Betriebliche Verrentungspraktiken zwischen arbeitsmarkt- und rentenpolitischen Interessen (The retirement practices of firms caught between labour market and retirement policy interests)

"The particularly large decrease in the labour force participation of older workers since the mid-70s in the Federal Republic of Germany is primarily due to institutional policy factors. To contract the current problems of mass unemployment, legislators demanded policies for reducing the overall economic supply of labour. Regulations for 'externalising', i.e. shedding older workers through laws such as the 'Retirement Pensions for the Unemployed' or the 'Law on Early Retirement played an essential role here. However, the cost burdens on the statutory pension schemes resulting from these early retirement policies and the expected demographic development have more recently led legislators to enact measures in the opposite direction, in other words, to extend working life. The 'Pension Reform Act of 1992', including amongst other things a new regulation of the additional earnings limit through the introduction of partial pensions, has led to a competitive situation in the legal regulations, which is geared either to labour market policy needs or to retirement policy standpoints. This paper studies how the existing retirement schemes can be used at the micro-level by individual firms. The most important results from the social sciences literature were first compiled. Then the results from two of our own exploratory surveys on the staff reduction policies and the employment policies of insurance firms were included. The studies show that older workers are being shed early on a large scale by the firms - irregardless of the situation of individual firms, their specific sector or the qualification structure of their workforce. An extension of working life, on the other hand, plays no role at the moment. Acommon basis is found in the shedding of older employees both from the point of view of the firm as well as of the employee: The point of staff reduction for employers is to create a 'younger' workforce. Anumber of the older employees is happy to leave the firms 'treadmill', others succumb to social pressure from their younger colleagues and the members of the works' council to accept the alternative status of the financially very secure 'early pensioner' and hence contribute to the preservation of jobs for younger colleagues. The partial pension as a means of extending working life has played no role up to now in the insurance firms studied, because it is financially unattractive and the requirements for claiming it are too high. Instead, the workforce is 'relieved' through early retirement by a financially much more attractively structured early retirement agreement. The firm's management is in favour of retiring older workers early in order to improve their qualification structure by hiring younger workers. Who will suffer most from these policies of shedding workers cannot be calculated by the desicion- makers in the firms. They use the existing legal instruments for the needs of their res-pective firms, which are not (yet) directed toward preserving the labour force potential. As a consequence, measures for prolonging working life are not likely to be applied in firms, as long as employment policy pressures can yield to management policies of shedding workers, because financially more attractively structured instruments are available from the legislators (through the Employment Promotion Act) or from management and labour representatives (through early retirement agreements)." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))ältere Arbeitnehmer, Berufsausstieg, Vorruhestand, gleitender Ruhestand, Rentenpolitik, Personalabbau, Teilrente, Arbeitsmarktpolitik

Loss of antigen-presenting molecules (MHC class I and TAP-1) in lung cancer.

Presentation of endogenous antigenic peptides to cytotoxic T lymphocytes is mediated by the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I molecules. For the stable assembly of MHC class I complex it is necessary that the antigenic peptide is transported by the MHC-encoded transporters TAP-1 and TAP-2 into a pre-Golgi region. T-cell-mediated host-vs-tumour response might therefore depend on the presence of these molecules on tumour cells. The presence of MHC class I antigens and TAP-1 was studied in a series of 93 resection specimens of non-small-cell lung carcinomas (NSCLCs) by immunohistochemical methods using antibodies against the assembled class I molecule, beta 2-microglobulin (beta 2-m), heavy-chain A locus, A2 allele and TAP-1 protein. Eighty-six patients were included in the survival analysis. Total loss of class I molecule was observed in 38% of the cases and was usually accompanied by loss of beta 2-m and of heavy chain A locus. Selective loss of A locus was seen in 8.3% and of A2 allele in 27% of the cases. TAP-1 loss was always combined with beta 2-m and/or heavy chain A locus loss. No correlation was found between the expressional status of any of the above molecules, including the selective A2 allelic loss and histological type, degree of differentiation, tumoral stage, nodal stage and survival. Our findings suggest that loss of antigen-presenting molecules (including both MHC class I alleles and TAP-1) is a frequent event in lung cancer. However, the immunophenotypic profile of MHC class I and TAP-1 seems to be unrelated in vivo to the phenotype, growth or survival of NSCLC

bcl-2 in normal human breast and carcinoma, association with oestrogen receptor-positive, epidermal growth factor receptor-negative tumours and in situ cancer.

The role of bcl-2 expression in solid tumours is as yet undefined. It was, therefore, the purpose of this study to investigate expression of bcl-2 protein in 111 human breast carcinomas using immunohistochemistry and the monoclonal antibody bcl-2 124. Expression was then compared with the established indicators of prognosis and biological behaviour in malignant breast disease. No relationship could be observed between bcl-2 and node status, tumour size, differentiation, type or age at excision. However, a strong positive relationship was seen between bcl-2 and oestrogen receptor (ER), with 70 of 88 (80%) bcl-2-positive tumours being ER positive also, compared with seven of 23 (30%) bcl-2-negative tumours being ER positive (P < 0.0001). The converse was found when bcl-2 was compared with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). A strong negative relationship was observed, with 26 of 88 (30%) bcl-2-positive tumours being EGFR positive, compared with 16 of 23 (70%) bcl-2-negative tumours being EGFR positive (P = 0.001), raising the possibility that bcl-2 is an ER-regulated gene. An inverse relationship was also found between bcl-2 and the oncogenes c-erbB-2 and p53. Thus, loss of bcl-2 expression in breast cancer is associated with a range of molecular markers of poor prognosis and may define part of an ER-negative, EGFR-positive phenotype

Evaluation of bcl-2 protein expression and 14;18 translocation as prognostic markers in follicular lymphoma.

Conflicting results have been published on the prognostic significance of t(14;18) in follicular lymphoma: Yunis et al. (1989) reported that its presence indicated poor response to therapy and short survival, whereas Levine et al. (1988) showed no difference in prognosis between cases with and without the translocation. However these results were based on small series of cases and on follow-up periods (no longer than 7 years) which are relatively short for a disease with such a slow clinical evolution. Here we report an investigation of 70 cases of follicular lymphoma with long term follow-up data (up to 17 years). This series has been studied for the presence of the 14;18 translocation and for the expression of bcl-2 protein. Our results show that there are no grounds for considering either the 14;18 translocation or the expression of the bcl-2 protein to be useful prognostic markers in clinical practice