ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the topic of that controversy by considering the position of European legislation and the evidence from our survey about developments in communication at the organisational level before attempting to assess whether higher levels of legislative requirement for employee communication and participation are in fact correlated with higher levels of communication to employees. Industrial relations and employee relations are different in each European country. This truism is only worth repeating here because it is so frequently ignored. The differences are not just in the structure and functioning of the institutions, the historical developments, the labour markets remarkable as these have been and are but also in the philosophy which underpins relationships in employing organisations. The clearest and most striking finding is that throughout Europe employers are reporting an increase in communication with employees. These increases are found in a majority of organisations in nearly all countries and across all methods of communication.
