Prospects for social dialogue in the public sector - European confederations, sectoral federations and forms of interest intermediation

The article represents - in the form of a case study of the public services - an empirical contribution on the opportunities for and constraints upon interest intermediation at the sectoral level in the European Union. On the one hand, our results show that the transnational organisation of interests has made more progress on the employees' than on the employers' side. On the other hand, none of the corporate protagonists have any serious intention of transferring national authority to transnational associations. Different strategies of interest representation will have different time horizons. In the short run, lobbying will remain the most efficient strategy for exerting influence. In the medium term, highly decentralised social dialogues in those parts of the public sector performing transnational tasks might become more important. Only in the long term, if at all, can collective bargaining - first of all on qualitative issues - be envisaged. Pragmatically oriented steps towards reconciliation between different employees' organisations contribute to a striking reduction in the interest differences which, at the national level, have long been considered impossible to eradicate.