Employment and Industrial Relations in the railways sector

The employment challenges facing the Railways sector are related to the consequences of the process of liberalisation and to the expected understaffing. The economic crisis has hardly had any impact, although no growth has taken place in the sector. The social partners address the two issues in cooperation through collective bargaining and social dialogue. With regard to understaffing the social partners together have taken the initiative to establish an own technical school. With regard to the liberalisation process, which started before the year 2000, employer and employee representatives are dependent on decisions made by the government. At the moment the big question is whether the government will in 2015 once again award the concession for the use of the main rail network to the present company, the NS Group.