Introduction to Industrial Relations in the Non-profit Organizations: Comparative Analysis in the European Union

The Industrial Relations Studies emphasize the fact that in the Situation of Work the Employment relationship determines Rules and Procedures governing the Organization, the Representation of Interests, and the way in which different actors and institutions: Management, Trade-Unions and employees, and the State regulate the Condition of Work.

In fact, IR underline how those Major Institutions are regulated, how each interests are taken into consideration, how labour force are rewarded, motivated, trained, disciplined, in order to produce in a better condition.

The Rules and procedures, which are influenced by certain ideology, social and political context, define and regulate the Condition of work: that means to control, to adapt, to adjust, the condition of work to the Market. That implies to determine rates of pay, job description, hours of work, etc.

But, our thesis wants to shift the IR interest to the Non-profit organization. We assume that the Non-profit organization is a brand new frame for singular Industrial Relations. That means different Rules, Procedures and new Actors and Institutions. In studying IR in Non-profit organizations, we have to consider several new perspectives.

The Specificity of Non Profit Organizations

The Non profit organizations’ system is marked by the dominance of the Voluntary work. The Voluntary system implies another Technical and Economical rationality we should study.

In France, several Researches (MATISSE, 1999, TCHERNONOG, 2005) have proved the importance of the Volunteers in the Employment rates. Volunteers are as numerous as the Territorial Civil Servants, which represents a considerable labour force; especially in the so-called providing social services associations.

In fact, the changes in the Market, the evolution in the Social insurance, have led the Non-profit sector to a deeper implication in providing Social Services, and consequently to more professionalism.

So, before to study how this social participation has influenced the Voluntary work and technical rationality, we first interest in how the cooperation between two kinds of actors (volunteers and salaried employees) is regulated, organized, and structured. In fact, that involves a dual organization and a parallel representative framework.

We will study the Convention, the procedures which permit the Non-profit organization to work. For example, how the Convention face to the rise of new social demand and “flexicurity”?

The notion of professionalism implies the questions of training and competences, of job descriptions, of how to reward the employee’s work and the volunteer’s will, of how to discipline the employee and the free willing volunteer.

Added to those two kinds of actors, there is third one, the beneficiaries whom interests and social needs have a dominant effect on the regulation in the Non profit sector.

We need to analyse the representativeness of various participants: the State, the management, the employees, the volunteers and the beneficiaries. But, we also have to evaluate the hierarchy of Participant’s interests. Which interests are dominant in the construction of convention, or in the collective negotiation?

Afterwards, we need to understand how (and whether) those associations are integrated in its branch. Do they participate to the Branch Collective bargaining? Does the Convention have an impact on the Association Manifesto?

According to the National policy, we notice that some Non-profit organizations are closer to the profit sector. So we assume that the Collective bargain and the Branch Convention can deeply change the organization, the structure and the Sense of the Non-profit Organization.

Then, we can say that “conventionning” give legitimacy to Non profit organizations in providing social services, because the working condition in those organizations are regulated. Reciprocally, the Non profit sector “rules” the work condition in the other services - partners. What is the influence of the Providing Service Associations in conditioning the Employment and work condition in Social services Branch?

A Historical and European overview

We all know that the IR are different from a country to another one. The different National policies have a real impact in the system of regulations, and conventions. This hypothesis is based on the fact that the liberalization and the merchandization lead to different forms of job, social norms, “flexicurity”, etc.

This is the first reason why we want to analyse how the different policies consider the role of non profit sector in the Social welfare system: The partnership between those institutions, (State and Non profit organizations), the closeness that can emerge in such a mechanism.

The second reason is that, at a National and E-U. Institution Level, the Non profit sector participates to the Social and political dialog as the Trade-unions do; somehow, there is a sort of competitiveness in the representativeness of individuals’ interests. Sometimes, the Non profit organizations are better considered than the historical partners that the Trade unions are. Some theories draw the attention on the dominance of the Third sector as Political Partner of National and European governances.

At this point, we need to analyse whether (and how) the Non profit sector improves the Regulation implementation and the collective bargaining.

The participation of Non-profit sector to the social dialog involve a new frame of collective negotiation based on the representation of a plurality of actors; and based also on the parallelism between employees /voluntaries; social providers /social beneficiaries, Governmental perspectives / non governmental ones, etc.

Thirdly, a European and historical scope make us understand how the status of the Non profit sector’s workers has been constructed.

We decide to analyse the historical approach of Cooperatives. That means we need to study how the Cooperative and third sector members have defended their own interests through historical political and social changes. A large panorama permits us to understand that the Cooperative members or third sector’s actors have evolved in different ways from Spain to Great Britain (Archambault, Amblard, Demoustier, Chaves, Sajardo, Gueslin, etc.).

The notion of Cooperative and Social Economy implies a hybridising of resources and Economical comportments. A large part of our research consist in understand how this hybridising involve the IR, at least in Social services.