In current production systems, the use of outsourcing has increased considerably reaching the central core business of companies. This phenomenon tends in practice to set up, to different degrees, triangular employment relationships involving the subcontractor which limit the scope for negotiating wages and working conditions, thus contributing to the process of casualization. From a qualitative approach based on case studies, especially in the metal sector, the project focuses on the analysis of the innovative responses presented by the social partners in the field of collective labor relations in response to the fragmentatoion of the business network.
In the current production systems, the use of outsourcing has grown considerably. The phenomenon of outsourcing encompasses various forms of decentralization of production improving production flexibility and reducing costs. Reports about outsourcing indicate that in fact it tends to transform the traditional working relationship characterized by a bilateral relationship between the employer and the worker, in a service that involves a third party company. The three-way relationship that is in practice installed comes from the fact that besides the commercial and employment contract, it is established to varying degrees, an interfering relationship between the main network of the company and its employees. In this context, the margins to negotiate wages and working conditions is greatly reduced
Specifically, we could say that outsourcing is accompanied by two distinct and fundamental effects. On the one hand, it affects the structure of the organization by replacing the internal coordination mode for a civil or commercial contract with another company, responsible for the product or service ordered with its own workers. Moreover, it generates triangular working relationships within organizational configurations characterized by the fragmentation of the company. This triangulation of the employment relationship occurs when the activity moves away from the main business and is carried out by an independent company that assumes the tasks with their own employees and on the terms specified by the relationship between them. The outsourcing relationship tends to replace the traditional wage relation. The company largely determines working conditions, deadlines, process, and quality, health and safety standards. In these configurations, negotiation spaces are reduced to the extent that the function of the employer is, in fact, shared by a plurality of business. In particular, the union representative of the client company does not have the ability to defend the interests of workers in the outsourced one.
PRESUB is funded by the Directorate General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion of the European Commission through the budget heading 04.03.03.01 requesting proposals for projects that fostered social dialogue. PRESUB was one of the projects selected for the program. It began in early 2013 and will be developed throughout 2013. The University of Seville is coordinating the project and it is also responsible for financial management.
This project is specifically designed to identify and analyze the new collective responses in the regulation of labor that appear in the areas of outsourcing where groups of employees with different statutes and belonging to different companies participate.
After identifying these innovative practices, what are the prospects for the redefinition of the institutions of worker representation and the centers of gravity of collective bargaining? What are, not only the barriers, but also the points of legal and contractual support that that determine the scope of social dialogue in this configuration of society? What are the initiatives and experiences of union coordination which could be transferred to the national systems of collective bargaining and the social dialogue at European level?
These are the questions the project will try to answer in order to document a reflection on the new forms of collective bargaining
.The project is led by a group of researchers in the field of labor relations belonging to the Universities of Seville, the Université Libre de Bruxelles (METICES) and the International Business School of Budapest. Along with them, metal sector unions from Spain, Belgium and Hungary (MWB-FGTB, CCOO and Vasas Szakszervezeti Szövetség) and EADS-CASA also participate.