ABSTRACT
Collective participation emerges from the interest of employees in optimising or defending their working conditions. To help meet this ambition, they may receive support from sympathetic governments but sometimes face opposition from employers. Collective participation is usually conducted through elected representatives and includes collective bargaining, works councils and other consultative forums, worker directors and partnership arrangements. Traditionally, trade unions have provided the main means of expressing collective interests, but in many countries unions are in enforced decline.
In the UK, collective bargaining, or joint regulation of terms and conditions of employment, has been the preferred union instrument for EPV, though neoliberalism and deregulation have greatly affected union membership and influence, resulting in a persistent ‘representation gap’. The experience of collective participation varies across countries and, although decline in membership and bargaining power is common, in Northern Europe governmental support helps to maintain a negotiating influence at sectoral or national levels. Joint consultative processes are weak in the UK, though stronger in continental Europe, specifically through combinations of government-supported codetermination, worker directors, social partnership and works councils.
