As foreseen in the framework agreement a joint European report was prepared in 2006 in order to get a picture of the actual implementation of the agreement on telework.
It is apparent from the report that numerous and wide-ranging disseminatory and implementary actions have been conducted throughout Europe by the affiliated organisations of the signatory parties.
Dissemination activities at the national level ranged from publishing the agreement in newsletters, brochures and on social partner websites to joint or separate information seminars. But on the transnational level also, the EU signatory parties and European sectoral social partners organised several joint and/or separate information campaigns and meetings (for a complete overview, see the final implementation report, pp. 5–6).
As to the actual implementation results, it is worth noting, for instance, that an interprofessional collective agreement has been concluded in no fewer than nine countries. A further noteworthy aspect is that in eight countries the government, while not the primary addressee for implementation of this agreement, became involved in one way or another in its capacity as legislator (see Figure 3).
Indeed, from the ETUC point of view, the report on implementation revealed several ways of further strengthening the impact of the European social dialogue and its results. These include the following:
-
The various national implementation processes, as well as the joint national reports on this process, are highly diverse. This is probably due to the fact that this was the first time that the member organisations had to implement such an agreement and report on it and it is possible that this took place without sufficiently clear guidance from the European signatory parties.
-
The lack of translations of the European agreement into different languages should be reviewed as it cannot be the objective that national colleagues should have to start ‘renegotiating’ the European agreement. In any case, the translation exercise should not be used to downgrade the EU text!
-
The ‘nature/status’ of the EU agreement, given that in several countries the term ‘voluntary’ framework agreement created not only confusion, but also problems in the implementation process.
-
The route and instruments chosen by social partners, given that in some countries the ‘practices and procedures specific to management and labour and member states’ to implement the European framework agreement were not always fully followed, in some cases because such practices did not yet exist.
-
Problems related to social dialogue structures and partners, such as national/sectoral negotiation calendars not coinciding with implementation process/calendar for EU agreement, weaknesses in social dialogue (structures) in new member states, and so on.
-
The role of public authorities.
-
The need for social partners to reflect further on delivery mechanisms. The European social partners should further enhance joint and separate dissemination and awareness-raising of the European agreements as this will certainly facilitate national implementation.
|
Implementation results |
|
|---|---|
|
Social partners’ agreements |
National interprofessional collective agreements: IT, FR, BE, LU, GR, IS, PL, DK (public sector) Other interprofessional agreements/recommendations:
European sectoral social dialogue:
|
|
National, regional, sectoral and company level agreements |
|
|
Legislation |
|
|
Guidelines/Codes of good practice |
|
|
Standard company and sectoral agreement models |
|
|
Other activities |
|
|
Work in progress |
|