Occupational Pensions and Industrial Relations

By European Industrial Relations Observatory (EIRO) national centres

Pensions have become one of the key issues on the industrial relations agenda across Europe.

Many national governments have recently reformed their public pensions systems, often in consultation with the social partners, though in some cases in the face of major trade union opposition. Governments have also been promoting occupational pension provision, which has become an increasingly important issue in collective bargaining. This EIRO comparative study examines the industrial relations aspects of recent pensions developments in 18 countries, focusing mainly on occupational pensions, an area where the social partners often play a significant or even dominant role.

At present, the issue of pensions is high on the agenda of both the EU and the Member States. To a growing extent, it also features prominently on the industrial relations agenda. For example, proposed or actual reforms of pension systems have recently led to nationwide or wide-ranging protest strikes in France, Italy and Austria, while pension issues dominate collective bargaining in countries such as the Netherlands. In many countries governments have raised the pension age and/or are developing plans to do so, and early retirement schemes are under heavy pressure. Without doubt, pension issues will become even more important for industrial relations in the near future because of the increasingly ageing population, which may threaten to make the costs of the present systems prohibitive.

The focus of this comparative study - based on the contributions of the European Industrial Relations Observatory (EIRO) national centres in the countries concerned - is on the social partners. Therefore, we concentrate on occupational pensions, because it is here that social partners play an important - and often the most important - role. However, we also pay some attention to the attitude of the social partners towards the other elements of the pension system. The study:

- presents an overview of pension systems in the 'old' 15 EU Member States (except Portugal) plus Hungary, Poland and Norway, with a focus on the involvement of the social partners;

- gives a more detailed overview of the systems of occupational pensions, including the issue of coverage;

- analyses the pension reforms that have recently been undertaken or proposed in the majority of the countries examined, and the positions and strategies of the government and social partners towards these reforms;

- examines the links between pensions and collective bargaining;

- analyses industrial action on pension issues; and

- looks at the future of - mainly occupational - pensions, with a focus on the impact on industrial relations.