INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL DIALOGUE

Art. 139 of the EC Treaty provides the possibility for management and labour to enter into contractual relations and notably to sign European Social Dialogue Agreements. Originally, joint social partners committees were established by the EC as consultative bodies, allowing relations between European representatives of workers and employers to adopt non-binding resolutions, declarations and joint opinions within these social partners committees. Ultimately, the agreements negotiated between the European social partners were allowed to be given legal force through a decision by the Council and its transposition into the legislation of each Member State, or else to be implemented autonomously by the social partners according to national procedures and practices. The first scenario led to the implementation of three agreements through Council Directives: on parental leave in 1995, on part-time work in 1997 and on fixed-term contracts in 1999, while three autonomous agreements were signed before the one on crystalline silica: on telework (2002), on the European licence for drivers carrying out a cross-border interoperability service (2004), and on work-related stress (2004).