized automo-
tive sector (European Works Council Bulletin, 2001). But a wider tendency, evi-
dent in other sectors as well as automotive, is for union representatives to see
EWCs as an instrument to gain information to be deployed in their domestic
Industrial Relations in Europe 451