Main themes

To familiarise students with the field of industrial relations, including the collective management of labour relations in Belgium.
This aim will be achieved through:
1. detailed information in the field of industrial relations: issues and objectives, actors and the ways in which they intervene, institutional and legal mechanisms, and labour disputes;
2. an analysis of the development of the various issues.
The course will seek to demonstrate how the logic of industrial relations must be seen as an internal and external element of constraint and dynamic in the development of a company strategy.

Content and teaching methods

Content
Plan
Introduction: Collective labour relations - from the contract of employment to collective action.
1. The labour movement
1.1. The labour movement as collective action
1.2. Branches of the labour movement
2. The trade union movement
2.1. A typology of the trade union movement (opposition, integration and control)
2.2. A brief history of the Belgian trade union movement
2.3. A morphology of Belgian trade union actors today
2.4. The directions taken by the Belgian trade union movement (management and control)
2.5. New problems
2.6 The international trade union movement
3. Collective action by the employers
3.1. A sociography of employers' associations in Belgium
3.2. A typology of collective action by employers
4. Collective labour relations
4.1. Negotiations
4.2. Consultation
4.3. Concertation
4.4. Interprofessional negotiations since 1975
4.5. Ideal industrial relations system types
5. Labour disputes
5.1. Two analyses of industrial disputes
5.2. From individual action to collective action
5.3. Strikes (morphology, the legal system and elements of sociological analysis)
5.4. An analytical model (objectives/outcomes)
5.5. Economic crisis and labour disputes
Conclusions: The future of industrial relations

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