Abstract
This contribution analyses the legal construction of trade unions and employers’ associations. Both associations play a quintessential role in any system of industrial relations. They will be endowed with prerogatives to represent their constituency. This contribution does not seek to analyse these prerogatives. The focus is on actors and interactions, not on functions. The following interactions come into play: Interactions between trade unions and employers’ associations; Interactions between trade unions and employers; Interactions between trade unions and workers’ representatives not related to the trade unions. This contribution will focus on the legal construction of trade unions and employers’ associations in a static and a conceptual manner. The analysis of the legal principles guiding the interaction will be in se et per se more dynamic. The legal analysis is eclectic and transversal. The analysis is based upon elements of international, European and comparative labour law. The choice of the countries involved is restricted to legal orders of Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. This contribution will be concluded by a reflection on the added value of trade unions and employers’ association based upon the old device of imagining what a world without trade unions and employers’ associations looked like and would look like.
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Dorssemont, F. (2021). Trade Unions, Employers’ Association and the Law. In: Addabbo, T., Ales, E., Curzi, Y., Fabbri, T., Rymkevich, O., Senatori, I. (eds) The Collective Dimensions of Employment Relations. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75532-4_3
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