of the individual member states has been seen as a policy failure by many
commentators. But, as Keith Sisson argues in Chapter 17, from a different per-
spective an alternative assessment can be reached: a multi-level system has
developed in which the EU has a social policy framework that can lay claim to
principles, procedures and substantive outcomes. Sisson goes on to review
developments at the EU multi-sector and sector levels; developments at com-
pany level are addressed here.
Under a multi-level system, account needs also to be taken of pressures
from below for integrated approaches to industrial relations across European
countries. These are operating on management at sector and, above all, com-
pany levels. In most countries pressure for industrial relations and employment
practices which reflect the market and business circumstances of specific sec-
tors and companies are reflected in a widespread decentralization of collective
bargaining arrangements. Although the nature and extent of such decentral-
ization differ across countries (Ferner and Hyman, 1998), there has been a
marked growth in the incidence of collective bargaining within the enterprise,
either at company or workplace level. As a result of such pressures, arrange-
ments in a given sector or international company in one country tend increas-
ingly to resemble those in other European countries and to diverge from those
in other sectors or companies in the same country (Locke, 1992). MNCs are the
critical players involved, leading the trend towards more decentralized
bargaining arrangements (Marginson and Sisson, 1994) whilst simultaneously
developing transnational forms of coordination of industrial relations policy
and practice.
As MNCs deepen their European-level management structures, they
increasingly have the capacity to develop pan-European approaches to indus-
trial relations and employment matters. Where production and market servic-
ing are organized on a European scale, companies are looking to secure similar
levels of labour performance through implementation of similar employment
and working practices across different European countries. International sys-
tems of performance control are used to compare the performance of work-
forces at sites across countries (Coller and Marginson, 1998) and such
comparisons are deployed to lever concessions in working and employment
practices from workforces deemed to be performing poorly, under threat of dis-
investment or closure. In parallel, companies have put in place systems to dif-
fuse best employment and industrial relations practice between operations
located in different countries (Coller, 1996; Edwards, 1998). Within more glob-
ally organized MNCs these parallel processes of performance comparison and
diffusion of best practice extend to sites across the globe, although the inten-
sity of the twin processes involved tends to be greater within the European
region than at global level (Coller, 1996; Mueller and Purcell, 1992). However,
although the corporate perspective on performance comparison and diffusion
processes is European (or wider) in scope, any negotiation over the implemen-
tation of such best practices has largely remained at local or national level.
The Eurocompany and European Works Councils 467