Industrial relations and the regulation of employment in Europe

Employment has been at the core of numerous bipartite and tripartite bargaining processes across Europe since the early 1990s. This focus on employment has caused changes in bargaining processes and in the content of collective agreements. This article examines the impact of the adoption of employment as a priority in collective bargaining in the Member States of the European Union. It argues that, in the context of the European integration, industrial relations play an increasing role in the regulation of employment issues, but that collective bargaining on these issues is more and more shaped by external political and economic constraints.