ABSTRACT
The expert interviews on the supra-company level with representatives of trade unions, employers' associations and employment/economics ministries in Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Germany as well as on the EU level were one of the main emphasis of the empirical work. The German employers' association in the metal sector describes the collaboration as incipient. Additional difficulties crop up due to the fact that in the Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC) there is no separation between employers' and industrial associations such as in Germany, and so consequently the discussions between East and West are difficult due to the different scale of responsibilities. In contrast, the site/company levels are increasingly more difficult for trade union access. On the European level, the 'Eurofederations' as well as the Union of Industrial and Employers' Confederations of Europe (UNICE) as the European employers' association have a fundamentally different function than the associations of social partners on the national level.
