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Amid the trend towards decentralized industrial relations, various new and
modified systems of employee representation are taking hold in many countries
worldwide. In this highly informative examination of this field of
international labour law – originally presented as a series of papers for the
11th JILPT Comparative Labor Law Seminar held in Tokyo in February 2012 –
twelve distinguished scholars from Australia, China, France, Germany, Japan,
Korea, Sweden, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States describe
their countries’ current perspectives on this issue, along with their own
analysis and commentary. Among the specific questions addressed for each
jurisdiction are the following:
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What is the legal framework for an employee representation system?
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How is the representative body formed and what are its declared powers?
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Are there legal mechanisms preventing intervention by the employer?
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Are non-standard employees involved?
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What methods of deliberation and decision-making are used?
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How are the activities of representatives protected?
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Who bears the costs?
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What is the relationship with collective bargaining? With labour unions?
Each contributor also describes typical ways in which the employee
representative system works, offering concrete examples such as dismissal,
wage determination, and equal treatment. Some deal with situations in which
employee representation is in fact nonexistent or malfunctioning in real
workplaces. There is also pervasive attention paid to the fundamental matter
of what ‘representation’ is for, and the probable future direction of employee
representation. Given the need to secure representation for non-union and
non-standard employees at the workplace, these reports on the conditions and
new developments in this important field provide ample basis on which to build
a better system of employee representation in this era of diversified
workforces in the globalized market. Accordingly, this book will prove of
inestimable value to practitioners and policymakers in labour and employment
law anywhere in the world.
Notes on the Contributors. General Introduction; H. Nakakubo, T. Araki.
1. The Evolving Pluralistic Approach to Employee Representation at the
Enterprise in Australia; A. Forsyth. 2. Chinese Staff Congress
System: The Past, Present and Future; S. Zheng. 3. System of
Employee Representation in Enterprises in France; S. Laulom. 4.
Employee Representation at the Enterprise in Germany; B. Waas. 5
. The System of Employee Representation at the Enterprise in Japan; H.
Takeuchi-Okuno. 6. System of Employee Representation at the
Enterprise in Korea; Cheol Soo Lee, Ida D. Lee. 7. Employment
Representation at the Enterprise in Sweden; J. Julén Votinius. 8
. The Labor-Management Council System in Taiwan; Chin-Chin Cheng. 9
. Systems of Employee Representation at the Enterprise – UK Report;
R. Dukes. 10. System of Employee Representation at the Enterprise
¬– The US Report; O. Lobel, A. M. Lofaso.