Employee Representatives, External Support and Continuing Vocational Training in Europe

In the last decade, attention to skills policies and lifelong learning has been increasing. With better and higher qualifications, employees are prepared for unstable labour market markets and they can adapt better to changes in job requirements. This applies in particular for low-skilled and temporary employees as well as for older employees. Low-skilled and temporary employees are often faced with precarious employment conditions, and opportunities for continuing vocational training (CVT) could improve their labour market situation. If employees have to extend their working life due to demographical reasons, older employees need training, otherwise their skills and knowledge is not up to date anymore.

The main argument is that training decisions do not depend solely on the employer, but also on the employee representatives and the institutional environment. Employee representatives and trade unions have the potential to overcome inequalities and to have a positive effect on CVT. CVT-decisions make high demands on employee representatives. Faced with complex duties and scarce resources many employee representatives are overwhelmed by implementing CVT and making use of their influence. Therefore, we assume that employee representatives need external support and coordination in order to influence CVT and to bring in employee interests. We hypothesize a positive association between the existence of employee representatives and training activities at firm level and a positive supportive role of trade unions, collective bargaining coverage and regular training for employee representatives.

The paper examines the relation of employee representatives with continuing vocational training and the factors determining employee representatives’ involvement in training decisions. We contribute to the literature by analysing 1) the effect of employee representatives on training needs assessment for different employees and on time given off for training, 2) accounting for different characteristics of employee representatives and 3) considering country-level institutions and external support.

Multilevel logistic regressions consider firm-level and country-level characteristics for 27 EU countries based on the European Company Survey 2009. The findings indicate that employee representatives increase the probability of time given off for training and training needs assessment for all employees and this association is stronger for disadvantaged groups of employees (i.e. low-skilled and temporary employees) if they receive support from widespread collective agreements, strong trade unions and regular training.