Social Dialogue is considered a driv-ing force for economic and social reform, a key to better governance of the new enlarged European Union and a vital element of the European Social Model.

The European project DialogoS+ examines the best practices in social dialogue in the banking sector

of nine member states of the European Union by develop-ing a comparative discussion and perspective which stimu-lates ideas, analysis and important conclusions based on the participative training by the project’s participant part-ners just before the eruption of the global financial crisis. This experience becomes even more important under the new conditions of the current financial and economic crisis which affects employment and industrial relations in the banking sectors of every economy and society.

The experience of social dialogue for regulating the trans-formation of banking sector restructuring in nine old and new EU member states indicates that, although sectoral industrial relations remain mainly national, social dialogue is not only theory or part of a normative approach, but has provided noticeable ‘best practices’ in the banking sectors at the national level that evolved till the eruption of the global financial crisis.

The best practices identified can assist in “learning from each other” and facing the new challenges. In half of the countries examined in the project, social dialogue has been indeed used as a driving force for economic and social reform in the banking sector, generating practical solutions that helped in preserving the European Social Model.

On behalf of INE OTOE, we would like to thank all partici-pant trade unions and their representatives for their active and productive way in shaping the development of the Di-alogoS+ project that helps to identify social dialogue best practices in the banking sectors at national level and high-light how they can help us in meeting the new challenges.

Stavros KoukosPresident ΟΤΟΕPresident ΙΝΕ-ΟΤΟΕ

DialogoS+DialogoS+@ine.otoe

Labour Institute of OTOE

INE - OTOELabour Institute OTOE

Evaluation of international experience on social dialogue in respect with changes ensuing the new economy in the banking sector and transfer of best practices to new member countries

Funded by: EUROPEAN COMMISSION

The DialogoS+ project aims to promote the role of social dialogue in the banking sector, strengthen the link between old and new members and make European social dialogue a force for innovation and change. DialogoS+ builds on the successful implementation of the previous project Dialo-goS by using new tools such as roadmapping and simula-tion of social dialogue. It elaborates on the communication mechanisms of the European banking sector trade unions’ community in order to facilitate exchanging important ex-periences, creating and diffusing knowledge, as well as iden-tifying and transferring best practices. Given the context of the international crisis in the banking sector, the outcome of DialogoS+ aims to provide important added value on investigating how the crisis may affect employment rela-tions and social dialogue dynamics and analyze what is and should be the role of employees within this environment.

By analysing recent developments in ‘national’ banking sec-tor systems from a comparative perspective with regard to social dialogue practices we have drawn interesting con-clusions concerning the different degrees and the different stages of social dialogue in regulating banking sector em-ployment relations in nine EU member states.

This analysis and comparison of different national systems in regulating employment and industrial relations in “na-tional” banking sectors was formed according to contri-butions made by DialogoS+ participant trade unions. For analytical purposes, they were classified in four different groups.

Best Practices for the European Social Dialogue in the Banking Sector and New Challenges

The first group of “Best Practices” refers to three “old” member states namely Denmark, Spain, and Italy. Their common characteristic is the relatively strong role of col-lective bargaining in shaping effective social dialogue in the banking sector.

In Spain we consider as best practice the regulation of M&As implications through collective agreements that produced results embodied in the case of early retirement law for bank employees made redundant in the banking sector restructuring process.

In Italy we consider as best practice the regulation of bank-ing restructuring implications through collective agree-ments that were regulated through the innovative and col-lectively agreed and operated “income support fund”.

In Denmark we consider as best practice the joint regula-tion of banks and insurance sectors and the strong influ-ence of the social dialogue in shaping the “flexicurity” solu-tions in the banking sector.

The second group of national experiences refers to chal-lenges for social dialogue rather than to “Best Practices”, in the sense that the pre-existing pathway of developing social dialogue is challenged. These challenges emerged in the case of two “old” member states, namely Portugal and Greece, were their common theme is the emerging chal-lenge to the sectoral collective bargaining as a means for effective social dialogue.

DialogoS+

Best Practices for the European Social Dialogue in the Banking Sector and New Challenges

The third group of na-tional experiences re-fers to best practices of social dialogue that emerged in two “new” member states, namely Cyprus and Malta, were the influence of the na-tional unions acting in the banking sector en-hanced social dialogue

as a means for regulating employment relations and more specifically in deal-ing with “new comers” in the sector (through Mergers & Acquisitions) by maintaining union membership and effective role for social dialogue.

The fourth group of national experiences refers to challenges faced by de-veloping national unions in two “new” member states, namely Bulgaria and Romania, were their common theme refers to the challenge of building social dialogue capacity through increasing membership and establishing sectoral collective agreements.

Dr Christos IoannouScientific Consultant DialogoS+

Aristoteles LakkasManaging Director ΙΝΕ-ΟΤΟΕ

Project Manager DialogoS+

INE - OTOE Labour Institute OTOE(Coordinator)

Partners:

OTOE (Hellenic Federation of Bank Employee Unions)

FABI (Independent Federation of Italian Bank Workers)

Federacion de Servicios de UGT (FeS-UGT) - Spain

Sindicato Dos Bancarios do Centro Direccao - Portugal

ETYK (Cyprus Union of Bank Employees)Malta Union of Bank Employees

FSAB (TUFIB) - RomaniaTrade Union of the Bank Employees and Workers in UBB - Bulgaria

Finance Sector Union of Denmark

Vocational Training Centre DIASTASI

SEV (Hellenic Federations of Enterprises)

Brunel University - United Kingdom

INE - OTOELabour Institute OTOE

http://www.otoe.gr/dialogosplushttp://www.ine.otoe.grhttp://ineotoe.wordpress.com

For more information:

DialogoS+

DialogoS+

© Labour Institute of OTOE 9 Vissarionos str., 106 72 Αthens, tel. +30 210 36 475 89

email: ine.otoe@otoe.gr, www.ine.otoe.gr, http://ineotoe.wordpress.com

The European project DialogoS+ aims in stra-tegically promoting the European Social Dia-logue in the banking sec-tor and transform it into a force of innovation and change. In order to achieve this objective, it builds upon the knowl-edge from previous rel-

evant projects and attempts to exploit new tools and ideas such as roadmapping.

A roadmap is a collaborative strategic decision-making tool mainly used in technology, science and industry with the pur-pose of deliberating, modelling and disseminating strategic decisions. Its main concept includes a forecasting aspect and is based on analyzing the gaps between desired and expect-ed future situations with the purpose of proposing actions to bridge them, a process usually known as gap analysis.

In parallel, the application of roadmapping in collaborative communities aims at reaching consensus over important decisions, shaping and deliberating policy as a mean of ex-ploiting and empowering social mechanisms, mutual learn-ing, exchanging experiences and practices and transforming them into useful knowledge. A well known example on the use of the roadmapping concept is the Roadmap to Peace in the Region of Middle East.

Under the scope of DialogoS+, roadmapping was imple-mented through various stages and associated data collec-tion techniques which sourced from the different activities of the project. These data included the presentations on the national state-of-the-art on social dialogue from proj-ect partners, the best practices report, the proceedings from the international workshops and meetings, as well as the results from the transnational online questionnaire filled by employees.

Additionally, the relevant international literature on road-mapping and on European Social Dialogue was examined and taken into account, as well as the results of the previous

European projects DialogoS and Communicate. The classifi-cation of the roadmapping thematic areas and their content was finalised during the project’s final conference in Cyprus.

Given the environment of the international financial crisis and the challenged it generates for trade union organisa-tions, the application of roadmapping in DialogoS+ was a first class opportunity for investigating into the field and discussing on coordinated future actions. In an attempt to critically evaluate this application, it should be emphasized that it constituted an effort of innovation and modernisa-tion of traditional decision-making structures, an attempt to strengthen international collaboration and exploit the estab-lished scientific and practical roadmapping background.

Apart from the actual conclusions in important topics con-cerning the European baking sector such as collective bar-gaining, working conditions and trade union densities, other significant issues emerged during the project such as the strategic use of new interactive web technologies in sup-porting industrial actions, as well as the perspectives for con-vergence in the European Social Dialogue.

We would like to thank all projects partners for their fruitful collaboration and INE OTOE in particular for the success-ful coordination of the project. Additionally, we would like to thank ETYK for their memorable hospitality during the project’s final conference in Cyprus.

Dr Lampros StergioulasΑssociate Professor

Roadmapping in DialogoS+

Brunel UniversityLondon, United Kingdom

Panagiotis PanagiotopoulosPhD Researcher