As I announced at the beginning of the year, after this issue I hand over the Editorship of the European Journal of Industrial Relations to the safe hands of my long-standing friend and colleague Guglielmo Meardi, whose record of intensive industrial relations research across Europe, East and West, is truly remarkable. When the EJIR was launched 25 years ago, one major objective — at a time when ‘international’ industrial relations typically meant North American — was to encourage understanding of the distinctive and variegated dynamics of work and employment in our own continent. Well before the notion of ‘varieties of capitalism’ was coined, it was clear that the socially and collectively regulated relations between workers, employers and public authorities in Europe had to be analysed in their own terms. More broadly, the aim was to encourage comparative research. By ‘making the strange familiar and the familiar strange’, we are able to disrupt taken-for-granted assumptions about typicality and causality. This in turn provides a foundation for explanations which are far more encompassing than those derived from experience in a single country, and hence offers a route to theoretical enrichment. Back in the early 1990s, comparative industrial relations in this sense was in its infancy. Serious, intensive cross-national comparative research is not undertaken lightly. It demands time, analytical sensitivity and linguistic capability. Hence a key part of our mission was to provide a vehicle for such research, in particular by younger scholars. Here I trust we can claim success, and indeed many of those younger scholars are now established figures in the field. The 1990s were the decade when the ‘social dimension’ of European integration seemed to promise an upwards harmonization of both procedural and substantive rules governing the labour market. The enhanced regulatory competences provided by the Maastricht Treaty formed the basis for directives, among others, on European Works Councils, Working Time and Equality. They also spurred the ‘autonomous’ regulation by employers and unions at European level. Hence a second major aim of the EJIR was to encourage analysis of the nature, dynamics and limitations of the ‘Europeanization’ of industrial relations. It since became clear that the decade marked the high point of EU interventionism in fostering strong European employment standards. The window of opportunity, which some already considered chimerical, soon closed. The advance of neoliberalism removed the ‘shadow of the law’ which had encouraged employers to negotiate seriously at European level. The brutal enforcement of austerity after the crash of 2007-08, 876481 EJD0010.1177/0959680119876481European Journal of Industrial RelationsEditorial editorial2019

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社论

正如我在年初所宣布的那样，在此期之后，我将《欧洲劳资关系杂志》的编辑移交给了我的长期朋友和同事Guglielmo Meardi的安全手中，他在欧洲进行了广泛的劳资关系研究，东西方，确实是杰出的。25年前启动EJIR时，一个主要目标（即在“国际”劳资关系通常意味着北美的时候）是鼓励人们理解我们大陆上独特的，多样化的工作和就业动态。在“资本主义的多样性”概念产生之前，很明显，必须以自己的方式分析欧洲工人，雇主和公共当局之间的社会和集体监管关系。更广泛地，目的是鼓励比较研究。通过“使陌生人熟悉并且使陌生人陌生”，我们能够破坏对典型性和因果关系的假定假设。反过来，这为解释提供了基础，而这些解释所包含的解释要比从单个国家的经验得出的解释要广泛得多，因此为理论丰富提供了一条途径。早在1990年代初期，这种意义上的比较产业关系还处于起步阶段。认真，深入的跨国比较研究并非轻描淡写。它需要时间，分析灵敏度和语言能力。因此，我们任务的关键部分是为这类研究提供工具，尤其是由年轻学者进行研究。在这里，我相信我们可以取得成功，事实上，许多年轻学者现在已经是该领域的知名人物。1990年代是欧洲一体化的“社会层面”似乎承诺将规范劳动力市场的程序性规则与实质性规则向上统一的十年。《马斯特里赫特条约》提供了增强的监管能力，这是制定指令的基础，其中包括有关欧洲劳资委员会，工作时间和平等的指令。他们还刺激了雇主和工会在欧洲一级的“自治”规定。因此，EJIR的第二个主要目标是鼓励对劳资关系“欧洲化”的性质，动态和局限性进行分析。从那以后很明显，这十年标志着欧盟干预主义在建立强有力的欧洲就业标准方面的最高点。机会之窗已经被一些人认为是嵌合的，很快就关闭了。新自由主义的发展消除了鼓励雇主在欧洲一级认真谈判的“法律阴影”。2007-08年飞机坠毁后的残酷执行紧缩政策，876481 EJD0010.1177 / 0959680119876481欧洲劳资关系杂志社论社论2019