October 14, 2025
On Friday, October 10, 2025, the TRUE Europe Final Conference brought together researchers, trade unionists, employers’ representatives, and policymakers at Mundo Madou in Brussels to discuss how trust can strengthen industrial relations and collective bargaining across Europe.
(more…)September 8, 2025
On Thursday, September 4, our online workshop brought together social partners from Austria, Ireland, and Sweden to reflect on how to strengthen trust in industrial relations and make collective bargaining more effective and fair.
(more…)September 5, 2025
Our project TRUE Europe explores one of the missing pieces: trust between employees’ and employers’ representatives. By studying how trust shapes bargaining in metal, transport, and finance sectors across eight European countries, we provide insights into what makes collective bargaining more stable, effective, and inclusive.
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September 1, 2025
Austria’s industrial relations are deeply rooted in its corporatist history, with a highly coordinated system of sectoral bargaining that achieves almost universal collective bargaining coverage through mandatory employer chamber membership.
(more…)August 28, 2025
The evidence is clear: high levels of mutual trust contribute to positive outcomes for both sides. But variations in trust across countries, sectors and issues tell us one thing: trust is never guaranteed. Watch the video.
The TRUE EUROPE project shows that trust not only initiates and maintains social relationships, but also boosts efficiency and performance of organisations and institutions. To learn more about domino effect of trust, watch the video.
August 27, 2025
On Thursday, August 21, CELSI researchers Monika Martišková and Adam Šumichrast presented new research findings on trust in social dialogue in Czechia at a webinar organised by the Czech-Moravian Confederation of Trade Unions (Českomoravská konfederace odborových svazů – ČMKOS).
(more…)August 26, 2025
📆 Date: September 4, 2025
🕘 Time: 10:15 – 12:15 CEST
📍 Venue: Online, zoom
🌐 Language: English
🔗 Registration: https://forms.gle/78i6NNUvT7pz29ar9
August 4, 2025
Lithuania’s industrial relations are marked by a fragmented, state-centred model with company-level bargaining dominant in the private sector and low private-sector collective bargaining coverage remaining below 10% as of 2024 (MSSL, 2024).
(more…)July 28, 2025
Ireland’s industrial relations system follows a liberal pluralist model rooted in voluntarism, where collective bargaining is not legally mandated and occurs mostly at company level.
(more…)July 23, 2025
Czechia’s industrial relations system is predominantly decentralised, shaped by its post-socialist legacy, with collective bargaining primarily occurring at company level and coverage declining from 47% in 1995 to 33% by 2020 (OECD, 2024).
(more…)July 21, 2025
Introducing our TRUE Europe series — a dive into the state of collective bargaining and social dialogue across eight European countries. Grounded in extensive interviews with trade unions and employer representatives, this research explores how trust is built, challenged, and sustained in key sectors like metal, transport, and finance.
(more…)June 6, 2025
On Tuesday, June 3, an online workshop, led by CELSI researcher Monika Martišková, brought together participants from across sectors – automotive, banking and transport – to reflect on how to strengthen trust among social partners and make collective bargaining more effective and fair.
(more…)May 8, 2025
V čom si zamestnávatelia a odbory dôverujú? Je dôležitá osobná dôvera, alebo skôr spoločná dôvera v systém/inštitúcie, ktoré určujú pravidlá? Znamená štrajk narušenie dôvery? Ako sa buduje dôvera vo firmách zo zahraničným vlastníkom? A aké má nízka dôvera dopady na sociálny dialóg?
(more…)December 3, 2024
TRUE Europe Mid-Term Conference on November 28 in Bucharest.
The TRUE Europe research team met to share preliminary findings and experiences regarding stakeholders’ perspectives on trust in industrial relations.
Thank you to everyone who attended and made this conference a success.
(more…)November 29, 2024
The TRUE Europe consortium met on Thursday, November 28, in Bucharest to share preliminary findings and experiences regarding stakeholders’ perspectives on trust in industrial relations.
Partners from Austria, Czechia, Ireland, Lithuania, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Sweden presented their respective country cases and discussed their insights and challenges in exploring opportunities to strengthen collective bargaining in their countries.
(more…)November 18, 2024
Trust is a fundamental element in shaping industrial relations (IR), fostering cooperation and effective social dialogue between employers, employee representatives, and unions. Research shows that trust positively affects the performance and efficiency of institutions, and influences broader societal outcomes such as economic stability, democracy, and social equity.
(more…)November 13, 2024
Trust plays a critical role in fostering cooperation and productive relationships within industrial relations. In the context of employment, trust is fundamental to relationships between employers, unions, and employees, supporting collaboration, negotiation, and effective collective bargaining. The complex nature of trust arises from its roots in both contractual agreements and the power imbalances within the employer-employee relationship. This complexity is further heightened by differing values, expectations, and external factors such as public interests, regulatory demands, and media attention.
This analysis illuminates how trust operates across industrial relations, underpinning both the challenges and the potential for transformative, durable alliances in the workplace.
(more…)September 12, 2024
The TRUE Project brought preliminary results from interviews about the role of trust between employee and employer representatives in social partner relationships. They were already presented at the European Sociological Association conference.
(more…)August 30, 2024
Researchers from Linnaeus University, the lead of the consortium of the TRUE EUROPE project will present preliminary results from the interviews about the role of trust between employee and employer representatives in collective bargaining.
(more…)June 17, 2024
This chapter focuses on investigating Industrial Relations (IR) and trust in banking and finance, metal, and transport sectors across eight countries with a wide range of IR national regimes. These sector are examined in Sweden, Austria, Ireland as well as Central and Easter European countries as Czechia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Romania and Serbia.
(more…)March 28, 2024
We’re thrilled to announce the launch of our website on March 28, 2024. Here, you’ll find all project details, including our timeline of deliverables, team members, and contact information. Explore now.
March 27, 2024
On the 27th of March, all partners met online to discuss the visual identity and best communication strategies to reach social partners. Communication guidelines were finalized.
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Bucharest University
Central European Labour Studies Institute (CELSI)
Dublin City University
Linnaeus University
Lithuanian Centre for Social Sciences (LCSS)
University of Belgrade
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