Euro-Telework
www.euro-telework.org
Telework Regulation and Social
Dialogue
Hans-Jürgen Weißbach
This report has been produced with the support of the European Commission, DG Employment and Social
Affairs, under the European Social Fund (article 6). Views expressed within the report are those of the author
and do not reflect the views of the European Commission.
Euro-Telework
Hans-Jürgen Weißbach © November 2000
http://www.euro-telework.org
CONTENTS
0.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS AND THE ISSUE OF TELEWORK
TRENDS IN THE REGULATORY SYSTEM AND THE DEVELOPMENT
OF SYSTEMS OF SOCIAL DIALOGUE
2.1 Decentralisation and 'informalisation' of work
2.2 Indicators of a re-centralisation of industrial relations
2.3 The need for social dialogue and concerted action
PROBLEMS WITH REGULATING NEW TYPES OF WORK
NATIONAL FRAMEWORK AND INSTRUMENTS FOR REGULATING
TELEWORK
4.1 Increasing attempts at government intervention and legal regulation: the cases
of Italy and France
4.2 Stable corporatist schemes in Germany and Austria. Will telework fit in?
4.3 Liberal regulation schemes in the Nordic countries and the Netherlands: great
concern about social and health issues
4.4 Traditional homeworking as a basis for regulating telework: the case of
Finland
4.5 Social dialogue and social pacts in many European countries, yet no visible
impact on telework
4.6 Deregulation and lack of union influence: the development of private
placement and support structures in the UK and Ireland
4.7 The weakness of collective bargaining and legislation in Spain, Portugal,
Greece, Belgium and Luxembourg
4.8 Cross-border issues
AIMS AND ISSUES OF COLLECTIVE AGREEMENTS
5.1 Aims of introducing telework
5.2 Work spaces and the workplace
5.3 Starting and finishing telework
5.4 Status of employees and individual amendments to the working contract
5.5 Organisation and type of telework
5.6 Qualifications and preparation for telework
5.7 Working time
5.8 Control
5.9 Participation of teleworkers in the company's communication system
5.10 Special provisions for women
5.11 Special provisions for people with disabilities
5.12 Cost
5.13 Responsibilities and duties of teleworkers
5.14 Access of Works Council representatives to the workplace
5.15 Information and participation rights of representatives and co-management
5.16 Dispute resolution
5.17 Direct participation by teleworkers
5.18 Trade Union rights
5.19 Health and safety
5.20 The impact on other agreements
SECTORS COVERED BY TELEWORK AGREEMENTS
6.1 The public sector
6.2 The private sector
OPEN QUESTIONS AND NEGLECTED PROBLEMS
COMMON TRENDS AND DIVERGENCES
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
RECOMMENDATIONS
1
0.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Analysis of the legal framework of conditions and collective agreements regulating
teleworking in 16 European countries shows a very varied picture. The concept of
teleworking has not been incorporated into legislation, nor is there a standard
transnational definition of it. Instead, the countries studied manifest major cultural
differences.
1. In Germany, Austria and Denmark, and also in France, teleworking is understood as
alternating teleworking, from 1-2 days a week upwards.
In UK agreements and contracts, teleworking virtually always means teleworking at
home, with over 50% of working time spent at home.
In the Romance countries, for regulatory purposes teleworking is primarily understood
as meaning work performed in various organisational forms (tele-centres, call centres
and teleworking at home) with the aid of information and communication technologies
(ICTs).
In the Nordic countries, but not in Germany, Austria, Italy or France, teleworking also
includes, in particular, numerous forms of mobile work, which is in fact even more
common than teleworking or alternating teleworking.
2. If teleworking is regulated at all, it is regulated on a variety of levels. In addition to
statutory regulation, it is regulated by associations of the social partners at sectoral or
branch level, agreements between trade unions and companies, agreements between
companies and elected bodies representing employees (or Works Councils or staff
councils in the context of statutory rules on participation), departmental agreements
and, finally, by individual contracts of employment or supplements to them.
3. While the industrial relations system was 'systemic' until the 1980s (i.e. it was
geared to possible disputes, for which regulations were drafted ex ante), the present
time is dominated by a highly 'situative' approach that only takes up actual disputes
and abstains from systematic ex ante regulation of every conceivable dispute.
Throughout Europe, this is associated with a trend towards decentralisation and
individualisation of negotiation of working conditions. This is criticised to some
extent owing to the dissolution of uniform social standards, and to some extent it also
involves opportunities for employees as a result of negotiations of working conditions
close to the workplace, and the influence of highly skilled groups with strong
representation. The use of ICTs contributes to these trends.
Decentralisation and individualisation are proceeding more rapidly in the field of
teleworking than in many other areas of regulation of working conditions. This is
linked to the fact that teleworking plays an important part not only in the rapidly
growing segment of ICT enterprises in particular, where there is little union
organisation, but also in financial services, where the same is true in many European
countries. To take one example, in Germany, more than 1000 collective agreements on
the introduction of flexible working hours have been recorded, but there are only
about 70 on the introduction of teleworking.
2
4. At the same time, there are counter-trends supporting recentralisation of the
regulation of teleworking. On the one hand, negotiations are being centralised as a
result of potential union mergers (e.g. Ver.di in Germany) or following strong union
penetration into the 'industrialising' service sector (e.g. HK in Denmark and MSF in
the UK). On the other hand, in Italy, France and Denmark, for example, the state is
actively intervening in the process of introducing and implementing teleworking, and
by means of legislation, the civil service's pilot function or the initiation of social
dialogue on implementation of an open and socially sustainable information society, it
is working towards the centralisation of societal activities aimed at comprehensively
safeguarding teleworking as an institution. Even small enterprises with a low level of
union organisation must be extremely interested in negotiating with strong, competent
partners who genuinely represent employees on regulating teleworking issues. The
unions are still the most competent partners for this purpose: special associations of
teleworkers have not yet been able to assert themselves as negotiating partners.
5. All in all, however, there is no strong empirical evidence that contractual or
statutory forms of regulation of teleworking in Europe are converging. We still
encounter traditional historically, politically and culturally based forms of regulation
which are to a great extent resisting standardisation in line with the pressure to
conform exerted by globalisation and ICTs.

Germany and Austria are still examples of countries with solid institutionalised
multilateral participation ('corporatism'), where in large companies (less so at
sectoral level) the subject of teleworking is for the most part successfully dealt
with by the relevant industrial representation mechanisms, and at the expense of
unregulated 'grey areas' or a 'black economy' in teleworking, mainly in small
companies.

In France and Italy, legislation and national policy are exerting an increasing
influence, and are endeavouring in particular to influence the implementation of
teleworking via the civil service. There are also collective agreements (some at
sectoral level) that frequently include several trade unions. This is at the expense
of the extremely general nature of the formulas agreed, which must then be made
specific at local level or occasionally even circumvented. Here, the influence of
the unions appears to be decreasing in comparison with that of the state.

In the Nordic countries, we find old systems of collective bargaining which are,
however, acquiring new content as a result of widespread centrifugal trends under
the influence of unionised, highly skilled, white-collar workers (white collar
unionism), which allow ample scope for local negotiation on teleworking by
groups with strong representation. Finland is in a special position with its efforts
to regulate teleworking in a highly individualised, graduated way, within the
framework of traditional legislation on homeworking. So too is Denmark, where
the commercial and service workers' union has succeeded in establishing priority
for collective agreements over individual employment contracts in framework
agreements with public and private employers: this is a unique initiative in
Europe, and has happened in a small country where it potentially affects 1m
employees.
3

We also find relatively 'new' systems of collective bargaining in Spain, Portugal
and Greece, either associated with strong tendencies to deregulate the labour
market, which also affect teleworking (Spain), or in which teleworking is not yet
an important subject. In some of these countries and also in Ireland, intensive
social dialogue is already under way in respect of socially sustainable
implementation of the information society.

In the United Kingdom, collective bargaining mechanisms have been weakened to
such an extent that, given the widespread nature of teleworking, they play only a
minor part, except in some areas of the financial services sector. Here, the
individual contract predominates, but this too has its advantages (e.g. a high level
of precision as regards regulation of working hours, and reimbursement of costs).
In the Netherlands, too, we find strong tendencies for teleworking to be
deregulated and individualised. In Belgium, while all laws remain in force and
new laws have even been introduced, we can speak of 'crypto-deregulation',
occurring via homeworking, for example, with teleworking being primarily
regulated by in-house confidential agreements.
6. To summarise, it can be said that countries with a very strong culture of collective
bargaining have not made much headway with regard to Guideline 17 of the Luxembourg
Process, and have mainly ignored the problem of teleworking, while that of part-time
work is frequently widely discussed. In contrast, countries where the tradition of
collective bargaining systems is less strong have often progressed further down this path.
Unlike traditional industrial relations problems, the problems of social openness of
teleworking infrastructures, of gaps in qualifications and equal opportunities in access to
teleworking have hardly been addressed by traditional bargaining systems.
7. Thus the content of collective regulations largely converges, although large-scale
agreements are often less specific than company agreements (Denmark is again an
exception). Therefore the regulations achieved largely meet needs, even if in some cases
they affect only a minority of practising teleworkers, as in Germany, Austria and the
Netherlands. However, it would appear to be more important to draw attention to the gaps
in the regulations: in almost all agreements, little attention is devoted to skills training and
familiarisation, the right to complain about non-acceptance of an application for
teleworking, equal opportunities, staff and career development, and monitoring of the
social consequences of the development of teleworking. Here, legislative initiatives
appear more likely to be in place.
4
1.
INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS AND THE ISSUE OF TELEWORK
The concept of industrial relations (IR), or labour relations, is used not only to describe
relationships between employers and trade unions, but also relationships that involve
governments. They seek to define policies dealing with labour problems, employees, their
needs, and requirements relating to telework.
Within a period of over 100 years, a 'systemic' approach to industrial relations has
developed in Europe as a result of the experience that industrial disputes are likely to
occur wherever there is contracted labour. A system of industrial relations includes a set
of legal definitions, rules and methods to deal with industrial disputes that can be
expected in each industrial labour system (e.g. to settle wage disputes, regulate working
time, or determine government intervention in disputes). It follows that it is more or less
based on the assumption that contracted labour is typically applied in a low trust situation.
Therefore clearly fixed ex ante rules anticipating these conflicts should be established by
law and by negotiation, but instead each situation and each conflict is dealt with ad hoc.
These rules may be fixed by labour legislation (a unilateral system), by industrial and
firm agreements (a multilateral or 'corporatist' system), or by a mixture of both. Generally
speaking, in countries like France where industrial relations have been strongly regulated
by the government, we do not find so many industrial agreements. The opposite also
applies.
In most member states of the EU, rules for industrial relations and systems of workers'
representation have been established by law: they all have to regulate concrete issues of
labour relations in the light of the local situation. Accordingly, a 'situative' approach to
industrial relations has developed; this has been based on the existence of accepted legal
or factual bodies representing the workers, on their participation, and on the ability of
highly skilled workers to negotiate their own affairs. The 'situative' approach may be
characterised by the assumption that the local intervention of collective bodies is a
substitute for much detailed regulation, and that this intervention is a) only necessary in
certain situations and b) closely related to workplace issues. This approach is often
implemented under conditions of a high trust atmosphere, and relies strongly on ad hoc
methods of settling disputes.
It follows that IR involves:

rules for labour and employment management

more or less detailed rules for bargaining systems at a central or local level, and
methods defining these rules

a typology of actors (employers and workers, as well as their organisations and
representatives, but also public actors and other institutional bodies) underlying
the rules of the system, and a definition of people who are not part of the system
(e.g. self-employed workers)

rules for processes of interaction between these groups (either pure information or
negotiation; or either participatory or conflictive relations)
5
The rules and interaction processes may be standardised in the case of the systemic
approach, or more informal in the case of the situative approach.
During the 1970s and 1980s, the trend was towards a systemic approach that included ex
ante regulations for all types of conflicts; however, recent trends have revealed a need to
modernise the institutional framework of working life. Labour law based on the standard
model of full-time, workplace-based employment of indefinite tenure can no longer
respond to the needs of the information society. At the same time, the loss of security that
workers in many sectors feel must be confronted by a more appropriate and flexible legal
and contractual framework.
In small and rapidly growing sectors (e.g. the New Economy) particularly, detailed ex
ante regulation is often regarded as unnecessary, or even as an obstacle to economic
development and to the development of high-trust relations in the company. Employees
more often feel that they are strong enough to negotiate their issues individually or at a
workplace level, or that they have very particular issues to negotiate which traditionally
have not been on the social partners' agenda. An increase in the amount of
self-employment or 'autonomous work' has reinforced this trend.
'Wage employment and self-employment are tending to converge, rendering the scope of
labour law unclear and reducing its effectiveness in certain fields (non-standard contracts,
telework and work which is outsourced or externalised).' (European Commission, 1996:
34)
Accordingly, IR collective systems are undergoing change, but the speed of this change
and the depth of the integration of the traditional system in society as a whole varies from
country to country, and it is therefore quite difficult to describe common European trends.
There are traditional and stable multilateral participation structures that have a fairly tight
network of rules (e.g. 'corporatist' systems in Austria and Germany), systems with a
similarly long tradition but quite new content (e.g. the Nordic countries), more recently
established systems that are not so strictly regulated as the traditional ones (e.g. Spain,
Portugal and Greece), collective systems in decline because of strong deregulation
tendencies (UK) or due to increasing individualism in society (the Netherlands), and
mixed systems that include weakening corporatist elements and increasing government
intervention in rapid transition (e.g. France and Italy).
Particularly when industrial relations interact with new information and communication
technologies (ICTs), the traditional framework of the systemic approach changes
dramatically.
In fact, ICTs:

pervade all sectors horizontally, and increasingly link them reciprocally

are dynamic, that is to say they rapidly innovate, destroy and create enterprises,
types of work, and jobs: the average 'lifetime' of a job is 4-5 years, compared with
about 20 years a generation ago
6

are labour- and capital-saving, and above all flexible (i.e. suitable for many
purposes)

support multi-space and remote work, outsourcing, and individualisation of the
workforce
So a problematic aspect of the debate on the role and content of IR is the need for a
constant and stable 'systemic' framework that conflicts with:

the continuous process of workplace transformation in respect of type of work,
time and space

the loss of bargaining power of the collective actors in the new expanding sectors
of the economy, due to the ongoing 'downsizing process' (Hepworth and Ryan,
1996)

a high degree of individualisation in these industries
The application of ICTs, the needs of a constantly reorganising production, and the
importance of flexibility for the companies' competitiveness on international markets all
have a significant impact on the system of collective labour and on trade union activities.
We are witnessing an increase in the number and importance of workers whose
status on the labour market is uncertain. There are many and varied examples of this
trend, especially if we look at people working with ICTs (mainly teleworkers). They
include:

employees who also work on a freelance basis (sometimes preparing to become
small-scale entrepreneurs)

people who have formally withdrawn from the labour market by taking early
retirement, and who then find employment in the informal economy

freelancers who often have a regular and stable working relationship with a
particular company

students working part-time

people doing remote work under new working conditions without the unity of
time and space
What these 'atypical' forms of work have in common is their uncertain status on
traditional labour markets and in the social security system. Finding a harmonised
balance between flexibility of working conditions and social security is therefore a
crucial issue within telework. Another issue is how to prevent employers unilaterally
changing working conditions, disregarding the needs of teleworkers, and even taking
7
advantage of their individualised working situation and forcing them to accept worse
conditions then regular workers. A third issue involves making sure that these workers
are included in the system of collective representation, and that representatives of trade
unions or Works Councils have access to them.
Telework in all its forms challenges trade unions to develop new organisational methods
and tools for servicing their members' needs, and to update their present ways of working.
The role of teleworking, and various aspects of its flexibility, constitute an important item
in recent debates on IR and social dialogue. We are convinced that modern IR can
support (and be supported by) social dialogue and the evolution towards new economic
and social conditions. But this requires a thorough analysis of the new situation in all its
aspects and from all points of view; it also requires flexibility in the methods and the
tool-designing of the various partners.
The Delors White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness, Employment (1993) specifies
telework as the first of four 'priority applications' of telematics; this was repeated in a
report to the European Council by a High-Level Group on Europe and The Global
Information Society (1994) that described telework as 'the first of ten applications to
launch the information society.' Some of the ideas of this report have been criticised and
developed further in a paper by Ursula Huws (Telearbeit: Vertiefende Untersuchung zum
Weissbuch 1995), which shaped the agenda for the ensuing debate. Realising that
telework, mostly on an informal level, was developing at high speed and turning into a
'critical mass' (Di Martino, 1997) without far-reaching regulatory processes being
introduced at the same time, the Draft Report of the Information Society Forum (January
1996) stressed that telework 'requires different social and legal frameworks'. The ILO
also focused on homeworking in the 22 June 1996 Geneva conference, and adopted a
Recommendation and a Convention on homeworking. The conference did not succeed in
producing a detailed regulation of (tele-)homeworking, but established the rule that each
member state should adopt, implement, and periodically review a national policy on
homeworking, thereby improving the situation of homeworkers (Di Martino, 1997: 12).
8
2.
TRENDS IN THE REGULATORY SYSTEM AND THE DEVELOPMENT
OF SYSTEMS OF SOCIAL DIALOGUE
What we do not yet know is whether the application of ICTs is promoting convergence or
divergence in European systems of industrial relations. We can see that using ICTs
reinforces the spread of part-time, 'atypical', or 'contingent' work. This could be an
indicator at least of increasing internal divergence within the national systems of IR;
however, it could also weaken the position of trade unions in that they have become more
heterogeneous and less representative of entire workforce, compared with the 1970s or
early 1980s (see Waddington et al, 1997: 466). It may also make it easier to shift labour
to places with the lowest wages and the most flexible regulatory framework.
However, international comparisons provide no evidence that differences between
European systems of IR have become more acute under the influence of ICT, although
there are no indicators of a rapid convergence process either. This is supported by
examples. Some European countries like Spain have achieved great workforce flexibility
despite the fact that ICTs are not so widely used as in other European countries: on the
one hand, Spain has the highest rate of limited short-term working contracts of all
European countries (clearly, this has nothing to do with the introduction of ICT, but with
high youth unemployment); on the other hand, Portugal has adopted some elements of
traditional corporatist systems in combination with increased government regulation, but
the socio-economic situation is not very different from that in Spain. To take another
comparison, the system of negotiations in Sweden is decentralised, while Denmark has
re-centralisation under the influence of some government pilot agreements and a strong
trade union movement, yet the number of teleworkers is similarly high in both countries.
We can therefore assume that there is no automatic transformation of labour relations
under the impact of new ICTs. For cultural and political reasons, there is still a large
variety of solutions which also reflect attempts to regulate the use of ICTs in working
processes.
In some European countries, the fact that people do remote work that is mediated and
controlled by ICTs triggers legislation, political intervention or the involvement of
workers' representatives; in others, action is triggered by the fact that they work primarily
at home. In some countries, the assumption that people who do remote work are more
autonomous than other workers is a reason for excluding them from social insurance
schemes; in others, they are deemed to be 'false self-employed' workers who have to be
insured by their companies.
Moreover, the way that telework is regulated in many European countries differs
strikingly from the way other new forms of work organisation (e.g. flexible work hours,
group work, and new team-based incentive systems) are regulated. Generally speaking,
the level of institutionalisation of collective agreements on telework is lower than the
level of other types of agreements on wages, working conditions and new types of work
organisation; this is because only small groups of employees in a company do
teleworking. This is also a consequence of the explicit aim of individualising work
organisation through the introduction of telework, a process which is supported by
decentralised ICTs (Spaeker, 2000). In Germany, there are 15 times more agreements on
flexible working hours than on telework (Kamp, 2000).
9
However, globalisation and the 'new economy' emphasise the need for a new labour
regulation framework. In fact, it is beginning to be shaped at European level and,
through transnational comparison, many unions can now understand the European
dimension and are able to represent groups of transnational workers as a whole. The most
relevant, historical example of these new tools is European Directive 94/45 (22
September 1994) relating to the setting up of 'European Works Councils' and procedures
for information and workers' consultation in companies or groups of companies with a
European dimension. The problem now is how to develop the negotiating agenda between
employees and employers, because globalisation of the economy can modify
transnational companies' strategies related to labour market in consequence.
A very recent indication of the need for a new regulatory framework to cater for the
diffusion of telework or, more generally speaking, of networked labour, is a clear demand
from the Commission's Communication: Strategies for job creation in the Information
Society (7 February 2000: 19-20; see http://europa.eu.int/comm/dg05/index_en.htm):
'One of the more visible indicators of changes in work organisation is the use of telework.
With an appropriate framework, which guarantees rights and obligations for teleworkers
and their employers, telework will increase…
Recommendations to social partners: Set-up framework conditions and practical
arrangements to enable telework to take place on a wide scale.
Timing: End 2000.
Indicators: coverage of collective agreements on telework.'
It is remarkable that the 'coverage of (European) collective agreements on telework' is the
objective entrusted by the Commission to 'Euro-Telework', the MIRTI On-Line Project.
2.1
Decentralisation and 'informalisation' of work
The trends described below show that apart from Germany, Austria, and maybe Finland,
the regulation of telework has not yet been embedded in the general 'systemic'
frameworks of industrial relations in European countries, but rather tends to reinforce the
'situative' approach to regulation.
Even in countries with a high regulation density like Austria and Germany, the average
institutional level of telework regulation is usually lower than that relating to other new
forms of work organisation like group work in production (see Juraszovich et al, 1999).
Moreover, collective agreements on telework are in the process of ongoing
decentralisation, and the implementation of telework itself is in the process of
informalisation. The work situation of teleworkers is often non-transparent and highly
individualised, in the sense that there are no collective agreements for their sector,
company or job. Indicators of decentralisation and informalisation trends include:

the process of 'downsizing' European industry, and of splitting companies into
smaller units on the basis of ICTs continues (it started during the 1980s in the UK
and then 'marched east'). It has led to increasing competition between countries,
10
regions and communities for jobs through ICTs, and has thus contributed to rapid
flexibilisation of the labour market. Many EU programs (including ESF
programmes) have been used to reinforce this process, mainly in old industrial and
rural areas (see Hepworth and Ryan, 1996: 30)

it has become clear that many telework schemes have emerged informally,
sometimes even in the form of a shadow telework: in Austria, for example, it is
estimated by the Ministry for Social and Health Affairs (Juraszovich et al, 1999)
that 90% of teleworkers have no formal agreement; we estimate that in Germany,
a maximum of 8% of the 680,000-strong tele-workforce are covered by collective
agreements that refer expressly to the telework situation. It is not known whether
the rate of shadow teleworkers is increasing compared with that of teleworkers
working under collective agreements, but there is little doubt that absolute figures
for informal teleworkers are rising

very few employers' associations and unions have gone down the road of
developing real collective agreements on telework, either at a cross-industrial
level or at a sectoral level. Framework agreements like the 20 June 1997
agreement between Confcommercio and FILCAMS-Cgil, FISASCAT-Cisl and
UILTUCS-Uil, and the Austrian Oil Industry agreement, tend to be rather general,
providing employees with few major benefits and leaving concrete regulation to
individual agreements. More often, collective contracts on telework are restricted
to a single company (e.g. IBM/DAG and Deutsche Telekom and detemobil/DPG
in Germany, and PTT in the Netherlands). In Italy, sectoral and industrial
agreements have to be followed up and adopted by company-based agreements

in big companies, local agreements for certain factories or sites or small groups of
employees are often negotiated instead of company-wide agreements: an example
is SNI Germany, which has now been integrated in Siemens. As teleworking
groups often consist of highly qualified male workers, local solutions tend to be
more advantageous than general company-wide or industry-based agreements. In
this way, the interests of employees in collective agreements covering industries
or whole companies are somewhat ignored

individual companies sometimes have to negotiate with several unions (e.g. Saritel
or Telecom Italia/CGIL, CISL, UIL in Italy), with their branches or local
representatives, or with a Works Council (in Germany). Works Councils function
in different ways in different countries and different sectors with regard to power,
rights and scope of actions. Some of them are in a strong position; others are in a
weak position. Workplace representation in Germany is at its weakest in areas
with the highest employment growth (Waddington et al, 1997:476), and very
strong in sectors with few teleworkers

telework is frequently regulated on an individual basis between employers and
employees by means of an addendum to the individual work contract. Examples of
this include ABB Insurance (Belgium), DEC (Netherlands), SNI (Sweden), and
Dresdner Bank and Wuerttembergische Versicherung (Germany); they usually
refer to the home as the teleworker's main workplace and cover cost regulation
11

particularly where teleworkers are not full-time employees, but only work one or
two days out of the office, collective agreements are often thought to be
inappropriate. Examples from Germany and Belgium confirm this trend: while
company agreements in Germany used to cover each type of teleworker
(Bayerische Hypobank, 1996), more recent agreements (e.g. at Allianz Insurance)
include teleworkers only if they work at home for at least 50% of their total
working time. Part-time telework for one or two days is increasingly regarded as
'normal', and is covered by individual arrangements, not by collective bargaining.
This strategy may be the result of companies increasingly wanting to avoid the
costs of equipment and any reimbursements after the pilot project phase has been
successfully completed. In Belgium, special agreements for part-time (1-2 days)
home-teleworking have been concluded in several enterprises in the ICT sector
such as Compaq, Minolta, Hewlett-Packard and IBM. They are not negotiated
collective agreements, but derive from discussions on the Works Council where
employers and employees' representatives have agreed that individual teleworking
arrangements are permitted within a defined framework. It is very difficult to
obtain the written texts of such agreements as the minutes of Works Council
meetings are confidential, although restricted distribution is allowed within the
enterprise

existing law sometimes does not apply to teleworkers because it refers to a kind of
full-time remote work that is not as widespread as part-time telework (see
Belgian Law CCT 39 and the Law on Homeworking 1996)

many telework jobs have developed in industries where the influence of collective
actors is fairly low (e.g. the software industry and financial services), and where
individual bargaining is standard rather than the exception (e.g. among qualified
ICT and media staff). This is also true of teleworkers in various semi-dependent
forms of telework and among people with a different formal status. It is likely in
the 'new' media sector in Germany that 40% of all employees are self-employed
and nearly 20% do telework

an increasing number of placements in telework jobs rely on Internet-based job
groups, mainly in the ICT industry. There is little likelihood of these jobs being
covered by collective agreements. In some cases, placement agencies have
developed private support structures for teleworkers, and operate like artists'
agencies, negotiating working conditions and trial periods with employers on
behalf of their clients

national legislation is sometimes ignored, or replaced by collective agreements,
while collective agreements are ignored altogether at local level. Traditional home
industries completely ignore legal regulations and negotiated contracts with
impunity

many regulations cover only a pilot phase of telework experiments: sometimes
they are followed up by a collective agreement, but in many cases it is not clear
whether this will be a general agreement. Many pilot projects have never been
evaluated as to the appropriateness of previous collective agreements and further
regulatory needs, and they are not explicitly renewed
12

new developments arising out of the use of mobile telephone and other wireless
ICTs make it impossible to define workplaces, and accordingly reinforce the trend
to informalise telework. In extreme cases, employers no longer know where the
employee's work is being carried out. In particular, the craftworkers and service
workers in SMEs who always used to do mobile work are now doing mobile
telework. In many cases, small employers are even giving up their central offices
so that the whole company becomes more or less mobile and virtual. Any attempt
to define 'workspace' and 'workplace' becomes extremely difficult in these
circumstances (Palkkatyöläinen magazine, SAK, September 2000)
If we consider all trends and look at the empirical results of the Euro-Telework project,
we find a certain shift of regulation of telework:

from governmental and juridical regulation to collective industrial agreement (e.g.
in Italy, Austria, partly in France and Belgium)

from collective industrial agreements to company-based agreements (e.g. big
companies in the ICT industry like SNI Sweden, IBM Germany, IBM Austria and
British Gas) or to a coexistence of industrial and company agreements

from company-based agreements to department-wide agreements, which
themselves often contain pilot schemes (e.g. Lufthansa Systems, Lufthansa and
SNI-Paderborn)

from collective regulation to individual contracts (e.g. IBM Germany and other
ICT firms, Dresdner Bank and Wuerttembergische Versicherung Germany)

from centralised governmental regulation covering only big companies to the
toleration of 'shadow' telework without effective regulation in local home
industries (e.g. in Italy)

from collective bargaining to private support structures for teleworkers (e.g.
tele-job groups in many countries, Verband Telearbeit in Germany, and
Oesterreichische Telearbeitsvereinigung in Austria, which have not yet been
effective in negotiating agreements)
In addition, criticism of over-regulation in continental Europe has caused much resistance
to attempts at regulation in multinational ICT and finance enterprises that refuse to
negotiate on what they see as 'normal' issues like telework.
We are therefore a long way from the suggestion of the Interim Report of the High Level
Expert Group on the Societal Aspects of the Information Society (January 1996) that
telework is 'one of the major forms of new modes of work' and that 'a concerted action
needs to be taken to make sure that these new forms of work are encouraged within a
framework which reduces the negative aspects of telework as much as possible.'
13
2.2
Indicators of a re-centralisation of industrial relations
The tendency to decentralise is not one-dimensional: there is evidence to suggest that the
process of decentralisation, even the individualisation of the formerly centralised system
of collective bargaining, is not necessarily the sole, decisive trend in transforming the
network of industrial relations:

large multinational companies often agree that telework should be regulated by
collective bargaining in order to create similar conditions at several national sites.
They are trying to improve their image and improve their recruitment
opportunities by negotiating formal contracts with employees' associations

small companies in the ICT sector are growing, and they are discovering that
collective agreements and a 'systemic' approach might be easier than negotiating
with every single actor. In 1981, more than 50% of the German workforce were
still represented by Works Councils, but today the rate is under 35%. This is seen
as dangerous by some firms no longer able to negotiate with legitimate employee
representatives, and there is a feeling that small groups are exerting more and
more pressure in these unregulated conditions. Some German firms have even
instigated the election of Work Councils in the hope that standardised formulae
can be found more easily than solitary solutions

even in industries that have long been very hostile to collective agreements (e.g.
the ICT industry and temporary agencies), big companies like as Randstad and
Adecco have agreed to collective contracts on wages and working conditions in
Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands (for Germany, see Die Frage nach einem
Tarifvertrag entzweit die Zeitarbeitsbranche, FAZ, 11 April 2000). Regulating
working conditions in this way may enhance quality competition (instead of wage
competition), reduce fluctuation, and attract more highly qualified staff

As part of this trend, pay rates for temporary agency work have been unified by
law in France, and parity with permanent workers has been established in Austria,
Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Luxembourg; moreover,
contracts between individuals and staff-leasing firms are handled less
bureaucratically in France, and limited short-time contracts for one single firm are
also allowed. Smaller temporary agencies in Germany and other European
countries, however, are afraid of losing their flexibility through the introduction of
this kind of regulation. They expect their margins to suffer as a result of any form
of collective bargaining, and they therefore still refuse to negotiate with the unions
(see European Industrial Relations Observer, January 2000)

because of mergers with smaller and even bigger unions (e.g. the plan for a united
union for industries in Germany [Ver.di]), the negotiation of pay and working
conditions is centralised in some industries. Accordingly, the transfer
opportunities of appropriate pilot solutions in the field of telework may increase,
and the degree of institutionalisation of collective contracts may also be higher in
the future

during the last few years, the public sector and its unions in many European
countries have played active roles in developing collective agreements for
14
telework. Public actors have tried to negotiate model solutions with a good chance
of being transferred to other public sectors, or even to the private sector. The
Italian, Irish and Finnish governments have tried to contribute to the development
of telework within the framework of social pacts or partnerships (e.g. in Ireland in
2000), through the development of telework guidelines for the public
administration (e.g. in Italy in 1999), and through model projects or the initiation
of legislation (in Italy in 1998, though not directly focused on telework itself, but
on related matters). Governments in smaller countries mainly have a chance to
influence the attitudes of the social partners through pilot projects and actions.
National laws have been passed to prevent dependent self-employed (so-called
'false' or 'pseudo' self-employed) people from being excluded from the social
security system (e.g. in Germany), and to unify working conditions (e.g. French
temporary work agencies)

new forms of tripartite social dialogue have been established in many European
countries, including those with traditionally 'weak' regulatory schemes (e.g.
Ireland). This dialogue, however, and the guidelines to emerge from it, do not
specifically refer to telework in most European countries, but it may be a
functional equivalent to non-existent government action or collective agreements

most unusual is the case of Denmark where a system of framework agreements
has developed since 1997 that overrides all individual agreements. Individual
telework contracts can only be signed in many industries and public services (1m
employees) if there is a collective agreement in existence. From the trade union
standpoint, this may well be the best example of successful centralisation and
standardisation of telework agreements in an individualistic society. The policy of
the government and of the Department for Labour and the Environment may have
been decisive in this victory achieved by the HK union because of its strong
interest in developing a coordinated strategy offering the whole workforce
telework opportunities and access to ICTs. Paradoxically, this trend has been
supported by the fact that there are very few large companies in Denmark (Bosch,
Webster & Weissbach, 2000), and that collective agreements and government
action are more easily accepted under these conditions
2.3
The need for social dialogue and concerted action
From the point of view of employees and their representatives, the situation is
unsatisfactory because the increase in individual opportunities to enter a more flexible
working situation has been accompanied by great insecurity about rights at the workplace.
It seems that conditions of telework can be imposed on individual workers in many
industries in some countries, and they no longer need to be negotiated.
However, new issues on the agenda are beyond the scope of the established system of
industrial relations. In particular, the danger of social exclusion of relevant groups of the
population, the skills gap and the question of access to relevant communications channels
of the information society have aroused considerable concern. This was articulated in the
Green Paper, Living and working in the Information Society (December 1996). It
contained the ETUC position:
15
'Workers are showing interest in teleworking because it can offer them greater control of
their time, and enable them to combine their work and leisure more efficiently. Some
workers regard teleworking as an opportunity to be more creative in exercising their
profession, although on the downside they view being isolated or being cut off from
everyday life in their company as risks that go hand in hand with teleworking.
'Teleworking should neither be condemned out of hand nor glorified. The crucial question
is how it will be organised - preferably in such a way that the 'tele-' aspect of the work in
question is placed in a complex setting that stimulates human skills and activities. The
decision to opt for teleworking must be voluntary and reversible. Teleworkers must retain
the status of employees. Payment and labour relations must not be allowed to deteriorate
with the transition to telework. All social security and health insurance rights must be
preserved, teleworkers must be guaranteed social protection, and health and safety
standards must also be applied to telework jobs. Teleworkers must have the same career
opportunities, the same access to in-service training and advanced training as other
employees. All basic conditions governing teleworking must be negotiated with the
relevant workforce representatives. This applies in particular to working time, and the
European Commission is requested to take this factor into account in a directive on
teleworking. The Member States of the EU are urged to ratify the ILO Convention on
homework.'
With regard to teleworking, the ETUC recommends:

'that teleworking should be negotiated in all cases between workers'
representatives and the firm that wishes to introduce teleworking. Anyone who
adopts teleworking should do so voluntarily, and retain their status as an
employee. The conditions for teleworking should be laid down in a collective
bargaining agreement

'atypical and precarious working conditions are widespread among teleworkers.
Protection through social security, access to health insurance and unemployment
benefit are urgently required for all. Employee status for teleworkers would offer
the best solution for problems in relation to social security

'if teleworking is carried out for various employers, social security contributions
should be paid in the country where the teleworker is employed. Social security
thresholds should be lowered to guarantee social security cover for all

'for teleworkers, it is very important that they should retain their rights to worker
participation. Employee representatives should also be responsible for
teleworkers, and they should also have the right to meet at regular intervals. This
would be extremely important for teleworkers working mainly at home. The
opening up of corporate networks for trade union information would be important
with regard to the concern for guaranteeing teleworkers rights to participation

'there should be clear rules for data protection and privacy. Teleworkers must be
entitled to disconnect from the network. Rules are required with regard to the
supervision of teleworkers...'
16
In the European Guidelines on employment (Pillar VI, Guidelines 15-17) drawn up at the
Luxembourg Summit of 1997, member states agreed to introduce newly developed forms
of employment into their legislation on employment contracts. However, the development
of new forms of employment according to Guideline 17 is handled differently from
country to country. It is mostly restricted to an increase in the number of part-time jobs
(see the changes in German law announced for 2001). Other forms of employment have
been rather restricted (again, see recent German legislation).
So far, the guidelines have had little impact on national strategies for the development
and regulation of telework; this is mainly true of countries with highly developed systems
of multilateral participation ('corporatism'). However, countries with relatively weak
traditions of labour regulation seem more adaptive to the Luxembourg Guidelines
because it is felt that there is a kind of vacuum with regard to labour regulation. The
question is whether it is possible to identify a common European approach towards
telework that fits in with existing 'strong' systems of national labour regulation of the type
to be found in Germany or Austria.
17
3.
PROBLEMS WITH REGULATING NEW TYPES OF WORK
Telework is not a legal category in any European country. It has many facets, and
includes very different kinds of work including home-based telework, alternating
telework, remote work on sites controlled by the employer, work in tele-cottages and
tele-centres, and mobile work. It follows that there is effectively no common definition of
telework either in legislation or in collective agreements, although in Finland and Italy
there are references to homeworking and to the relevance of ownership or possession of
equipment and tools as criteria for employment contracts. Under Belgian and German
law, however, homeworkers do not own their equipment but work autonomously, and
they are not included in the work organisation of the employer. Some of these laws date
back to the era of traditional homeworking in industry (e.g. weaving and garment making,
and leather and footwear), or more recently in services (e.g. family child care in carers'
homes) and, as far as (expensive) tools and equipment are concerned, to building sites
and forestry. Others are new (Belgium, 6 December 1996).
Traditional rules for homeworkers still have some practical importance within their remit,
and the principles behind them may also have some relevance beyond that remit, and may
even embrace telework.
Some teleworkers are self-employed, some work as dependent employees, some are tied
exclusively to one company (while others are not), some work continuously, and some
only work temporarily. We cannot expect traditional labour law to cover all the problems
of these different types of teleworker. Many sources of law on custom and practice
applied to telework are not sufficient to deal with present and future developments
associated with telework, and we therefore have to identify the security needs of the
various kinds of teleworker:

the teleworker's status as a regular employee or as self-employed (with different
degrees of dependency on the company)

the degree of freedom left to employees to become teleworkers

the existence of collective regulation and representative structures in the industry
or company in which the teleworker is employed (e.g. a high level of regulation
and workers' representation in industries with highly qualified male workers; a
low level in new ICT and Internet firms)

the level at which collective agreements are concluded (i.e. national, sectoral,
industrial, company-level or departmental)
In most cases, dependent teleworkers are encouraged to engage in telework voluntarily,
they have the right to come back to headquarters, and they are basically treated the same
as other employees. This situation could change, however, when more and more jobs are
offered to teleworkers who have not previously been employed. The next few years could
see a considerable increase in the number of self-employed teleworkers who have not had
the chance to decide on their status properly.
18
Large numbers of self-employed workers have yet to join trade unions in any European
country, and few other collective bodies exist to represent teleworkers whether they are
employed or self-employed. However, changes are beginning to take place. The attitude
towards self-employment and traditional employment is still ambivalent, not to say
negative. Most member states understand Guideline 17 of the Luxembourg Summit to
mean the introduction of new forms of part-time work (for example, in Germany, giving
individual workers the right to choose part-time work from 2001), while new forms of
semi-dependent work are still widely ignored. However, multi-salaried employees, as
they are known in Italy, may be an innovative type of (tele-)worker adapted to
networking if the necessary requirements are met with regard to such matters as social
security and representation.
Fig. 1: Telework Industrial Relations (Source: Author's analysis)
Status of workers
Formal employees
Self-employed (1)
Free choice of telework Telework mandatory
Informal or
'shadow'
telework
Telework as business strategy
Individual or
collective
agreement




(1) Including
new types of
employment
according to
Guideline 17
No regulation
or regulation by
law
New support
structures
National regulatory frames
Existence of collective regulations for the respective industry
Degree of unionisation
Competition between unions
With the spread of the phenomenon of self-employed teleworkers, unions and national
governments may be urged in the next few years to regulate or negotiate certain aspects
of these workers' activity. Self-employed teleworkers are likely to need guarantees that
refer more to the continuity and reliability of their relationship with the client company
than to traditional conditions of work.
Another distinction must be drawn between conditions in which employees can choose to
become teleworkers, and those in which they can only go along with the company
decision. In the former, telework is usually a mixed strategy both for the company and for
employees, and negotiations take place to determine how the benefits can be maximised
for both sides. In the latter case, where telework is a company strategy pursued in order to
obtain cost reduction or more staff flexibility, the strategy of employees and their unions
19
can be expected to be more defensive, and aim at avoiding the risks normally associated
with telework.
In some countries, unions try to organise or support teleworkers beyond the clear-cut
demarcation lines of the system of labour associations for their social security. The
Bondgenoten trade union in the Netherlands has been giving self-employed workers
support since 1999. The new union, the FNV Zelfstandige Bondgenoten, is giving
particular support to self-employed workers with no employees.
Trade unions in Italy and Germany are increasingly discussing support procedures for
self-employed teleworkers, and trying to define a new type of 'autonomous' worker. The
CGIL, CISL and UIL have favoured the setting up of specific organisational structures
for the small self-employed. In other cases, tele-job groups or teleworkers' associations
(e.g. Verband Telearbeit in Germany, and similar associations in countries like
Luxembourg) act as support structures. Private and community-based support structures
for teleworkers have developed mainly in Great Britain (e.g. MARI, Newcastle in the
early 1990s, and Support Shop, Sussex, more recently), and increasingly in Ireland. In
Austria, the Union of the Private Sector (GPA) is going to broaden the definition of
employees in order to incorporate self-employed workers, especially in the telework
sector.
The changes analysed above impact on the structure of unions themselves. The GPA is
seeking to confront them by introducing a new organisational structure: examples include
new organisational units called Interessensgemeinschaften. These are platforms for
special groups of employees or self-employed workers who have the same working
conditions, but no common organisational structure because they belong to different
industrial sections. The GPA is starting off with two Interessensgemeinschaften: one for
ICT workers and one for social workers (IT-Interessengemeinschaft: see www.gpa.at/it).
In Germany, the DPG offers a hotline (www.onforte.de) to teleworkers in all industries,
and even to self-employed workers, thereby breaking with the traditional regional and
industrial principles of organisation. This strategy will boost the professionalism of the
union's activities on behalf of teleworkers, and strengthen the principle of target group
strategies. It will also contribute to a new understanding of unions as service units that are
selected by (tele-)workers, rather according to the service quality offered in comparison
to cost, or because they traditionally belong to a certain industry or profession. It means
that this strategy of approaching the small self-employed will have a certain impact on the
structure of unions themselves. In Denmark, the commercial and service union HK began
to take self-employed workers as members as long ago as 1997; 400 have joined so far.
20
4.
NATIONAL FRAMEWORK AND INSTRUMENTS FOR REGULATING
TELEWORK
There are many levels of regulation. Some have become dominant in certain European
countries for historical or cultural reasons:

regulation by law (including the implementation of company-based representative
structures as a type of multilateral participation)

regulation by collective bargaining

individual working contracts, or annexes to a standard contract following
individual negotiation
At the collective bargaining level, distinctions may be drawn between:

sectoral agreements (with one or more unions)

industrial agreements (with one or more unions)

company-based agreements (a) with unions or their local representatives or (b)
with elected representatives of the workers [e.g. Work Councils])

department-based agreements (a) with unions or (b) with workers' elected
representatives)
Starting at the level of legislation or labour regulation, most European countries have no
particular laws with regard to:

the contractual situation of teleworkers (exceptions: France – see Blanpain, 1997;
and recently Finland)

their social security entitlements (Pennings, 1997)

occupational health and safety issues (Huuhtanen, 1997)
It follows that the regulation of telework is more or less left to the application of general
labour relations and labour protection law, and of course to the social partners. However,
trade unions and Work Councils have no clear role in telework: in some countries, and
there are no formal participation structures for workers or trade unions (e.g.
co-management or Mitbestimmung); sometimes, similar structures have only been
established in bigger companies, but they never refer explicitly or exclusively to the
representation of teleworkers.
The next chapter contains information about the national legal framework of collective
bargaining, and about the collective agreements that flow from these negotiations. It will
21
show that the legal situation and objective detail vary considerably from one European
country to the next. However, we will try to identify some transnational clusters of types
of regulating activity relating to telework, and demonstrate the advantages and
disadvantages of the various strategies.
4.1
Increasing attempts at government intervention and legal regulation: the
cases of Italy and France
The Italian and French governments have tried to exert considerable influence over the
regulation and development of the information society, and to support social dialogue
among the social partners. In both countries, public programmes to develop the
information society and to boost telework were established in the 1990s at government
and community levels, although telework was paradoxically banned in France back in
1959 before it properly came into existence.
In Italy, measures to initiate social dialogue on new types of work developed against a
backdrop of a highly differentiated system of types of working contract originally related
to the need for a broad-based, traditional home industry. These needs led to a particular
legal institution in Italy, the 'Commodatum for use', which has now been expanded to
embrace telework. One of the special features of teleworking in Italy concerns the
ownership of the equipment that companies issue to their employees under the Italian
legal system of 'commodatum for exclusive use' (Article 1803 of the Civil Code). This
type of ownership imposes many obligations on the user (Article 1804 of the Civil Code),
including a duty to ensure that 'the object is always available' (Article 1805 of the Civil
Code), 'estimating the value' (Article 1806 of the Civil Code), 'wear and tear' (Article
1807 of the Civil Code) and 'cost of using the object and extraordinary expenses' (Article
1808 of the Civil Code).
Five types of teleworking have been identified by experts under Italian labour law:

contracts for the procurement of goods and services

contracts for the rendering of services or the securing of a result

contracts of semi-employment

contracts of subordinate employment proper

contracts for subordinate employment which involves homeworking
Existing legislation has hitherto regulated the classic types of independent work, which
can also include teleworking:

artisans

domestic work

self-entrepreneurship
22
The traditional system of working relations and laws for the home-based industry does
not play a progressive role in regulating telework in 'new' industries. The new
phenomenon of so-called para-subordinate workers (often including freelance
teleworkers) forced the Italian Parliament to discuss the possibility of a regulation aimed
at extending social protection and negotiating rights to this particular typology of
workers. A draft law (the 'Smuraglia law') is before the Senate, and is still subject to
fierce debate (see www.senato.it).
Other recent Italian legislation concerns 'subordinate workers' (i.e. employees) as well as
autonomous workers. Law 626/94 relating to safety in the workplace was extended by a
collective agreement of 18 November 1996 to entitle staff with for health and safety
responsibilities to inspect workplaces in the home. The issue of telework has been
targeted by the government in the last three years: this has been attested by the
appointment of an Under-Secretary for Technological Innovation and the Internet; this
Minister has also been responsible for the regulation of e-commerce since 2000. Other
instruments used for introducing telework (with subordinate or independent workers) are:

a law supporting disabilities in the labour market (a specific article dealing with
telework)

a law on equal opportunities (e.g. the Tecnopolis and Zanussi agreements)

European Commission research programmes (e.g. the Naples local authority)
Local projects involving the public and private sectors, and based on support for local and
European instruments (e.g. the ASNM Proxima Telecentre in Sesto San
Giovanni-Milano, and the IFOA Telecentre in Castel Nuovo ne' Monti [Reggio Emilia]).
In the public sector, some historical cases of experimentation (e.g. the Rome local
authority, 1996-97) have prompted specific legislation, and approval of the 'Bassanini
Law' (No 191 of 16 June 1998) opened the way to follow-up regulations (e.g. Decree No
70 of 8 March 1999) and an agreement with the trade unions (21 July 1999). Information
about this can be found on the Euro-Telework web site (www.telework.org). Examples of
negotiation and experimentation were subsequently introduced in a variety of areas
including the Regions of Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna, the Provinces of Bologna and
Perugia, and the Agriculture Ministry.
At a general level, the government's role in a trilateral 'concertation' process has steadily
increased since the early 1990s. After long, stressful negotiations, a specific 'Protocol on
Income Policy' was signed on 23 July 1993 by the Italian Government, the main
employers' associations and the main trade unions. It introduced or renewed some general
rules on negotiation (two levels: national and company-level) and measures to guarantee
social and economic protection against the possibility of inflation. Later on, with a view
to opening up more possibilities for promoting employment in a social dialogue context,
the same social actors signed the 'Pact for labour' in September 1997. This specifically
sought to deal with:
23

labour flexibility

vocational training

youth unemployment
The focus of social dialogue was (and still is) a balance between the needs of global
competition and society's need for security. To regulate telework by law in the private
sector, a unified text was approved by the Senate's Labour Commission in June 1999; it
awaits debate in plenary session. Opinions expressed by the social partners and some
important companies during official Senate hearings were for various reasons almost
critical of the introduction of such a detailed law. In the event, the experience proved that
negotiating instruments were able to cope with the new phenomenon.
Company-level agreements, legal regulations and sectoral agreements are all now very
important. Company-level agreements are generally signed by the company and by all
unions representing the employees of the company (e.g. Telecom Italia and the CGIL,
CISL and UIL, 1995) or by the joint board of union representatives (e.g. Tecnopolis,
1996). Since the end of 1994, Italy had had considerable experience of regulating by
negotiation in the private sector at company level (e.g. Italtel, Seat, Dun & Bradstreet,
Digital, Tecnopolis, Telecom Italia, Itea and Zanussi; see www.euro-telework.org), at
sectoral level (e.g. telecommunications, commerce and banks), and at territory level (one
only known example: the Province of Modena).
It is important to note that trade union density in Italy is almost as high as it was in the
1960s (Waddington et al, 1997). This high level of unionisation in Italy is partly due to an
increase in the number of workplace-based unions (Rappresentanze Sindacali Unitarie,
RSU). These are autonomous from established unions and federations, although the latter
have remained strong in France. In Italy, though, local unions tried to win control over
the bargaining process, while management tried to settle an increasing range of issues
locally, but in the field of telework, the activities of the great federations are much more
important. The three leading unions (CGIL, CISL and UIL) have negotiated some
framework agreements (with Confcommercio for Commerce and Services on 20 June
1997; with four telecommunications companies on 9 September 1996, and with Intersind)
which are rather general and leave concrete negotiations to company level. But the most
important general agreement was signed on 28 June 2000 between the three main unions
and Confindustria (the national industry organisation). This is the so-called 'new
economy' agreement affecting all sectors where skilled workers using ICTs are involved:
it offers a sort of horizontal framework for managing telework and other flexible forms
including part-time, call centres and weekend contracts (see abstract on
www.euro-telework.org).
However, local actors often ignore sectoral agreements and legal regulations. Some
observers refer to a 'Mediterranean system of regulation' with regard to the Italian,
Spanish and Greek situations, all of which are characterised by a high degree of formal
government intervention which is not properly respected in industrial practice, mainly
because of the importance of the home industry sector.
24
One important difference between the IR systems of Italy and France is that the influence
and density of trade unions is declining in France (mainly in new industries and small
enterprises, and among part-timers). This is combined with a relatively weak legal and
institutional regulation of union influence in the workplace (the droit d'expression of
1982). French unionists have been able to conclude an increasing number of local
agreements (though few specifically dealing with telework), but links between local
representatives and the national organisations have weakened.
The ICT sector in France is still influenced by the government, and follows the old
tradition of developing ICT applications (e.g. the Minitel story) with a view to creating
new markets. It is not surprising that France Telecom offers its employees an attractive
supplement to the working contract, many clauses of which lie outside collective
agreements.
However, the initiation of social dialogue on telework suffered somewhat at the hands of
national discussions on working time. The regulation by law of working hours,
particularly of part-time work and temporary agency work, is fairly strict (EIRO, January
2000). How many teleworkers are covered by this regulation is not clear, but formal
consultation systems concerning telework have been established between the social
partners and the government. In 1994 a law was passed promoting the status of
teleworkers as self-employed workers. Under this legislation, a teleworker who is
registered as a tradesman or commercial agent, is de jure looked upon as self-employed.
In 2000, a collective agreement for the communication sector was signed by the four
main federations, the CFDT, CFTC, CGC, and FO.
On 6 June 2000, the French Telecommunications employers concluded a National
Collective Agreement (Convention Nationale des Télécommunications) with the CFDT,
CFTC, GDC and FO unions. This agreement is also very important for the development
and regulation of telework in this sector.
The agreement was signed in order to:

support the economic development of this new and important sector, and its
professional development

enable the employees to benefit from the expansion of this sector following
deregulation

give them elementary social guarantees

create a framework within which company-based agreements can be concluded
and develop social relations between employers and employees
Title 3, Chapter 1, states that the trade unions may carry out activities in the sector
without let or hindrance; furthermore, the social partners agree to meet periodically, and a
national committee will be established to interpret the rules of the agreements. Chapter 2
refers to an intention to establish social dialogue at company level as well. Committees
will be elected in companies to negotiate local agreements and deal with individual
25
grievances. Rules governing elections for these committees will be fixed by the
agreement according to the size of the company. Each union delegate has 10-20 hours a
year for trade union work. Unions have free access to the companies, and can make use of
companies' communications channels.
Title 4, Chapter 1, bans discrimination of any sort against employees in the
telecommun-ications sector. Chapter 2 regulates the way that working contracts are
closed, and their content. Article 8 of Chapter 2 concerns the introduction of
tele-homeworking: it says that the relevant local committee should be informed before
telework starts, that telework is voluntary and reversible, and that any working contract
referring to telework has to detail the number of working hours, salary, the location of the
work and supply of materials.
4.2
Stable corporatist schemes in Germany and Austria. Will telework fit in?
Telework has evolved only slowly in Austria. Some big IT firms that have collective
agreements and carried out pilot projects some years ago have very few teleworkers, and
some have even reduced numbers. However, the public sector (e.g. Magistrat Wien and
Land Oberoesterreich) runs some relatively big pilot projects.
The Arbeitsverfassungsgesetz (Work constitution law, ArbVG) provides opportunities for
Works Council involvement which can also be applied to telework, but only for regular
employees with limited or unlimited contracts. It covers:

the employment of new workers and part-time employment (at least a counselling
right)

personnel planning

the transfer of employees to other positions if it is associated with a deterioration
in working conditions or wages, and the workers involved are doing telework

dismissal of employees

control systems

incentive wage schemes

changes in work organisation (e.g. right of information and counselling); if these
changes are combined with disadvantages, the Works Council can force the
employer in firms with more than 20 employees to negotiate a 'social plan' which
may (with regard to telework) include elements such as voluntary moves,
alternating telework and normal employee status
The GPA has negotiated a framework collective agreement (Rahmen-Kollektivvertrag)
for teleworking among industrial employees, and another for electricity enterprises (1
November 1998) that also deals with problems of telework (§ 19a, § 6 c for electricity
26
enterprises). The agreements cover about 160,000 workers. The number of teleworkers is
not known (perhaps 5%).
In 2000, the GPA carried out a survey in the electronic and electricity industries in an
attempt to evaluate collective agreements for teleworking in these sectors. Members of
Work Councils were asked if their company employed teleworkers or shadow
teleworkers, how many were employed, if they were covered by the collective agreement,
and if they used the pattern for a working contract (which is part of the collective
agreement). Very few enterprises have formal teleworking, and there are also very few
teleworkers (1 in 10). However, a lot of enterprises have 'shadow telework': these
'shadow' teleworkers are mostly employees in the ICT industry, and many of them have
individual agreements with their managers; they work at home especially in the morning,
in the evening or at the weekend. A new study of the health of teleworkers comes to
similar conclusions that teleworkers do a lot of unpaid overtime. Another collective
framework agreement (Rahmen-Kollektivvertrag) has also been signed by the GPS and
the oil industry: it covers 3300 employees.
In Germany, the rapidly evolving telework sector is covered by a legislative framework
that is more then 30 years old and does not really cater for new types of decentralised
work. For example, the Betriebsverfassungsgesetz (Factory Constitution Law, BetrVG)
sets out information and participation rights (in §§ 80, 87, 90, 91, 95, 96-99, 102, 106,
111 and 112) in respect of:

the introduction of new technology or new work organisation (information and
counselling rights)

the introduction of technology by which workers' efficiency or behaviour will be
potentially controlled (e.g. ICTs controlling the number of keystrokes or
protocoling when a teleworker is not working)

continuous qualification

changes in working times

the introduction of wage-systems based on piecework or other new incentive
systems

the outsourcing or introduction of telework for a greater part of the work-force (if
more than 5% were involved, that would be regarded as Betriebsaenderung and
would mean that the Works Council (Betriebsrat) would have to be consulted; as
in Austria, a 'social plan' (a compensation scheme for dismissed workers) can be
negotiated in these circumstances

the selection of workers for telework where the work content or work contract is
concerned or changed
Participation rights in Germany do not directly refer to the introduction of telework or
other new types of work organisation, but to a lot of questions such as working conditions
27
and technical control, staffing and training, staff selection, payment and technical
methods of work that could be (and usually are) affected by telework.
Similar rights are established in the public sector by federal law (BPerVG §§ 75 and 76).
In the public sector, the only regulation (Hessisches PerVG, § 81) is in the Land of Hesse:
this introduces direct participation in organisational and economical questions.
In general, employee representatives are in a strong position because of the BetrVG (or
the BPerVG). As for the introduction of direct participation for employees, it is often
requested that firmly based agreements are reached first. However, in the case of
telework, it will become more difficult for the Works Council to claim the use of certain
traditional instruments of participation and control (e.g. control of working locations
without notice, involvement in the selection of hardware and software in respect of
ergonomic matters, mass meetings, and the number of elected representatives for each
location of the enterprise according to the number of employees). This is not only because
exercising rights has become more difficult due to the changed organisational
circumstances (e.g. space, time, social contacts, and fewer employees – and therefore of
elected representatives in the central departments), but because for the employees
themselves, these questions do not come up in the day-to-day performance of their jobs
when working at home, or because they feel that Works Council control is inappropriate
in the new situation.
The new German law on 'false' or 'pseudo' self-employed of 1999 makes it more difficult
to employ (tele)workers as subcontractors of only one company, and at the same time
avoid payment of social security insurance contributions. The risk of paying back the
insurance fees is left to the employer if the (tele)worker does not meet a criterion of
genuine self-employment.
It would appear that the old German law covering cases of traditional homeworking
(HAG, Heimarbeitsgesetz, Homeworking Law) is not applied to all telework because it is
based on an assumption of self-employment and the high autonomy of teleworkers who
are not included in the employer's organisation.
The German Hans-Boeckler-Stiftung (Kamp, 2000) has collected about 70 collective
agreements (Tarifvereinbarungen) or, more often, factory contracts (Betriebs-,
Dienstvereinbarungen) on telework that have been signed by individual firms and local
Work Councils or, in the few cases of collective agreements (Tarifvereinbarungen), by
trade unions. This figure needs to be compared with more than 1000 agreements on
flexible working.
Nearly 50% of all telework agreements are local agreements in private industry, and more
than one third are local agreements in public administration; others are on an even lower
level of institutionalisation (Regelungsabsprache). There are only three collective
agreements that have been signed by trade unions, and they are only valid for one single
enterprise (DPG and Deutsche Telekom; HBV and Genossenschafts-Rechenzentrum).
Not a single agreement has been negotiated on an industrial or sectoral level with several
companies. One might infer that the three collective agreements are in fact local (i.e.
company-based) agreements as well, although they have reached a higher level of
28
institutionalisation through the official acknowledgement and active participation of the
unions. About one third of all agreements regulate pilot schemes for a limited period or
for a limited number of employees; two thirds concern the unlimited use of telework
(Kamp, 2000).
The first agreement on telework was signed in 1992; only about 90% have been signed in
1997 and since. Each year since then, there have been about 17-19 new agreements. This
shows that although there is no trend to harmonise standards or combine negotiations at
industrial or sectoral levels, interest in regulating telework at a local level seems to be
high on both sides, and will not end when the pilot schemes are completed.
4.3
Liberal regulation schemes in the Nordic countries and the Netherlands:
great concern about social and health issues
There has been a huge increase in the amount of telework carried out in Sweden and
Denmark during the last few years: in Denmark, about 13% of the workforce are in
teleworking, but most of them do so occasionally, for a few days a week or as mobile
teleworkers. These countries have become Europe's leading countries with regard to
telework, and may even have overtaken the UK. The regulation framework is not as
strong as it is in Germany or Austria, although the unions express considerable concern
about health and social issues.
In Sweden, Denmark and Finland, the systems of labour relations are quite stable, and
trade union density has even increased during the last five decades and is now the highest
in Europe (> 80%). However, this is partly due to widespread 'white-collar unionism' in
Scandinavia, and an increase in the number of competing confederations that have broken
away from manual worker unions. This not only means that individual bargaining power
plays a greater role in decentralised negotiations, but that the influence of small groups of
academics on issues like telework is growing (see Denmark's Akademikernes
Centralorganisation; Waddington et al, 1997: 473).
In Sweden and Norway, telework is often negotiated individually between the teleworker
and the head of department (e.g. SNI Sweden). In both countries, control systems are set
up to make sure that management also addresses health and safety issues from the
teleworker's point of view. Checklists developed in the LOM program in Sweden play an
important role for health and safety issues.
The situation in Denmark is quite different. This is partly because of the key role played
by the public administration as a pacemaker in telework, and as an element of a rapid
transformation strategy designed to provide citizens with ready access to the information
society, and partly because of a high degree of centralisation of negotiations. Danish
employers' associations and their counterparts have agreed to make a careful study of
experiences that attended the introduction of new organisational forms and new wage
systems. Because there are very few large firms, the associations and the government
have usually been able to agree on joint action (Bosch, Webster & Weissbach, 2000:
101). In December 1996 HK, the Danish Commercial and Clerical Employees' Union,
proposed a 16-point model agreement that dealt with:
29

definition of telework

the right to do telework on a voluntary basis

collective bargaining rights (equal rights as in ordinary workplaces)

salary (same as in ordinary workplaces)

job content

work environment (Working Environment Act) and equal rights

technical equipment and working environment; reimbursement of cost

working hours: preference for part-time telework;1 or 2 days at home and 3 or
four days at the company; no monitoring by the employer

insurance

industrial injuries (equal rights as in ordinary workplaces)

equal legal rights

training

union negotiators and safety and health representatives

privacy

sickness – equal rights

termination of the agreement
The first protocols on telework were agreed by HK/Service, HK/Handel and Dansk
Handel & Service in the course of their negotiations on 27 January 1997. It was not a
proper agreement, but rather a protocol to the general collective agreement. Nearly the
same protocol was agreed in February 1997 in talks with the Danish government. In both
cases, the partners agreed to carry out an investigation, and committed themselves to
concluding a general collective agreement on telework early in 1998.
The first real framework agreement on telework was reached in the county, municipality
and affiliated institutional sector in April 1997. The financial sector reached a framework
agreement on telework at the same time. The employers' association wanted to bring
telework in as flexible work in August 1996: HK was at that stage the leader in the field,
and many Danish trade unions asked HK how to design a framework agreement on
telework.
HK says that the Danish trade union movement won the battle about the type of
agreement on telework. HK was always argued against agreements on telework at
company level, preferring a collective framework agreement: the employers' organisation
30
was unable to halt this development. In 1997 and 1998, more framework agreements on
telework were signed, and as a result more than 1m employees in Denmark can now have
telework stipulated in their collective agreement.
The current framework agreements create a three-level structure:

the overall framework agreement signed by parties holding general authority

local agreements signed by hiring authorities or companies (employers) and the
relevant trade union organisations

individual agreements signed at the place of employment by employers and
individual employees
The agreements stipulate that telework must be voluntary. An individual agreement on
telework can only be made where the terms are agreed. This solution is unique in
Europe. The employee or employer in question can stop doing telework at any time.
Aspects concerning working hours, wages, the working environment and job security are
regulated by agreements. Costs linked to the operation, maintenance and setting
up/dismantling of equipment are the employer's responsibility.
In spring 1997, two other agreements were concluded: the agreement by the Association
of Local Government Employees' Organisations (KTO) covering local authorities and
counties (approximately 600,000 employees), and the framework agreement for the
financial sector (covering approximately 60,000 employees in banks and other
institutions). Among other issues, both agreements stress that 'telework constitutes only
part of total working hours', that the usual collective agreements apply, and that overtime
shall be notified in accordance with current regulations. The KTO agreements also
emphasise the importance of 'job security', and state that employees may return to their
previous or similar job.
Spring 1998 saw the conclusion of several more protocols on telework: in retailing and
services (between the Union of Commercial and Clerical Employees in Denmark and the
Service, Retail and Wholesale Trade), and in the industrial sector (between the Central
Organisation of Industrial Employees in Denmark and the Confederation of Danish
Industries). Both protocols also make it clear that telework falls within the scope of
collective bargaining and agreements, and that teleworkers have the same rights and
obligations as other employees.
The Ministry of Finance and the Danish Central Federation of State Employees
Organisations entered into an agreement on telework in 1998. This framework agreement,
which is a pilot scheme, runs out in March 2001: it applies to crown servants and
employees with similar status. Protocols have been agreed on the clarification work
currently being carried out in a number of other areas with a view to analysing and
discussing issues linked to telework.
The Danish Confederation of Trade Unions and HK believes that the collective
agreements prove perfectly that the collective bargaining system is flexible, and is a
31
useful tool in the development of an optimised tele-labour market. In 1997, HK focused
on equal rights, and on self-employed freelancers, especially when they work as
teleworkers (e.g. translators). In October 1997, HK decided to recruit freelancers, free
agents and self-employed workers into the union. Individual agreements must be based on
local agreements, and the parties must be the employing authority/institution and an
individual employee. Individual agreements can be terminated by the employing authority
and the employee with one month's notice to the end of a calendar month, unless
otherwise agreed. In any event, individual agreements expire in line with local
agreements.
Individual agreements provide a detailed definition of the terms of a given employee's
teleworking. The following elements comprise an individual agreement:

the name of the person the agreement concerned

name of the location where the teleworking will take place

definition of the hours that the employee is to work

definition of any times when the employee can be contacted

guidelines for the use of equipment provided by the employer

definition of any expenses, allowances or compensation for use of own equipment

starting date of the agreement

special rules governing termination of the agreement
Denmark's Working Environment Act can in principle be applied to telework; this means
that the employer is liable for the tools used on the job and for the way the work is
performed.
In the Netherlands, there is a trend to decentralise agreements, rather than completely
liberalise telework. There has also been a reduction in job security (e.g. the recent
reduction of dismissal notice by the employer), and this has become an important factor
for teleworkers. In a recent study on homeworking (including teleworking) by
FNV-Bondgenoten (van Klaveren & van der Westelaken, 2000), only five collective
agreements were found to refer to 'traditional' homeworking. FNV did not find a single
collective agreement on teleworking, although it did turn up agreements to do research on
the subject. Individual contracts are pre-dominant: in a few cases, they have been
developed in co-operation with the Works Council. The study recommended that
teleworking regulations should be based on collective agreements. Promoting collective
agreements in this area will be a challenge for trade unions for several reasons.
Teleworking is growing fast in the Netherlands, and in the researchers' opinion, the
development of collective agreements on teleworking will give the trade union a chance
to attract and support new groups such as self-employed workers (with no employees)
and freelancers.
32
An agreement between KPN (Koninklijke PTT Nederland [telephone services, data and
Internet traffic, and Internet, call centre and media services]) and the trade unions was
signed after this study was completed; the agreement will run from 1 April 2000 to 1
April 2001. Parties have agreed on a policy for Teleworking at Home with a view
collecting experiences on teleworking as a way of developing such work. The agreement
says that an employee with a permanent employment contract may ask the employer for
permission to work at home on a regular basis (on average at least one day a week) using
ICT facilities. Mutual obligations will be laid down for an additional (one-year) contract.
Ultimately, the employer will decide, on the basis of the starting points and criteria
regarding job function and employee, if teleworking is possible and desirable. A
cost-benefit analysis will be carried out to establish the consequences for the other parts
of the work process. The employer will also take care of the necessary staffing of the
office or work location, and will come to an agreement with the teleworking employee
about availability and accessibility at home, progress with the work, and ways of keeping
in touch with the company. Lastly, the employer will make arrangements for two-way
communications (e.g. staff meetings and other meetings). The agreement also says that in
order to make teleworking effective and controllable, attention must be paid to
management style, storage and security of information (data), adjustments to work, and to
other (industrial) sections and processes.
An additional annual contract containing two-way agreements will be concluded with
employees who start teleworking. The teleworking contract may be terminated at any
time by either party. The work will be evaluated periodically, for instance during an
assessment interview. A decision will be made about extending the annual contract by the
end of the contract period.
4.4
Traditional homeworking as a basis for regulating telework: the case of
Finland
The system of labour relations in Finland is quite stable. Some 81% of all employees are
union members, and the coverage rate of collective agreements is 95% (OECD, 1994).
The stability of the system suggests that teleworkers generally enjoy the same working
conditions as other workers, but individual cases are judged more carefully than in other
European countries. This is due to a long tradition of decentralised homeworking with
different regulations for many industries, and this in turn is associated with the
decentralised structure of settlements. The monitoring problem is considerable here, as it
is everywhere else, especially with regard to working hours.
A first national meeting of union representatives on telework took place in February 2000
in the SAK offices in Helsinki; the meeting was also attended by representatives from
STTK and AKAVA. Concern was expressed about working conditions, and particularly
about the working hours of young teleworkers working on the Internet. SAK has provided
the following report and an overview of the current legal situation:
Under the EU Employment Guidelines, Finland has developed a National Action Plan for
Employment for modernising work organisation and supporting adaptability in
enterprises (see European Guidelines 15-17).
33
In Finland, the legal status of a teleworker is the same as that of a homeworker. It may be
defined on the basis of existing homeworking legislation that regulates the conditions in
the traditional homeworking industry and is also applicable to telework. The Employment
Contracts Act of 1970 states that working at home or in a place chosen by the employee
does not as such exclude such work from the scope of the Act. A similar rule is valid for
tools and equipment.
Here, 'tele' means a local dimension in relation to the 'normal, stationary' workplace and
the absence of managerial prerogative: the focus of the contract is telework. The
exclusion of managerial prerogative (at the worker's own request) is based on the
individual contract of employment. On the other hand, posting abroad or elsewhere does
not affect the employment relationship because the employer is using his managerial
powers based yet again on the employment contract. Collective agreements do not
normally impose an obligation for mobile work; they merely determine specific terms
(e.g. expenses, hours and allowances) that must be applied when such work is carried out.
An obligation to perform mobile work is normally written into the contract of
employment, or is based on custom and practice in the sector or occupation concerned.
Another element dates back in history. Assistants hired by the homeworker (they are
typically family members) do not enter into an employment relationship with the
employer without his/her previous consent. This is an exception to the general rule set out
in the previous section (10). It confirms the normal rule in the relevant industry,
particularly on building sites, whereby assistants taken on by the employee shall be
deemed to enter into an employment relationship with the employer. However, under
(old) case law, the requirement of express consent has been interpreted broadly.
In 1990, a tripartite committee published a report on 'Distance working'. This concept
covered traditional homeworking and telework performed 'at a distance.' The committee
made no specific proposals for legislative amendments; instead, it established criteria that
could be used as guidelines between the parties when agreeing the terms of their
employment contract. Nor did the committee propose any substantial changes with
respect to the concept of the employment relationship, or any specific proposals for
telework. However, the statement of reasons underlying the definition of employment
relationship builds on recent case law; this is something of a return to freedom of
contract. In turn, it means that parties to the contract have some freedom as to the setting
in which the work is carried out, and extends or includes employers' prerogatives (i.e.
managerial and supervisory functions). The wishes of the parties (i.e. the subjective
element) have been given more weight than previously, but in the final analysis, an
overall assessment of all relevant circumstances is still decisive. The criterion of
subordination is relevant here: in Finnish terms, the employer must have the right to
direct and supervise his/her employee's work performance, however irrelevant that might
be, whether this right is exercised or not
The proposal reads as follows:

'This law shall be applied to a contract (i.e. the employment contract) whereby a
worker undertakes, or a team of workers jointly undertake, to perform personally
work for the employer under his/her direction and supervision in return for wages
or other remuneration.
34

'This law shall be applied even if the payment of remuneration has not been
agreed when the contract indicates that work was not intended to be performed
without remuneration.

'The mere fact that work is carried out at the employee's home or in a place of
his/her choice does not stay the application of this law.'
In practice, the most important criterion of an employment relationship is the employer's
direction and supervision of the employee. It is often unclear whether there is sufficient
direction or supervision, and whether the worker therefore is working as an employee or
as an independent person.
Under employment legislation, work at home and in comparable circumstances where the
supervision of the arrangement of the work cannot be considered to be the employer's
concern is subject to special rules, and is excluded from the scope of the following Acts:

hours of work

paid leave, where the employer is liable to pay the amount of compensation
calculated to cover an approximation of 'lost holiday pay'. Homeworkers lie
outside the scope of hours of work regulations, and only receive a financial
compensation. Collective agreements often fix a higher percentage: in those
circumstances, extraordinary holiday pay (sometimes still called 'end-of holiday
pay'), while only an agreement-based emolument of remuneration and usually
coming to 50% of statutory holiday pay, is included in the percentage

occupational health and safety, where the law usually lays down less stringent
obligations

labour inspection: the Act prohibits inspections except in special circumstances
(e.g. there is good reason to believe that health and safety regulations are being
violated, that there is imminent danger of an accident linked to the facilities used
by the employee, or that he/she has already had an accident). The employer has no
right of entry into the employee's home merely by virtue of managerial
prerogative, even for purposes that are otherwise legitimate (i.e. inspection and
supervision of occupational health and safety and the working environment). This
is how the conflict between the interests of labour inspection and the inviolability
of home, which is guaranteed by the Constitution, is resolved

special feature: the erga omnes effect of collective agreements, Employment
Contracts Act of 1970
Homeworkers, including those who do telework at home, normally benefit under
collective agreements on the same terms as workers in factories. Section 17 of the
Employment Contracts Act is applicable, hence erga omnes in respect of all employees in
the employment relationship. Collective agreements sometimes contain specific
provisions on working at home, for example exemptions from working hours provisions.
Where homeworking is not specifically excluded from the scope of a given collective
35
agreement, the regulation of working hours is subject to individual agreement, and is
normally within the limits set down in the collective agreement. In practice, working
hours are controlled by the employee and by piece-rate earnings.
Whether the teleworker acts as an Independent/self-employed person depends on issues
such as Who provides the premises, equipment, tools and materials? Does the employee
have one or more jobs simultaneously or successively? and Who bears the risk of faults in
the product or service? The border-line between employee and independent entrepreneur
(e.g. the liberal occupations and self-employed people) is drawn on the basis of specific
features of the work and occupation. The relationship of subordination is the ultimate
criterion that distinguishes the employment relationship from work performed as an
independent entrepreneur. Basically the concept of the employment relationship is
uniform not only under various labour laws, but also in tax law, although there are
important exclusions in social security legislation (e.g. the Employment Accidents
Insurance Act).
Self-employed and similarly employed people can voluntarily insure themselves and
members of their families against the same risks and under the same terms as set out in
the Act. Their annual income must be fixed in the insurance policy: this forms the basis
for calculating benefits instead of counting real average annual income. The employer can
also insure employees against risks other than those provided for by the Act, and have the
scheme protected by the Act.
The Unemployment Security Act is implemented differently, but the end result is broadly
similar. The distinction between wage earners and sole traders is explicit because the
scope of the Act was extended to cover the latter group in 1995. The dichotomy between
unemployed workers and sole traders is maintained throughout the legislation. As far as
income-related benefits are concerned, both categories are separated, they must have their
own unemployment funds, and an unemployed employee who sets up a firm or continues
his/her occupation or profession on a self employed basis loses his/her right to benefit –
and vice versa.
There are two exceptions that are relevant to telework. For sole traders, there is a
four-month threshold from the closure of the firm/activity to the beginning of the days
that are compensated. However, this threshold is not applicable to a sole trader who is
comparable to a wage earner. For comparability, the following requirements are: a)
personal work performance; b) a commission agreement between the contractor and
(normally one) employer/client under whose immediate direction and supervision the
contractor works; and c) the contractor has not had more than one employee at a time
during the year preceding registration as an unemployed job-seeker (part-time
entrepreneurship or self-employment).
As has already been pointed out, there are special laws that regulate the pension rights of
independent entrepreneurs. They are subsidiary to employees' pension acts. Section 1(2)
of the Self-Employed Person's Pension Act defines an entrepreneur as a person in gainful
occupation who is not civil servant, who is not in other forms of public service or
employment relationship, and who works for remuneration.
36
The concept of independent entrepreneur is not defined in statutory provisions, and
Supreme Administrative Court case law is the most relevant legal source, but the
dividing-line between wage-earner and independent entrepreneur is still vague: the same
person can be deemed a wage earner in some activities and self-employed in others. The
distinction in labour law serves only as a rule of thumb rule. People who do not come
under the definition of employee are regarded as self-employed. A definition of an
employee is to be found in Article 1 of the Employment Contracts Act: the most reliable
criterion is the employer's direction and supervision of the employee.
The telework relationship is not a concept that has any legal relevance as such in Finland.
Where telework is performed within an employment relationship, protection against
termination of employment applies in the same way as it does to 'normal' workers, under
both statutory regulations and collective agreements. In the case of independent
entrepreneurs, mutual agreement is necessary to terminate an agreement. Both parties can
opt for a fixed-term contract. Employment contracts in force for an unspecified period
contain clauses permitting dismissal with (or, in extreme cases, without) notice as long as
there is good reason (Employment Contracts Act). Protection against unfair dismissal is
mandatory, the employee not being able to waive his/her rights in advance.
The agreement between the client and the teleworker provides a legal footing for
regulating the conditions under which the work is performed (e.g. technical rules), but
this option is not unlimited. Contract law protects the employee from undue conditions. If
telework is done in the worker's home, the privacy of home is protected by the
Constitution.
Liability in damages is regulated by Article 51 of the Employment Contracts Act. This
provision is lex spacial in respect of the Compensation of Damages Act of 1974: the
Article referred to provides for special rules for employee and civil servant liability.
Generally speaking, it provides for reasonable compensation in lieu of strict liability;
there is no compensation for minor negligence. The same rules apply to damage caused
by an independent entrepreneur who is comparable to an employee under Chapter III
Section 1(1) of the Act. This provision refers to the permanent character of the
assignment, the quality of the work done, and other circumstances. The Committee
reviewing the Employment Contracts Act referred to above proposes a few amendments
to the rules quoted. It also extends the obligation to compensate damages to those that
arise from willful or negligent breach of obligations ensuing from the employment
relationship other than obligations arising from the employment contract and
Employment Contracts Act (see italics in paragraph 1, above). This may have some
relevance for telework, too.
4.5
Social dialogue and social pacts in many European countries, yet no visible
impact on telework
Corporatist arrangements in Sweden and Denmark lost their significance during the
1980s. In these countries, bargaining systems were decentralised and differentiated
wage-rates were introduced without the central employers' associations losing their
strategic role (Waddington et al, 1997: 475).
37
Social dialogue grew in importance and new institutions were created as a consequence in
other European countries, particularly in those with weak regulation schemes and/or no
strong corporate traditions. Tripartite social pacts were concluded In Finland (1995),
Ireland (1987), Italy (1987 and 1993), Portugal (1996), Greece (1997) and Luxembourg
with a view to making workers' more employable and enterprises more adaptable. As far
as we can see, telework does not play an important role in these pacts; they tend instead
to regulate the possibility of fixed-term work or of the introduction of new groups into the
social insurance system. The effectiveness of these pacts cannot yet really be estimated.
4.6
Deregulation and lack of union influence: the development of private
placement and support structures in the UK and Ireland
The system of collective bargaining has been more radically decentralised in the United
Kingdom than in any other European country. In addition, the UK is the only country in
the EU where we can already speak of pure 'telework careers'; to put it in another way,
many teleworkers have already had experience of teleworking in several workplaces and
in several companies. As a consequence of both these developments, many teleworkers
are more experienced at negotiating their working conditions individually than their
colleagues in mainland Europe.
When we speak of telework in the UK, we are more likely to think of nearly full-time
tele-homeworking than in other countries; in many cases, the introduction of telework is
not really reversible. This means that not every teleworker has the individual right to
re-enter normal office work. The model MSF/ITPA agreement (draft version of March
2000) refers to telework as a type of work that is done 'primarily at home'. It also says
that the employer will make 'every reasonable effort to relocate the employee to the place
of work prior to the telework agreement being undertaken'; if this is not possible, the
teleworker has to stay in a telework situation. Due to the high degree of 'normality' and
routine in telework in the UK, there are plans for a procedure to deal with the rejection of
telework by employers. Given the absence of institutional and political support for
national or sectoral level social dialogue in the UK, it is not surprising that there are no
examples of agreements at sectoral level: features of national bargaining are only still in
place in the public sector.
Only 1 in 3 agreements in the UK collected by the Euro-Telework project have been
negotiated with a union: agreements have been concluded between the CWU and British
Telecom (the first agreement on teleworking at Inverness, 20 January 1992), UNIFI and
the Co-operative Bank, and MSF and Hallmark Insurance; MSF has also affiliated to the
National Group on Homeworking. Banks and insurance companies are the focus of
existing collective agreements. We also know that private support structures for
teleworkers individually looking for telework have come on stream during the last few
years (e.g. Internet-based agencies, and Support Shop, Sussex).
In Ireland, telework is fairly widespread in the form of call centres: the regulation model
is partly guided by the German model and partly by the British conditions, but the
coverage of collective negotiations in new services is weak. The government encouraged
a social pact which led to the 'Partnership for Prosperity and Fairness' between the social
partners (8 May 2000): Clause 21, Framework 4 of this pact makes provision for the
38
development of the Irish economy as a 'telework friendly' location; this includes
endorsement by the social partners and the introduction of telework into the public
services by the government.
4.7
The weakness of collective bargaining and legislation in Spain, Portugal,
Greece, Belgium and Luxembourg
The collective influence of IR institutions In Belgium is deeply embedded in society, as it
is in Luxembourg. There is no effective governmental policy for the encouragement of
telework in Belgium, excepted for long-standing projects (with no significant success) of
telework for civil servants. However, a recent law on homeworking dated 6 December
1996, which includes home-based telework but is not specific to it, sets out a minimum
framework of obligations of employers. As it only applies to (tele-)homeworking as a
principal and full-time activity regulated in a contractual way, it does not affect the
majority of telework situations (e.g. informal or part-time telework without a formal
change of contract). The law demands a written contract between employer and
employee, and says that the employer has to provide the equipment (see French text of
the law on www.ospract.org/download/loi-travaildomicile-be.doc).
A national collective agreement (CCT 39, 1984) obliges the employer to inform the
Works Council when new technology is to be introduced, and before any decision is
taken. One of the conditions of the agreement is that 'a significant proportion of workers'
(at least 10% of the concerned category) must be affected by the new technology.
However, as telework always concerns small groups of workers doing specific tasks, the
agreement is really not relevant to them (see French text of the agreement on
www.ospract.org/download/cct39fr-be.htm). Recent telework agreements in the IT
industry have derived from discussions on Works Councils in which employers and
employees' representatives have agreed that individual teleworking arrangements are
allowed within a defined framework.
There are no particular laws to regulate telework in Spain, Portugal and Greece. The
social partners get no political support for a national or sectoral level social dialogue, and
the influence of unions at the workplace is weakly institutionalised; moreover, the system
of collective bargaining that grew up in the 1980s does not even cover all traditional
industries. The situation seems rather to be more similar to what happens in the UK than
in France.
The Secretaría Confederal de Acción Sindical de CC.OO (Workers' Commissions
Confederal Secretariat for Trade Union Action) report on implementing the law
regulating telework in Spain says that there are no Spanish legal definitions of 'telework'
or 'teleworker', and no collective agreements that regulate them. References to telework
references appear in the collective agreements of only two companies, but there happens
to be one on telemarketing. This agreement, which was signed in 1998, applies
throughout the country and regulates industrial relations in companies whose activities
include telemarketing for other companies; call centres are naturally included. There is no
telework in the public sector yet, but according to a document approved by the Cabinet in
February 2000 (White Paper to improve the Public Services), telework will be considered
(experimentally at first) to be the best tool for improving services because of its flexibility
39
and mobility. There are a number of other pilot projects: most are supported by European
funding, but some have public or private contributions. Most projects are telecentres or
telecottages seeking to expand self-employment.
The legal status of teleworkers is defined in the Estatuto de los trabajadores (ET –
Workers' Statute Act) as a worker who may be an employee or self-employed. The
definition of employee is to be found in Article 1.1 of the ET: 'a person who voluntarily
provides his salaried services for another person, the employer, under the direction and
organisation of the latter'. Subordination is necessary for the employee to have an
employment relationship, and therefore a contract of employment, whether it is written or
not. If the teleworker works in subordination to the employer, he/she will be deemed to be
an employee, and his/her relationship will be regulated by Labour Law (mainly the ET
and collective agreements). Homeworking has long been regulated by the law and, in
spite of its peculiarities, the ET does not see it as a special labour relationship.
A definition of homeworking may be found in Article 13: 'Work done by the worker at
his/her own home or at any other place freely chosen by him/her, without the direct
supervision of his/her employer.' It also contains special rules covering terms and
conditions of employment: the contract of employment must be in writing; a copy of the
contract must be registered in the Public Employment Office; there is a duty on the
employer to give the worker a statement containing several particulars including the
worker's name, the type and amount of contracted work, the raw materials delivered, rates
of pay, conditions of delivered work, and any other details that both parties agree to. The
contract must also state where the work is to be performed so that health and safety issues
can be monitored. Homeworkers have the same rights of collective representation in the
enterprise as other employees (i.e. full application of rules relating to shop stewards and
Works Councils as set out in the ET). In some cases, teleworkers resemble homeworkers,
but other times they work with technical elements that directly link them to the employer,
so that the latter has, or can have, control over what work is done and when; alternatively,
teleworkers work in different places by means of mobile ICTs ('nomadic telework').
At all events, teleworkers are employees when they provide work in a subordinate role,
and when a full employment relationship exists; however, if they are self-employed, the
relationship is governed by the Civil or Commercial Code, and not by employment
legislation. In this context, it is important to point out that there has recently been an
increase in self-employment among teleworkers. These people work as employees but, by
using ICT facilities, the employer compelled them to change their labour status from
employee to self-employed using telework strategies. The result is deregulation of labour
market. Other employees (usually sales staff) have gradually become teleworkers with the
same contracts except for a revised relationship between employee and employer. Many
collective aspects have been excluded as a result.
The definition of homeworking therefore needs to be modified to include all types of
telework or distant work, and particularly to guarantee voluntarism and equal treatment.
Such definitions avoid the development of 'false self-employed' workers.
Collective agreements are naturally a very useful way of regulating specific matters
relating to telework in every situation. There is nothing about teleworkers as people with
an employee-like status in Spanish legislation, although the Disposición Final Primera
40
(First Final Disposition) of the ET states that, 'work done by self-employed workers shall
not be covered by labour law, with the exception of those aspects referred to by the law.'
If an employer wants to recruit somebody as a teleworker, he/she follows the normal rules
governing employment contracts, and no special problems arise. This is not the case when
an employee working in a company office transfers to being a teleworker (or vice-versa).
There are two possible scenarios. The first is when employer and employee agree on this
amendment to the contract of employment: this poses no problem because labour law
allows any change in the contract of employment by mutual consent as long as the new
conditions comply with the law and collectively agreed rules. It is therefore necessary to
back up the worker's voluntary situation with legal rules or collective agreements (e.g.
covering maternity or part-time working) in order to guarantee its authenticity.
The second situation, a unilateral decision by the employer to impose telework, is less
clear. It may imply a breach of employment law (see Article 95(5) of the ET). Article 41
of the ET also regulates key changes in conditions of employment such as working time,
shift work, the measurement of work completed, pay, and the type of work that needs to
be performed. To propose such modifications, the employer has to prove good reason
based on economic, technical, organisational or production circumstances. Changes may
be individual or collective:

individual: such changes concern individual workers: the employer has to inform
the worker and his/her representative 30 days before the change takes effect; while
the worker may revoke the contract and receive severance pay, or even take the
matter to court

collective: if working conditions of a collective agreement are modified; the law
provides for a special procedure with a consultation period between employer and
employee representatives in the work place
However, Article 33 of the Ley de Prevención de Riesgos Laborales (LPRL –
Employment Hazard Prevention Law) states that it is the duty of employer to consult in
good time over decisions concerning the organisation of work and the introduction of new
technologies regarding workers' health and security.
Access to the place where the work is carried out is a problem if the work is done at
home. In these circumstances, both rights have to be reconciled: it is necessary to draw up
a protocol that observes both rights, and harmonises Labour Inspection with the presence
of representatives and, of course, the owner's consent.
The teleworker as an employee comes under labour law. In the event of liability for
damages, this liability refers to the sanction the employer may impose on the worker for
breach of contract, and depending on the degree of misdemeanour and sanction as set out
in labour law or in the relevant collective agreement.
The sanction is communicated to the worker in writing, and also to the worker's
representatives if it is serious. It is not possible to impose sanctions relating to the
41
reduction of holidays, rest periods or salary penalties (Articles 58-60 of the ET); damage
to any materials belonging to the company, even if caused by others such as workers or
their relatives, has to be paid for by the employer.
There is still very little telework in Greece and Portugal. Collective agreement coverage
is generally increasing in Portugal, and trade unions exert minor influence in workplaces,
but information and agreements are non-existent. Telework is not therefore high on the
labour relations agenda in Greece.
INE/GSEE-ADEDY provides the following picture of social dialogue in Greece: Any
discussion regarding social dialogue with respect to the issue of teleworking must be seen
in the broader framework of the development of the institution of social dialogue. Unlike
other countries of the EU, such as France and Germany, Greece has little experience of
social dialogue; the country also displays a number of unique features. The level of
development of social dialogue is to a large degree intertwined with the corresponding
level of mentality and culture of dialogue that is cultivated in all countries between the
social bodies and the state (Spyropoulos, 1997). In this framework, the stifling control of
economic and social policy by the state together with strong state interventionism in the
field of labour relations, in parallel with the traditional climate of confrontation between
the employers and the unions have resulted in the idea of social dialogue, effective
negotiation, and the mentality of participation both on the national and on the enterprise
levels failing to develop (Kravaritou-Manitaki, 1986). In recent years, however, and
particularly since the early 1990s, there have been efforts to develop social dialogue for
the purpose of seeking consensual procedures and solutions to questions of economic and
social policy. A substantial contribution to this process has been made by a general
acceptance of the need for Greece to join EMU and achieve the goals of convergence.
One important step towards the development of social dialogue in Greece has been the
setting up of the Economic and Social Committee (ESC) under Law 2218/1994, but it has
not been utilised to the required degree through the adoption in practice of its unanimous
resolutions. The first real experience of social dialogue in Greece came in 1997 in the
framework of tripartite social dialogue on the threefold issue of
'Development-Competition-Employment'. This was the first time social dialogue with
tripartite participation had been introduced in Greece. From that standpoint, the need for
and the efforts of the parties involved to put forward documentary argumentation on basic
issues of concern to Greek society is undoubtedly a positive point. Nevertheless, the 'Pact
of Confidence between Government and the Social Partners on the Way to the Year
2000', which was signed in November 1997 and constitutes the main outcome of this
dialogue, has not produced anticipated results. This has been mainly due to strong
opposition, and to the fact that the parties have not changed their views. The fact that
teleworking is not high on the labour relations agenda in this country explains the absence
of social dialogue from the teleworking issue.
The regulation of teleworkers' terms and conditions of employment is included in the new
industrial relations bill passed by Greek Parliament on 7 August 1998, and published as
Law 2639/98 in the Government Gazette on 2 September 1998. In particular, the new law
on 'Regulation of Industrial Relations, Formation of a Labour Inspection Body and other
provisions' stipulates that no dependent labour relation is involved in agreements between
employers and workers involving provision of services or work, including payment per
42
unit of telework, as long as such agreements are in writing and are communicated within
15 days to the competent Labour Inspectorate. Otherwise, for legal purposes the labour
relation is assumed to be a dependent one, and the teleworker is considered to be a
full-time contractual employee.
It is also stipulated that nine months after publication of the law, enterprises are obliged
to submit to Labour Inspectorates a complete list of the teleworkers they employ.
However, it should be noted that although teleworking comes within the regulatory
framework for all atypical forms of employment (outwork, teleworking and
homeworking), it is not defined or broken down into individual types. This means that
teleworking is not a legal category apart from the traditional forms of provision of
services, with all that that entails for regulation of the terms and conditions of work for
teleworkers. In this framework, both employers' organisations and trade unions have
pointed to the need for a broader legislative framework that will also regulate other issues
related to informal forms of employment including teleworking, such as social insurance
and working conditions. However, on a long-term basis, it has become necessary to
define the concept of teleworking in order to create the correct specific framework for its
regulation.
4.8
Cross-border issues
Telework sub-contracted abroad introduces a new dimension into the international
division of labour; it is something about which very little is known (see Status report on
European Telework, 1998, and Transborder teleworking: Towards the formulation of an
international agenda, 2000). It is clear that traditional physical notions used to determine
the law like 'habitual place of work' or 'the place where the obligation is to be performed'
may not work for cross-border work. The ILO and the World Trade Organisation have
started to discuss aspects of cross-border telework, and still without sizeable results,
although it seems that cross-border telework is spreading quickly into countries such as
the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary, and tele-homeworkers are estimated to account
for 5–6% of the total workforce of Slovenia. Labour legislation in these countries does
not cover telework or homeworking, and the self-employed fall outside the scope of trade
unions. Existing labour legislation tends to encourage the use of subcontractors due to the
high costs of direct employment.
However, the ILO and the European Foundation say that cross-border telework can create
employment and open up new opportunities. In the case of Hungary and even Russia,
Lithuania, the Ukraine and Romania, highly skilled unemployed people often undertake
cross-border telework before entering the international labour market. This step is often
done by ICT and research staff in enterprises and in universities. We can observe
increasing competition by multinational companies for Middle Eastern and European
Teleworkers not only from the EC but also from other parts of the world including the
USA and Canada. What makes the situation complicated is that the regions preferred for
cross-border telework are continuously changing. In the UK, the whole Commonwealth is
potentially a pool of cross-border teleworkers.
Cross-border work within the EU is covered by Regulation 1408/71: Article 13 states that
the law of one member state may be applied, but that it does not cover third-country
43
workers. If a teleworker is working under a contract of employment as an assimilated or
self-employed worker, he/she is comes within the scope of this Regulation: this means
that the employer is responsible for employers' contributions. As employees are covered
under the system of the state where the employer lives, this is not very practical for the
employee. If work is transferred to workers outside the EU, Regulation 1408 does not
apply, and this increases the problem of social security payments.
The ETUC and the ILO are continually dealing with the problem of cross-border
telework. The Convention concerning homeworking proposed by the ILO wants
homeworking employees to be given equal treatment with other employees in the
enterprise. At the moment, we know nothing about the involvement of the 500 or so
existing European Works Councils in negotiations on cross-border telework. They have
been established predominantly in manufacturing, and are therefore less important for
teleworkers in services.
44
5.
AIMS AND ISSUES OF COLLECTIVE AGREEMENTS
The aims and issues of the introduction of telework and the content of collective
agreements are of course dependent on many factors:

conditions protected by law need not be negotiated at industrial or company level

cultural conditions leave traces behind in national bargaining systems (e.g.
attitudes towards issues like technology, managerial control and time
management)

the position of actors (e.g. big or small unions, male or female teleworkers) has a
certain influence on agreements

the spread of telework is an important factor for bargaining systems, and for the
aims and issues of collective agreements
Many collective agreements state that highly qualified, and often male, staff will not only
be primarily recruited for telework, but will also exert a strong influence on negotiations.
Little thought is given to the questions of child care and family support; even less
consideration is given to ecological questions such as traffic reduction (an exception is
the City of Rome, but nothing has yet come of it).
5.1
Aims of introducing telework
In many countries, mainly Germany and Austria, establishing the aim of introducing
telework has been a formal element of collective agreements. Other aims include cost
reduction (e.g. by desk-sharing), better quality of work, flexibility of the organisation and
of working hours, and better motivation of employees. In Germany, work flexibility
(mainly flexible working hours) is very often seen as the main reason for introducing
telework. Employee benefits include improving the family situation, and a reduction in
commuting. Framework agreements and pilot projects in the Danish, French, and Italian
public sectors claim that they are elements of a strategy for introducing the information
society, and aim to increase telework and improve the quality of public services. British
collective agreements sometimes say that they hope to introduce more flexible time
schemes in the service sector.
5.2
Work spaces and the workplace
Many German contracts cover the conditions of the telework site and the workplace in
concrete terms. There is usually a requirement that the room should be appropriate to the
type of work and technical resources, and that the workplace should meet ergonomic and
safety standards. Employees often have to receive training in health and safety
regulations, and the workplace may be visited by the employer before telework
commences. German Works Councils may also have the right to check the workplace
first.
45
The France Telecom contract is very precise with regard to workspace and equipment:
facilities must include a safe container for documents from the employer. In Italy, health
and safety managers in companies have the right to inspect the workplace before telework
commences under agreements reached in 1997 between Confcommercio and three trade
unions, although visits by company representatives to the workplace have to be notified
in advance. Such clauses are not to be found as far as we know In UK agreements, with
the exception of the Co-operative Bank/ MSF/ITPA model agreement (draft dated March
2000) under which the workplace is inspected by health and safety staff.
5.3
Starting and finishing telework
Most German agreements are based on the assumption that telework is voluntary, and
sometimes temporary. The initiative to start telework may come from either side: in some
cases, only management is allowed to take the initiative on telework, but in most cases
the head of department of the teleworker-to-be and the personnel department decide about
individual access. Normally, teleworkers are selected by management. In some cases, the
Works Council's view has to be taken into account (Germany), but normally telework can
easily be terminated by either party under a contract that has to be signed up to three
months in advance; in some cases, the employer may terminate the telework contract
without listening to the employee. Only one contract states that teleworkers have the right
to a trial period on telework, and go straight back to their previous jobs after six months;
in another contract, the decision to do telework has to be renewed once a year.
In the UK, the MSF/ITPA draft agreement includes a three-month trial period and a
three-month period of notice to end telework. The Co-operative Bank/BIFU agreement
says that teleworkers may request alternative working arrangements an any time, and that
line managers have to discuss this request with the teleworker within 10 days, and that
they must agree within 20 days whether the job can be transferred or not; the bank may
also stop their staff teleworking under the notice period arrangements.
The France Telecom agreement also has a three-month trial period, and either party may
terminate the contract thereafter. Danish framework agreements negotiated by the HK
also include a three-month notice period to end telework. In the only agreement in the
Netherlands and in some recent German agreements, individual telework contracts have
to be renewed after a period of one year.
5.4
Status of employees and individual amendments to the working contract
It is usually stated that all other elements of the employment contract or the legal
framework may not be affected by telework (e.g. Germany and Finland). Individual
amendments to the collective agreement are necessary in many cases (e.g. to contracts
concerning stand-by activities by ICT service staff). The same situation obtains in Italy
and Austria (Austrian Oil Industry). In Belgium, individual agreements on telework are
made within the framework negotiated on the Works Council at enterprise level. In
Sweden, Norway, Finland and the Netherlands, there are many more individual contracts
than collective agreements. A written agreement is usually necessary to start telework in
the UK. Only in Denmark, and within the scope of the commerce and service union (HK)
46
and in the public services, may an individual telework contract be signed if a framework
contract exists.
5.5
Organisation and type of telework
Italian agreements tend to be rather general and inclusive with regard to typologies of
remote work: they often refer to any type of telework, or even to mobile work or call
centre work. What prompts the need for a collective agreement in Italy seems to be work
that involves technical devices and new opportunities for technical control.
Danish agreements (signed by HK) and many German agreements refer to alternating
telework as a normal and 'socially desirable' form of telework that improves the family
situation and allows the teleworker to maintain contact with the enterprise (see the
Allianz Insurance agreement). Recent studies suggesting that teleworkers with alternating
work schemes spend more time on their work than tele-homeworkers have yet to be
published. Working at home for one day per week is often the criterion for being defined
as a teleworker. Agreements do not say much, however, about the integration of
teleworkers into the company's day-to-day operations. It is the accepted right of
management to make basic decisions regarding most organisational questions without
involving the workforce. France Telecom, too, describes alternating telework as the norm.
By contract, British agreements (e.g. British Gas/Service Joint Committee, British
Telecom/UCW and the MSF/ITPA draft agreement [which explicitly refers to telework
'primarily' done at home]) mostly refer to tele-homeworking or home-based work. This
means that teleworkers who are only at home for one or two working days a week are not
covered by collective agreements. It also means that the workplace at home is the normal
workplace; if that changes because the teleworker moves house, the employer assesses
the suitability of the new home workplace and has to agree to the homeworking
continuing, and may make relocation arrangements (see the Co-operative Bank/BIFU
agreement).
5.6
Qualifications and preparation for telework
This chapter remains a 'black hole' in most German contracts although, under the BetrVG,
the Works Council has a general right to be involved in all questions of (continuous)
training. Rules referring to qualifications in the collective agreements are very rare and, if
they exist at all, are rather 'weak'. The situation in most other European countries is
similar. There is little evidence of a general trend in the regulation of access to training,
only trade unions concerning themselves with his: In Finland, unions support the
development of tele-learning materials for teleworkers, and the Swedish TCO Union
model explicitly refers to the need for teleworkers' 'competence and career development'.
Two contracts deserve special attention because of particular regulations that they
contain. The France Telecom teleworkers' contract says that the three-month trial period
should be used as an 'adaptation' period, and that teleworkers must be given support. The
BT contract includes a clause establishing the possibility of career progression; it states
that teleworkers, 'will receive details of job opportunities, general notices etc. and may
47
apply and be considered for posts on an equal basis with those who are not teleworking.
... Should it be necessary, an appointment to a post can be delayed until completion of the
experiment so that the teleworker will not forego that opportunity'.
5.7
Working time
In Germany, changes to generally agreed working times are referred to in the
Mitbestimmung (BetrVG; e.g. § 87: Abs.1,3). Overtime (and payment for overtime, night
and weekend work) is explicitly excluded by most telework contracts; in some cases, it is
expressly banned on Sundays. The German Telekom/DPG Agreement makes a
complicated distinction between those working hours that can be determined by the
employer, and those are determined by the teleworker: the latter proportion should be as
high as possible. Overtime work has to be agreed beforehand: under the Raiffeisen
agreement, all orders sent to teleworkers after 4.30 p.m. triggers an overtime payment,
and they must be available by the phone during core hours.
The oil industry agreement in Austria states that the distribution of working hours must
be set out in writing, although the number of hours is regulated by general agreements
and the law. Italian agreements often make provisions for the online availability of
teleworkers and for 'continuity of services'. In Sweden, working time workers' availability
to supervisors have to be negotiated with them individually, and within the framework of
normal restrictions under the Working Hours Act. The France Telecom teleworkers'
contract says that working hours must be precisely established before telework
commences, and that separate arrangements have to be made for work in the office and
work at home.
5.8
Control
Austrian and German agreements seldom refer to matters of control: this may be due to a
relatively strong system of representation by which those matters are regulated
collectively and decisively for the whole company. Agreements either explicitly or (more
often) implicitly state that the existing methods of controlling working hours are also used
for teleworking. Technical methods of control are subordinate to the German
participation law (BetrVG), but not in the case of telework. Companies still introducing
telework often hesitate to use technical methods to control teleworkers' working hours,
efficiency or behaviour: this means that teleworkers have to monitor their own working
hours by means of a diary or something similar.
The employer's control of the telephone and expenses is included in some contracts (e.g.
detemobil). The employer has the right to see the home workplace for health and safety
reasons and for any other reason after giving the employee notice. In Italy where interest
in aspects of technical control is high, methods of technical control play an important role
in agreements, although we have the impression that (local) collective agreements also
tend somewhat to re-introduce technical control where it is illegal. Control by technical
means is not allowed by the basic law (Law 300/70, the 'Workers' Rights Statute'), but
conclusions drawn from information provided by technical means must be transparent for
48
teleworkers (Confcommercio 1997 and other agreements). The French Telecom contract
says that no technical control shall be allowed without the teleworker's knowledge.
5.9
Participation of teleworkers in the company's communication system
Provisions for facilitating contact with teleworkers are not particularly strong in UK
agreements. Normally, communications between teleworkers and the company are
reduced to a minimum: an exception is the Co-operative Bank where the manager has to
ensure daily contact between the teleworker and the office team, in addition to regular
team meetings. The MSF/ITPA draft model agreement demands regular weekly contacts
between teleworkers, managers and team colleagues; the cost of travelling to the
company is reimbursed.
There are three cases in Germany of special assemblies being introduced for company
teleworkers (e.g. once a year in a public service department); only in six cases is it
explicitly stated that teleworkers should attend company staff meetings. Under Austrian
agreements, teleworkers have the right to suggest dates for meetings in the office
depending on their commitments. In Denmark, particularly in the public services where
teleworking is still quite new, it is recommended that local agreements should include an
assessment of the experiment: this can be used to define the expectations of the parties
involved and criteria for measuring them.
5.10
Special provisions for women
It is very rarely said that telework has been established to help women or men with their
childcare arrangements or educational activities (although see the Allianz Insurance
agreement). Indeed, the gender dimension seems to be totally ignored in the context of
telework, with no particular provisions being made to ensure that women teleworkers
bringing up families will not be disadvantaged in skills development. Maybe that this is
due to the fact that many collective agreements cover highly skilled groups with a large
number of male employees. Only the Danish social partners expressly give parental leave
and equal pay a degree of priority in collective agreements. In Italy, some agreements
(e.g. Zanussi and Tecnopolis) and pilot projects (the Regions of Lombardy and
Emilia-Romagna, and the Province of Perugia) deal with this matter. We have found no
references in any other countries.
5.11
Special provisions for people with disabilities
In Germany, the likelihood of integrating people with disabilities into telework schemes
is purely theoretical, and the matter is not regulated in a concrete way. Exceptionally, one
agreement says that the type of work has to be appropriate, and external funds have to be
used to adapt workplaces. In no other European country have we found collective
agreements that include telework for disabled people. Paradoxically, measures to recruit
disabled people are usually made under employment initiatives (e.g. Telehaus Wetter,
Germany) or by private support structures (e.g. in the UK) for teleworkers who also try to
employ disabled persons.
49
5.12
Cost
In most countries the employer pays for teleworkers' equipment; only in Italy do some
agreements make no mention of this issue at all. A great variety of reimbursement
schemes for additional costs can be found in Germany (between 40 and 900 DM a month,
although in most cases a fixed amount), and reimbursement is also common in Austria
(e.g. AS 220 at Philips). Big companies tend to pay less than small companies employing
highly skilled staff as teleworkers: in some cases, only telephone calls are paid for in
addition to the cost of the initial equipment (e.g. KPN Netherlands).
Travelling costs to the company's office are not reimbursed in Germany, but in the UK,
where full-time tele-homeworking is standard, these travelling costs are paid (e.g.
MSF/ITPA). Sometimes, variable costs like telephone bills are calculated individually or
the company pays for a second line (e.g. KPN Netherlands): in the UK, British Gas and
the Co-operative Bank pay their teleworkers a workspace allowance of £140-300 a year.
In Italian agreements, often only telephone fees are reimbursed. The Confcommercio
agreement and others state that technical problems or interruptions of the line shall not
disadvantage the teleworker, and that the cost of this time must be borne by the employer.
The Danish framework agreements include allowances to be fixed by individual
agreements between the employing authority and the employee. The scope of any
expenses that cannot be accurately defined is estimated, and the parties must agree that
the employing authority does not pay out for insignificant expenses.
5.13
Responsibilities and duties of teleworkers
Teleworkers in Germany sometimes have to be available for customer or service calls at
certain times; these clauses are usually negotiated on an individual basis. Teleworkers
also have to protect the company's data carefully and monitor the behaviour of other
people living in the household; equipment and data are usually insured against loss and
damage. Some contracts define a worker's share depending on their contribution to loss
and damage.
In Italy, teleworkers' availability is often determined in general terms by the teleworkers
themselves (Confcommercio, 1997), but under the TCO model in Sweden, accessibility
and absence (e.g. in case of illness) have to be agreed and reported in the normal way.
Under a UK agreement, teleworkers have to organise appropriate childcare during
working hours. The detemobil and Deutsche Telekom agreements say that telework
equipment must not be used for private purposes: the employer can restrict the use of the
ISDN phone by technical means and can control connections.
5.14
Access of Works Council representatives to the workplace
At least three agreements in Germany refer to right of access. Electronic access to
teleworkers is specified in only one contract (DPG/Telekom): here, the Works Council
also has the right to control the teleworker's work diary. In other cases, representatives
may visit teleworkers at home on request. The Oil Industry agreement in Austria permits
50
the Works Council to use electronic means to communicate with teleworkers, and claim
teleworkers' care costs back from the employer. In the Co-operative Bank (UK), union
representatives may visit teleworkers' homes to assess health and safety risks.
5.15
Information and participation rights of representatives and co-management
Under about 40% of agreements in Germany, the Works Council has established
information rights concerning telework; these mainly refer to an information right
guaranteed by law (§§ 90: 1,3; 91; 99; 102; 106: 3,5; 111: 5 BetrVG). The fact that these
self-evident rights are mentioned at all implies a degree of uncertainty about
representatives' rights, but it may also be seen as a reflection of the high-trust culture to
be found in many German companies and in the public service (Kamp, 39). It is unusual
in Germany for employee representatives to be specifically referred to as members of
steering committees: representatives have more rights than established by law in about 15
cases.
5.16
Dispute resolution
The MSF draft agreement in the UK states that when an application for telework is turned
down, the applicant may complain against the management decision; it then has to be
dealt with in a formal, transparent way. There is only one case in Germany where a
special panel has been set up to resolve disputes. The Works Council is mentioned in only
2 of about 70 collective agreements as an institution for the resolution of disputes.
5.17
Direct participation by teleworkers
The Italian Intersind agreement with four telecom companies has established a
commission (Article 7) to overview the telework situation: it directly involves
teleworkers, their managers and (uniquely) their families 'if possible'. German
teleworkers are often expressly involved in negotiations with management to plan the
distribution of the working hours between work at home and work at the company; in one
case, they alone are responsible for distributing working times. Teleworkers mainly have
the right to give regular feedback to the employer and to Works Council representatives
in the public services. Belgian teleworkers are often de facto excluded from Works
Council negotiations because at least 10% of employees have to be concerned by any
changes.
5.18
Trade union rights
Under the HK framework agreement in Denmark, trade union representatives or shop
stewards are given time deemed necessary to carry out their duties, but they must have a
reasonable amount of contact with staff who have elected them. The Confcommercio
agreements in Italy allow union representatives to send messages to the teleworkers via
the company's normal communication channels. Union rights are only mentioned in the
three collective agreements between companies and unions in Germany; they cannot be
exercised by local contract partners. Only in the case of Deutsche Telekom/DPG may the
51
union play an active role in shaping working conditions; here, too, electronic access to
workers is subject to detailed regulation. The DeTeMobil and Deutsche Telekom
agreements contain a clause whereby the DPG meets with the company every three
months during the pilot phase.
5.19 Health and safety
Matters of occupational health and safety are not covered by collective agreements, but
by laws that do not deal specifically deal with teleworkers' issues (e.g. VDUs.). In
Sweden and Norway, however, control and checklist systems (e.g. the list developed
under the Swedish LOM programme) have been established to ensure that management
deals with teleworkers' health and safety issues correctly, and that the design of the
workplace and equipment meets the requirements of a safe work environment (e.g. the
TCO model in Sweden). Problems of stress and dislike are not mentioned in any
agreement. In the UK, the MSF draft agreement and other agreements state that the
workplace may be visited by company health and safety officials.
5.20
The impact on other agreements
It is symptomatic of the status of telework that many regulations have an influence on
telework, but that telework agreements usually have no impact on existing law. The
standard clause to be found in German contracts is that all other legal, pay and collective
regulations for employees are valid also for teleworkers; working time regulations in
particular have to be complied with. Only one document (Mantel-Haustarifvertrag
HBV/Genossenschaftsrechenzentrum) says that some aspects of the general collective
agreement do not apply to teleworkers. In the Nordic countries, reference is often made to
'normal' labour law applying to teleworkers.
52
6.
SECTORS COVERED BY TELEWORK AGREEMENTS
There are very few telework agreements in traditional manufacturing industries; the
Austrian oil industry is an exception. Most regulations have developed in the IT and
telecommunication sectors (mostly in large companies, and mainly in Italy, Germany and
Austria); they are followed by services, banking and insurance (mainly the UK and
Germany) and the public sector. However, collective bargaining coverage tends to be
lower where employment growth is likely to be strongest (Waddington et al, 1997: 478),
so current attempts to regulate telework collectively are the result of two conflicting
trends:

the need to regulate problems with new types of work in new industries

the trend to regulate fewer matters collectively in these new industries
6.1
The public sector
It is clear from the large number of contracts in the German public sector that
participation is more developed there than in the private sector, although the number of
teleworkers in the public sector is much smaller than in private industry. Pilot actors
include local authorities (e.g. Hamburg) and public ICT companies (e.g. GDA Münster);
public banks will follow in due course. Telework in the public sector in Italy is
developing rather slowly, although big local authorities have set up their own pilot
projects: as previously stated, there is a basic law for public offices, and a general
framework agreement has been signed. As far as we can see, the introduction of telework
in the City of Rome has been a failure despite the existence of a collective agreement; the
local authority in Naples is still experimenting. Official telework (not 'shadow telework')
is more widespread in the public sector than in the private sector in both Belgium and
Austria. Irish and Danish local authorities are also trying to introduce telework into the
public sector.
6.2
The private sector
Although many teleworkers work in the ICT field (which in IR terms is often covered by
employers' associations and unions in the mechanical and electrical engineering industry),
there are very few agreements. Collective and enterprise-level agreements in this sector
are only reached in Italy and France. Very few ICT companies in Germany are covered
by agreements: this may have something to do with the fact that the dominant engineering
union in that country organises many more 'blue collar' than 'white collar' workers, except
in the case of Deutsche Telekom. Moreover, there are very few, if any, few union
members in smaller ICT-related companies in this sector. The number of teleworkers in
commercial services is not as high in Germany as it is, for example, in the UK. This is
due to the stability of the traditional local branch system, which has only recently come
under pressure from direct banking. During the time of unification, however, banking and
insurance companies could only service new markets in eastern Germany by appealing to
female staff who were still bringing up families and offer them telework jobs. There are
therefore company agreements in the insurance sector (e.g. Allianz and
Wuerttembergische) and (less frequently) in banking (e.g. Baeyrische Hypo).
53
The ICT industry is a focus of collective agreements in Austria, as it is in Italy. In
Denmark and other Nordic countries, telework (in the form of alternating telework due to
the decentralised settlement structure) is widespread in nearly all industries, but mainly in
commerce, services and the public sector. In Italy, there is one important industrial
agreement between the unions and some major ICT enterprises in engineering (e.g.
Saritel/Cgil, Cisl, Uil, 1994), in telecommunications and in the commercial sector.
Industrial or sectoral agreements in Italy were followed by similar agreements between
unions and companies, or by agreements between union joint representative bodies inside
a company and the company itself. Agreements of this sort were negotiated in many
enterprises in the telecommunications industry between 1994 and 1996; it is normal for
all unions representing the employees of a company to take part in those negotiations and
to sign the contract. In the UK, regulations on telework mainly cover the banking and
insurance sector, where MSF is a major partner in collective agreements.
Big multinational and national enterprises in the ICT sector (e.g. Siemens and IBM) tend
to regulate telework by collective agreements adapted to national and local conditions
with local representatives, but not at the level of the company as a whole. The outcomes
of these negotiations vary from site to site and from country to country, and depend on
national conditions and employees' bargaining power employees. Sometimes, local
solutions are more advantageous for employees than the results of collective bargaining at
a high institutional level (e.g. SNI Paderborn and SNI Sweden). Exceptions include
former national monopoly telecommunications companies as Deutsche Telekom and
Telecom Italia, which tend to develop nationwide solutions. Many big multinational
companies and companies with important international activities outside the EU prefer
local agreements, and still hesitate to extend the scope of their closely limited pilot
schemes (e.g. Lufthansa).
Our study shows that wherever a single union covers a branch or many branches or big
companies (e.g. GPA in the ICT sector in Austria, DPG at Deutsche Post AG, and MSF
in the UK), it is easier to reach collective agreements than when many unions cover parts
of the sector, or even compete within companies (e.g. DAG, HBV and IG Metall in the
German IT industry, and HBV, DAG and ÖTV in the German banking sector).
54
7.
OPEN QUESTIONS AND NEGLECTED PROBLEMS
There appear to be important gaps in most collective agreements. In general, aims as
postulated in Die soziale und arbeitsmarktspezifische Dimension der Telearbeit (1997)
are not elements of collective agreements, although there are some exceptions in the
public services. That means that issues like access to telework infrastructures, social
cohesion, the development of high standards of services, integration of disabled people,
career development for women, job creation, urban development, traffic flow and the
management of structural change are outside the scope of most agreements, and are
therefore left to government action. Even training is ignored by many contracts. Problems
of stress and often the monitoring of shift systems and working hours seem to be
neglected by telework research, and also by collective agreements even if the legislation
is sufficient, as it is, for example, in Finland. Only the TCO model (Sweden) includes a
clause whereby telework is reviewed once a year as regards the work environment,
workload, and other benefits and disadvantages.
Gender and equal opportunities are not addressed by collective agreements or, to be more
precise, there are no concrete procedures for establishing equal opportunities. The more
important a problem is, the more the selection of teleworkers depends on a few
line-managers and personnel managers. This could lead to non-transparent and unjust
selection procedures and no way of complaining against the decision. Only one draft
agreement (the MSF model) provides the teleworker with a chance to complain if his/her
application for telework has not been considered. Procedures to deal with rejections for
telework seem to be necessary as telework expands.
From recent studies (Korte & Wynne, 1996) and some pilot schemes in Germany in
which the author participated (e.g. Lufthansa), we know that there is a danger of
'forgetting' teleworkers as far as their career and personnel development needs are
concerned, despite the fact that workers' inadequate knowledge (followed by management
and communication problems) is seen as the main obstacle to the introduction of
telework. So one major problem is that the managers have seldom been trained to deal
adequately with the new phenomenon of telework. Another question is whether
companies in the future will recruit more self-employed teleworkers who are willing to
pay for the costs of their own training and skills development.
According to some German studies on pilot projects, Works Councils are worried about
teleworking jobs being adapted to 'simpler' tasks that can be easily controlled.
'Neo-Taylorism' has been discovered to be a major problem in recent years, and mainly in
call centres. The problems of vocational training and career opportunities for teleworkers
have not yet been discussed at all, and have not been dealt with in collective agreements,
so far as we can tell, although many training providers have developed tele-training
modules.
Some agreements and contracts have even included counter-productive mechanisms.
German agreements seem to promote the right of individual line-managers to decide
whether an employee is allowed to do telework or not. Even if personnel departments are
involved in the decision, agreements like the one at Allianz Insurance reinforce the
individual right to decide who may, and who may not, do telework. Lack of transparency
in career decisions may be supported by an over-emphasis on the influence of individual
managers and an increase in the dependence of individual employees.
55
In contrast to these issues, the demands and requirements of European trade unions
concerning telework used to be focused on matters such as equal pay, 'two days a week in
a central office', 'no (or not too many) home visits by the manager' and 'the company
providing proper equipment' (see Bosch, Webster & Weissbach, 2000: 115). Unions and
Works Councils have obviously reached successful agreements in these areas.
56
8.
COMMON TRENDS AND DIVERGENCES
At first glance, the sectors, companies and regions in which agreements have been
negotiated suggest that telework is still a male-dominated activity largely performed by
well-qualified professionals mainly in urban areas (e.g. the ICT sector). While it was
assumed some years ago that the 'second wave of telework' (Di Martino, 1997) would
include more and more part-time telework or 'alternative' telework, some European
countries like the UK, the Netherlands and Finland are seeing an increase mainly in
full-time tele-homeworking.
In general, the direct participation rights of (tele-)workers' representatives are relatively
weak in most European countries, although there are strong general collective
participative structures in countries such as Germany and Austria. Sometimes,
teleworkers are de facto excepted from direct participation schemes in the implementation
of telework because their numbers in relation to the total workforce are usually too small
(e.g. Belgium). We think that poor direct participation is preventing teleworkers from
making use of traditional channels of representation, and that as a result they prefer to
negotiate with their employers on their own. Where union organisation is less strong,
many direct representation schemes will lead to unions being excluded or contribute to
employee commitment.
In Germany, representatives enjoy no direct, general participation whenever telework is
introduced, but Works Councils have a de facto strong position based on the
BetrVG/AVG. The collective bargaining system has remained stable in Germany and
Austria, although Oeffnungsklauseln have been introduced under pressure from smaller
enterprises. In practice, decentralisation involves a wider range of issues negotiated by
the Betriebsraete (Works Councils) than before.
Despite functioning systems of representation and participation, the process of
'normalisation', at least of part-time telework, has made people realise that telework for
one or two days a week can cause a lot of IR problems that need to be carefully regulated.
As part-time telework is increasingly being regarded as 'normal', it is often accepted that
it is not covered by collective negotiations, but by individual arrangements.
In countries with lower union density (e.g. France) and/or with a tradition of labour unrest
(e.g. Greece), governments have played important roles in regulation by labour law and in
the control of labour relations, in this way partly replacing the trade unions and
compensating for the lack of influence of a representative system. In France and Italy,
there have been attempts to integrate the regulation of telework into the system of laws
governing the information society. Moreover, the situation in Italy evinces examples of
both centralisation and decentralisation, as sectoral agreements are followed by company
agreements and pilot schemes in the public services, sometimes by law. In Italy, the local
unions or their representative bodies in the companies have a similar de facto position
without the strong legal base that they enjoy in Germany.
In the Nordic countries, governments play an important role in the systematic
development of the information society, and use telework as an opening strategy. In
Denmark, the public sector has reached agreements or protocols with the unions to create
a stable framework for the development of telework. Here we can speak of an extremely
centralised strategy that is no longer an element of traditional IR, but rather of an
57
experiment in societal transformation towards the information society. Maybe this
experiment has only been possible because Danish industry consists entirely of small
firms. In these circumstances, the need for coordinated action is more strongly felt, and
employers' associations and trade unions give the government much credit for it. By
contrast, there is a general trend to decentralise collective bargaining in countries that are
different from the UK, the Netherlands and Sweden. In Sweden, telework is seen as a
working method that needs to be weakly regulated (e.g. health and safety checklists).
The trend to decentralisation is due not only to political intervention leading to a
weakening of the collective bargaining system (e.g. in the UK), or to a lack of collective
regulation at industrial level, or to the increasing influence of neo-liberalism as a
consequence of globalisation; it is also due to the differentiation and increasing
heterogeneity of the workforce itself. The growing individualism of highly skilled
workers, for example in the Netherlands and the Nordic countries, has both damaged the
representative system of IR, and increased individuals' autonomy to deal with their
working conditions. It has involved a shift from industrial or neo-corporatist bargaining to
enterprise, or even individual, level.
The complete restructuring of the workforce around new industries has contributed to an
increase in the number of more local settlements (Waddington et al, 1997: 477), and
corporate restructuring has lead to a break-down of workers' solidarity. Small groups
have learned to develop their own local bargaining power in a form that suits them. These
conditions can be expected to have a big influence on all attempts to regulate telework in
the future. It follows that the 'situationist' approach to IR seems to be reinforced by
comparison to the 'systemic' approach. Negotiations will take place when problems
actually, and not when they are expected to arise. This transformation can be seen mainly
in countries with less strong traditions of corporatism such as Ireland and the UK.
For structural reasons and for many cultural reasons, too, the institutional form of
decentralisation differs from country to country, and this makes it difficult to establish, or
even identify, 'best practice'. In some countries, traditional law has been used to regulate
telework; in other countries, old law has not been applied for unknown reasons, or else
new law has been passed. In some countries like Austria, the system of labour relations
also deals more or less successfully with the negotiation of conditions of telework. In this
report, we have described the 'durability and diversity of national systems of collective
bargaining' (Waddington et al, 1997: 486) with regard to telework. National trajectories
may be even more important today than they were 15 or 20 years ago.
What we can find, however, is a certain convergence of the factual results (not of the
style or level) of the collective bargaining processes, whether at industrial or enterprise
level, in Germany, Italy, Austria, the UK, and Sweden. This means that matters and
issues of regulation (e.g. equal pay for teleworkers, no change of status, voluntary
telework, equipment provided by employer, restriction of managers' home visits, 1-2 days
a week in the central office, limited technical control, and the right to return to the core
team) are similar in most countries, although the legal basis and the systems of
negotiations on which these agreements are founded differ from country to country. (UK
agreements have slightly different priorities.) If we dare to interpret the material a little
further, we might say that the more agreements are detailed and in favour of teleworkers,
the lower the level at which they had been agreed. This may have something to do with
58
the shortage of qualified ICT staff. The result is a degree of conflict between the scope of
the agreements and detailed regulation, which often favours teleworkers. As more
and more issues of working conditions are handled within the workplace, the unions need
to provide their members with support at workplace level, and make contact with
teleworkers by means of electronic communications.
59
11.
RECOMMENDATIONS

Finding a harmonised balance between flexibility of working conditions and
social security is crucial

Regulation must prevent employers unilaterally changing working conditions,
disregarding the needs of teleworkers, and even taking advantage of their
individualised working situation and forcing them to accept worse conditions than
regular workers

Teleworkers must be included in any existing systems of collective representation

Representatives of trade unions or Works Councils must have access to
teleworkers

The ETUC recommendations should be supported:
Teleworking should be negotiated in all cases between workers' representatives
and the firm that wishes to introduce teleworking. Anyone who adopts
teleworking should do so voluntarily, and retain their status as an employee. The
conditions for teleworking should be laid down in a collective bargaining
agreement
Atypical and precarious working conditions are widespread among teleworkers.
Protection through social security, access to health insurance and unemployment
benefit are urgently required for all. Employee status for teleworkers would offer
the best solution for problems in relation to social security
If teleworking is carried out for various employers, social security contributions
should be paid in the country where the teleworker is employed. Social security
thresholds should be lowered to guarantee social security cover for all
For teleworkers, it is very important that they should retain their rights to worker
participation. Employee representatives should also be responsible for
teleworkers, and they should also have the right to meet at regular intervals. This
would be extremely important for teleworkers working mainly at home. The
opening up of corporate networks for trade union information would be important
with regard to the concern for guaranteeing teleworkers rights to participation
There should be clear rules for data protection and privacy. Teleworkers must be
entitled to disconnect from the network. Rules are required with regard to the
supervision of teleworkers.…
60
9.
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62