Is the Structure of Employee Representation Institutions in Europe Adapted to the Economic Transformations? Analysis and Proposals from the Spanish Case

Workplaces and work centres have been affected in recent years by multiple and deep transformations that have altered the company and its production structures. These transformations have a strong impact on employee representation, most especially in small- and medium-sized companies, whose workers risk losing access to representation as consequence of downsizing among other circumstances. National regulations on employee representation in the workplace have not always accompanied such transformations. On the contrary, they have frequently remained petrified, so that the disparity between company structures, workplace reality and legal provisions intended at guaranteeing employees a representation to supervise regulatory accomplishment by companies and to defend their rights and interests has strongly increased. One of the frequent obstacles found in the European context is basing representation bodies at work centre level instead of at undertaking level, whereas minimum staff thresholds to elect representatives are fixed. The definition of establishment is then of great relevance. This work takes Spain as paradigmatic example of rigid regulations and court interpretations undermining workers’ access to representation, while providing a proposal based on company-level representation completed by multi-level possibilities and prominence of collective autonomy in adapting general framework provisions to sectoral and company realities.