European Rules for Informing and Consulting Employees and the European Dimension

Abstract

In this final substantive chapter, we examine European level rules on informing and consulting workers and the European dimension. At first blush, the template for much European legislation appears to be the German or Rhenish model. Is this erection of German-style worker information and consultation to be construed as the working out of a process of regulatory capture in which countries with more ambitious (and costly?) models seek to raise their less-regulated rivals’ costs by forcing them to adopt analogous rules? Or is the process altogether more complex than this, masking conflicting positions of labor and capital out of which individual government positions are fashioned in often complex national political arrangements? These are the crucial issues examined in the present chapter. The European dimension is important precisely because national law in Germany no less than in the other member states is increasing driven by European Union initiatives.