Strange coalitions: employer organisations in joint collective action with trade unions in European service sectors

Working in the cleaning or contract catering industry in Europe bears high risks for precarious employment conditions, bad job quality and limited opportunities for adequate voice and representation at the company level (Kirov and Ramioul, 2014; Holtgrewe et al., 2015). A combination of factors shaping the employment relationship accounts for such a high-risk configuration: the triangular relationship between employer, customer and employee, the growing impact of tendering and public procurement on wages (reinforced by the crisis), the fragmentation of the workforce over time and space and the growing standardisation and rationalisation of work in view of productivity increases are the most important (Holtgrewe et al., 2015). Yet it appears that in several EU countries as well as on the European level, sectoral social dialogue structures and practices succeed in mitigating some of the negative outcomes for the employees. The relative strength of sectoral collective bargaining structures, practices and outcomes is quite remarkable for the type of activities (low-skilled and standardized work, mostly part-time) and type of workforce (vulnerable groups) involved in the case of cleaning or catering. Regulations concerning contract transfers providing security in a context of growing flexibility, joint actions promoting daytime cleaning, attempts to influence public procurement, agreements on new working methods reducing health and safety risks are the most important examples. Such a relative consensual social dialogue seems rooted in joint interests to combating unfair competition. But while trade union strategies in these industries seem to be relatively well documented, little is known about employers. The proposed paper aims at investigating employers’ collective action at European and national level in those sectors, stressing on the paradoxical collaboration and joint positions of social partners. The findings presented in the paper are mainly results of the analysis of stakeholder policies and company case studies from the European comparative project WALQING (www.walqing.eu) in Europe. The national examples are from countries representing different employment models of VoC (such as Belgium, Spain, Hungary, etc.) in the sectors of office cleaning and contract catering.status: publishe