Industrial Relations in a Changing World of Work

In recent years, there has been a discernible shift in the discourse on industrial relations in Europe. Contentious collective bargaining in response to surging inflation, tighter labour markets leading to a stronger bargaining position for workers, renewed strike activity in many countries and organising drives in the low-wage service sector have been noticeable developments. These changes contrast with the preceding decades marked by the erosion of sectoral collective bargaining and associated institutions.

At the same time, new challenges have emerged. Many governments have imposed new restrictions on trade union action, particularly strikes. The rise of (temporary and platform) on-demand work across the world challenges established modes of regulating employment relations. Digitalisation leads to changes in job roles and skills requirements, creating new jobs while simultaneously displacing existing ones. Industrial relations actors also confront the need to address the impact of climate change on the world of work. Decarbonisation and tightened climate policies have an impact on jobs in manufacturing and power generation, and require job transitions and reskilling. Rising temperatures and more frequent extreme weather events make it necessary to adapt workplaces, in particular regarding occupational health and safety. Emerging collective actors may take up the issues of digitalisation and climate change either in alliance or in competition with the established trade unions.

The effects of digitalisation and climate change vary among different groups of workers. This risks creating further disparities in working conditions across socio-economic categories, gender, ethnicity and race, raising the issue of the inclusiveness of trade unions, workplace representation bodies and collective bargaining institutions. The electoral successes of the far right across Europe pose the question of trade union action aimed at safeguarding the rights of migrant workers and refugees.

Call for Papers

We invite innovative papers that reflect on the current state and future of industrial relations in Europe. In the tradition of IREC, papers with a comparative or international dimension are especially welcome. In particular, authors are encouraged to address questions related to the following main topical clusters:

- The role of social dialogue in the twin transitions (digitalisation and decarbonisation).
- Enacting a Just Transition in regional and sectoral settings.
- Temperatures rises, extreme weather events and occupational safety and health.
- Well-being at work in changing times: remote and hybrid work, hyper-connectivity, the right to disconnect, and the rise of platform work.
- Adjusting legal frameworks and collective bargaining for digitalisation and emerging types of work (platform work).
- State regulation of collective bargaining and trade union activity.
- The role of employer organisations and trade unions in multi-employer collective bargaining.
- Emerging actors in industrial relations.
- New challenges for worker participation and labour relations at the company and workplace level in Europe.
- The debates around Social Europe and Val Duchesse reloaded.
- Inflation and collective bargaining.
- The return of strikes.
- Equality and diversity in workplace representation and collective bargaining.
- Structural inequalities and industrial relations.
- Migration and cross-border labour markets in Europe.

Notes for authors

Authors are invited to submit their abstract in English or French to IREC2025@liser.lu. There will be an English-speaking and a French-speaking section at the conference. You can submit only one abstract for one presenting speaker to the conference. This means that at the conference, each participant can only present one paper but this does not prevent other presenters presenting papers where one is a co-author.