Social partners going digital: using digital tools and adapting social dialogue processes

Aquesta publicació s'elabora a partir de les contribucions de cadascú dels membres nacionals que integren la Network of Eufound Correspondent. Pel cas d'Espanya la contribució ha estat realitzada per l'Alejandro GodinoDigital transformation is changing the world of work. This report looks at how social partners - the actors involved in the regulation of employment relationships - are increasingly adopting technological solutions to improve the services that they provide to their members and facilitate collective bargaining processes. Technological tools offer social partners the opportunity to enhance consultation, engage with their members through digitised processes, improve services and increase networking activities, as well as addressing the issue of membership decline. The findings of this report show that the extent to which the social partners use digital technologies varies greatly across the EU Member States, Norway and the United Kingdom. Provisions in collective agreements on several aspects of digitalisation have been identified in about half of the countries. Through these provisions, social partners encourage their members to boost training on digital skills, ensure fair and safe working conditions and take account of data protection and employee monitoring practices. The European social partners' autonomous framework agreement on digitalisation has provided inspiration to national-level organisations, and follow-up actions in this regard have the potential to greatly benefit their members

Social partners going digital: using digital tools and adapting social dialogue processes

La xarxa de corresponsals d'Eurofound ha contribuït a aquest informe i en concret l'Alejandro Godino com així s'expressa a l'Annex 3: Network of Eurofound CorrespondentsDigital transformation is changing the world of work. This report looks at how social partners - the actors involved in the regulation of employment relationships - are increasingly adopting technological solutions to improve the services that they provide to their members and facilitate collective bargaining processes. Technological tools offer social partners the opportunity to enhance consultation, engage with their members through digitised processes, improve services and increase networking activities, as well as addressing the issue of membership decline. The findings of this report show that the extent to which the social partners use digital technologies varies greatly across the EU Member States, Norway and the United Kingdom. Provisions in collective agreements on several aspects of digitalisation have been identified in about half of the countries. Through these provisions, social partners encourage their members to boost training on digital skills, ensure fair and safe working conditions and take account of data protection and employee monitoring practices. The European social partners' autonomous framework agreement on digitalisation has provided inspiration to national-level organisations, and follow-up actions in this regard have the potential to greatly benefit their members

Minimum wages in 2021 : annual review

Aquesta publicació s'elabora a partir de les contribucions de cadascú dels membres nacionals que integren la Network of Eufound Correspondent. Pel cas d'Espanya la contribució ha estat realitzada per l'Oscar MolinaThis report summarises how minimum wage rates for 2021 were set during 2020 - the year marked by the COVID-19 pandemic. It reviews the difficulties faced by national decision-makers and how they reacted to the challenges of the economic and social fall-out of the pandemic when making decisions regarding the minimum wage. It maps the extent to which minimum wages were referred to in COVID-19-related support measures. It discusses advances made on the EU initiative on adequate minimum wages and maps the reactions of the EU-level social partners and national decision-makers. The report is accompanied by two complementary working papers: one providing an analysis of developments for low-paid employees and minimum wage workers over the past decade; the other summarising the most recent research on minimum wages in EU countries, Norway and the UK

Regulating minimum wages and other forms of pay for the self-employed

Aquesta publicació s'elabora a partir de les contribucions de cadascú dels membres nacionals que integren la Network of Eurofound Correspondents. Pel cas d'Espanya la contribució ha estat realitzada per l' Oscar Molina (veure annex 2 Network of Eurofound Correspondents)This report is carried out in the context of the three-year pilot project (2021-2023), 'Role of the minimum wage in establishing the Universal Labour Guarantee', mandated to Eurofound by the European Commission. Its focus is module 3 of the project, investigating minimum wages and other forms of pay for the self-employed. Out of concern for the challenging conditions faced by certain groups of self-employed workers, some Member States have established or are in discussions about proposing some statutory forms of minimum pay for selected categories of the self-employed. The main objective of the report is to understand how minimum wages, wage rates, tariffs, fees and other forms of pay could be fixed for specific jobs or professions in sectors having a high level of 'vulnerable' workers, as well as 'concealed' self-employed. While the majority of Member States allow trade union representation, the right to collective bargaining for the self-employed is much more limited. Only a small number of Member States provide examples of collectively agreed minimum wages or other forms of pay for the self-employed

Community Frames of Migration: The Path from Seaca to Spain

Transnational migration is a vast social phenomenon that has become a valid option for many Romanians since 1989. Romania is an emigration country and the favourite destinations of its citizens are Italy and Spain. This is the context in which I present my work, which focuses on the formation of transnational migration patterns from a village in the southern region of Romania. The data were generated during field research conducted in August 2012, and the empirical material consisted of field notes and interview transcripts corresponding to recorded conversations with local migrants, authority representatives and people without migration experience. In this particular community, two patterns of migration were identified, for which variables such as ethnicity (Roma/Romanian) and religious orientation (Orthodoxy/Adventism) appear to have explanatory power. My inquiry takes as its starting point the identification of this variety of migration patterns and concentrates on analysing them in the regional and national contexts based on the scholarly framework provided by network theory. Two major differences exist between them: the time frame of living and working abroad (clearly demarcated as three months, six months or indefinite) and the nature of the work environment (departures based on a work contract between the migrant and a company located at the destination and departures accompanied by uncertainty regarding workplace concerns upon arrival). Making sense of these life strategies and their local configurations are the objectives of this paper

The COVID-19 pandemic and refugees. A scoping review

Refugees increasingly become part of the European societies. Afghans, Syrians, Ukrainians fled their countries due to war, conflicts, persecution, and settled, temporary or not, in more stable countries. During pandemics, with openness towards foreigners shrinking, and borders closing, the situation of refugees might become uncertain. Our scoping review explores what academics considered relevant about refugees to Europe in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings reveal increasing resentment against immigrants, a need for redesigning European migration policies, preparing welfare systems, asylum protection mechanisms, and societies as a whole, in order to prevent disruptions in the eventuality of large-scale crises. Such implications are to also be considered for the consequences of the current Russian aggression on Ukraine

Are the guest-worker programmes still effective? Insights from Romanian migration to Spanish agriculture

This chapter explores the benefits at the individual level of Romanian migration to Huelva, Spain, for work in the intensive agriculture sector through a critical appraisal of the perspective of the triple-win approach. Adopted by several important international organisations, triple-win promotes managed temporary/circular migration as a means of minimising the negative effects of migration and enhancing its positive ones. Romanian migration to Huelva offers the opportunity to explore the assertions behind the triple-win approach. Initiated in 2002 through a bilateral agreement as part of the Huelvan micro-guest-worker programme, it ceased to be publicly managed in 2008. Yet, migration continued, sustained by the recruitment efforts of the Spanish employers. Based on interviews with Romanian workers at the origin and destination areas, our findings suggest that migration practices did not fundamentally change after 2008. In challenging the triple-win perspective, we point out that the benefits associated with this migration are rather limited in scope. For our informants, seasonal migration is a way to manage a precarious situation at the origin rather than a path to substantial, long-term improvement, regardless of the institutional framework (publicly or privately managed).Peer reviewe

HIV Tat excites D1 receptor-like expressing neurons from rat nucleus accumbens

Background HIV-1 infection and drug abuse are frequently co-morbid and their association greatly increases the severity of HIV-1-induced neuropathology. While nucleus accumbens (NAcc) function is severely perturbed by drugs of abuse, little is known about how HIV-1 infection affects NAcc. Methods We used calcium and voltage imaging to investigate the effect of HIV-1 trans-activator of transcription (Tat) on rat NAcc. Based on previous neuronal studies, we hypothesized that Tat modulates intracellular Ca2+ homeostasis of NAcc neurons. Results We provide evidence that Tat triggers a Ca2+ signaling cascade in NAcc medium spiny neurons (MSN) expressing D1-like dopamine receptors leading to neuronal depolarization. Firstly, Tat induced inositol 1,4,5-trisphsophate (IP3) receptor-mediated Ca2+ release from endoplasmic reticulum, followed by Ca2+ and Na+ influx via transient receptor potential canonical channels. The influx of cations depolarizes the membrane promoting additional Ca2+ entry through voltage-gated P/Q-type Ca2+ channels and opening of tetrodotoxin-sensitive Na+ channels. By activating this mechanism, Tat elicits a feed-forward depolarization increasing the excitability of D1-phosphatidylinositol-linked NAcc MSN. We previously found that cocaine targets NAcc neurons directly (independent of the inhibition of dopamine transporter) only when IP3-generating mechanisms are concomitantly initiated. When tested here, cocaine produced a dose-dependent potentiation of the effect of Tat on cytosolic Ca2+. Conclusion We describe for the first time a HIV-1 Tat-triggered Ca2+ signaling in MSN of NAcc involving TRPC and depolarization and a potentiation of the effect of Tat by cocaine, which may be relevant for the reward axis in cocaine-abusing HIV-1-positive patients

Report on economic contributions of migrants upon return

Based on data from the TEMPER surveys conducted in 2017-2018 in Argentina, Romania, Senegal and Ukraine, this report provides descriptive analyses of a series of outcomes referring to the economic contributions of return migrants, compared to non-migrants in the four countries. It presents successively results about the respondents’ remitting behaviour during last migration, the appraisal of their household financial situation at the time of survey (and at the time of return for migrants), the different types of investments (businesses, lands and real estate properties) realised by both returnees and non-migrants, and the activity status of the respondents’ partners at different time points