Brussels, 11/04/2013 (Agence Europe) - The sovereign debt crisis is upsetting industrial relations in the public sector. This is a situation affecting the institutions and practices that underpin the social dialogue, and it is a situation which is moving in the wrong direction. The European Commission has described it as “worrying” in its latest twice yearly report on “Industrial Relations in Europe”, which was presented on Thursday 11 April.
Whether they work in the European institutions or in public administrations, in hospitals or schools in Athens, Madrid or London, they all have a specific status in comparison with employees in the private sector. Whether they be civil servants or not, they enjoy certain benefits (for example, long careers, collective agreements, and a significant number of unions) but paying a certain price for them. The limits imposed on collective negotiations and on the right to strike are the most significant examples.
The civil service as a guarantee of job safety and stability is perhaps, however, on the way to becoming a myth because relationships between employees and employer have distinctly deteriorated. This is one of the reasons why the current edition of the report focuses on this sector. Public sector reforms existed before the crisis but they have been accelerated since 2010. The culprit for this situation, according to the Commission, is the sovereign debt crisis - or rather making “fiscal consolidation a key objective of macroeconomic adjustment policies” over the last two years.
Adjusting is tantamount to adapting or changing. Yet, for the Commission, this verb is perhaps a sugaring of the pill of the current situation which in effect translates into subversive attempts to redefine the framework of industrial relations. “In response to the public debt crisis, the approach of national governments for the public sector has been to dramatically accelerate and intensify existing long-term structural reforms, and the methods chosen to implement decisions have often excluded the use of social dialogue”, says the summary note in the report.
The links between the macro-economic objectives and the public sector are not hard to make. A quarter of the active population in Europe works in the public sector, which is therefore becoming a key element and a choice target for member states' budget adjustment policies. Salary cuts or freezes, redundancies and reforms to pension systems are the means being used to put these policies into practice. Everything that the principle of social dialogue underpins - in other words, discussions, consultations and negotiations with the social partners so as to reach an eventual consensus - has become more divisive. Yet while this situation is worrying for the Commission, primarily because “industrial relations in the public sector have almost certainly changed fundamentally”, sound social dialogue produces beneficial social and economic effects, European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion Laszlo Andor reiterated at a press conference on Thursday 11 April.
These changes - all the consequences of which are still difficult to identify on the European social model - today translate into reforms (that the Commission judges as nevertheless necessary) which upset the social model of the public service. The objective of the current reforms is to implant in the public sector the management model for workers - a model which was designed in the private sector. Immediate performance appraisal and challenging a lifelong career plan are just two examples. While the substance of the reforms is not subject to criticism in the report, the way in which member states are implementing the reforms is.
Not all member states or workers are impacted in the same way. The most conflictual relations can currently be found in those countries that implemented the most thorough reform programmes at a very fast pace and without effective social dialogue. And it comes as no real surprise that some of the countries benefitting from the financial assistance managed by the Troika (Commission, ECB and IMF) are the most concerned, alongside several Central or Eastern European countries.
Is this an admission of guilt or the acquiescence of a certain amount of responsibility on the part of the Commission? Andor did not reply directly to this question put to him by EUROPE. We have the obligation to promote social dialogue while respecting diversity, he said, then adding that a single model cannot be imposed. With regard to the countries under financial assistance, Andor said that the Commission has always encouraged, with a single voice, the dialogue of governments with the social partners. Yet it is particularly the staff of Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs Olli Rehn who are responsible for this file, Andor nonetheless stated. (JK/transl.fl)