The territorial social dialogue: challenges and prospects for the trade unions

Forms of territorial social dialogue are developing at the regional or local level in most European countries. This article looks at the challenges facing the trade unions, particularly in France, as a result of this development. The first part examines the reasons for it - decentralisation of the state, changes in local government as well as in production systems - and the reasons why the trade unions are becoming increasingly involved. A second section focuses on a number of different instances of territorial social dialogue that reveal the diversity both of aims and of subjects treated, the wide-ranging public and private players involved and the highly diverse outcomes. The third part asks how these forms of social dialogue affect the unions. Do they represent a means whereby trade unions can extend their influence and strengthen their traditional areas of activity or do they contribute to weakening collective bargaining insofar as they offer less formalised methods of negotiating social outcomes that may detract from the role of the social partners to the benefit of government actors? The view put forward in this article is that the trade unions may well, under certain conditions, stand to gain from involvement in the territorial social dialogue.