The EU information and consultation directive in liberal market economies

Abstract

This chapter assesses the impact of the European Information and Consultation directive, notably its minimalist national-level transposition in the UK through the ICE Regulations 2004. It draws on the concept of the prisoner’s dilemma in game theory to advance analytical insights. Prisoner’s dilemma situations are particularly prevalent in voluntarist liberal market economy (LME) contexts like the UK because either or both individual parties to the employment relationship are often tempted to pursue maximization of their own short-term self-interests rather than choose collective longer-term mutually beneficial cooperative options, especially where acute power imbalances exist. There tends to be too much mistrust of the other party’s intentions. Current regulations for informing and consulting employees in the UK are not sufficiently robust to rectify this. The political economy context of the UK, like other LMEs, is not conducive to embedding and sustaining pluralist information and consultation arrangements as a commonality

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