The XII European Regional Congress of the International Labour and Employment Relations Association (ILERA) will take place in Düsseldorf on 5–7 September 2019 and intends to explore the changes in labour and employment relations across Europe and in a comparative perspective.
Stable labour relations and welfare state protections have been perceived to be at the core of what has been named the European social model. Beginning in the 1990s, however, their foundations seem to have been weakened in many countries: We witness a decline in bargaining coverage, employer and union densities but also many efforts to restructure the welfare state as well as systems of labour market regulation. The 12th ILERA European Congress comes at a time when changes of institutions, actors and practices of labour relations are widespread. We expect recent current events such as the digitalisation of the economy, intensified conflict on trade, the exit of the United Kingdom from the EU as well as the vastly changing political landscape which comes along with the rise of right-wing populist parties to influence such changes in various ways. For good or bad, industrial relations will not remain the same. We invite participants to contribute towards analysing the direction, content and speed of such processes of change but also the current state of labour relations in Europe and beyond. We are particularly interested in receiving paper proposals which engage in research on how societal actors seek to actively shape labour relations, institutions, processes and outcomes.
Papers and workshops addressing the multi-faceted issues outlined above are welcome. In particular, proposals can refer to the following four tracks:
- Track 1: Social Europe: Equality and Poverty
- Track 2: Regulation of Labour: Actors, Institutions and Law
- Track 3: Workers’ Voice and Industrial Democracy
- Track 4: Human Resources, Quality of Work and Digitalisation
Abstracts are invited for submission through the congress website at:
- Deadline for abstracts: 20 December 2018
- Notifications of acceptance will be sent by 28 February 2019
- Registration for the Congress will start on 31 January 2019