EXAMINING THE INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

The paper examines the industrial relations models in the European Union and the main peculiarities of industrial relations in the Central and Eastern Europe, with an emphasis on the Romania's case. First, the Europeanisation of industrial relations is discussed and then a parallel with other developed national systems, such as USA and Japan is developed, in order to point out the strong and weak points of the EU system. The union coverage and density, collective bargaining, bargaining style and coverage, employee representation and employment regime are considered when clustering Member States in five industrial relations regimes. Romania's industrial relations are analyzed through the power and coverage of trade unions, employers' organizations and collective bargaining. The paper finds that Romania and other Central and Eastern European countries mix elements of all models and cannot be classified in one of the traditional categories.