Collective bargaining in the public sector : different models in a distinct international framework

Alexander De Becker (Chapter 18) deals with employee involvement, or collective bargaining, with the State as employer. The public Sector is explicitly recognised at EU level with a Sectoral Social Dialogue Committee (SSDC) for Government Administration, which has adopted the agreement on I & C of civil servants and employees of central government administrations that lead to the EPSU case. The creation of a sincerely powerful system of collective labour law in this sector, at EU level, seems not realistic though because of the distinctive traditions and models within the Member States and important, yet varying, derogations from the existing (international) regulatory framework on collective bargaining. De Becker illustrates this with a comparative study of four EU Member States - Belgium, France, Denmark and Sweden