Wages: A working conditions and industrial relations perspective

[Excerpt] This paper looks at wages from two different angles: from the perspective of individual employees, discussed in conjunction with their working conditions, and from the perspective of the industrial relations system. After a brief overview of EU-level policy developments with a potential impact on national level pay determination, this report gives a comparative overview of the levels of collective wage setting and how they are set throughout Europe and goes on to report on reforms, changes or debates linked to these processes between the different actors at both the Member State and the European level in 2011 and 2012. This includes, for instance, debates on potential changes of indexation mechanisms in Belgium, Luxembourg and Cyprus, as a result of the Commission’s recommendations within the Euro Plus Pact. While in some countries (Estonia, Bulgaria) social partners resumed collective bargaining (either on wages or on minimum wages) and came to agreements, in other countries (Lithuania, Romania), no agreements could be reached. Some changes in the way collective bargaining is organised were recently introduced in Spain, Romania, Greece, Ireland and Portugal. Information on these issues stems from the European Industrial Relations Observatory (EIRO). Furthermore, this paper also summarises the current changes and debates among the social partners and governments in relation to the setting and the level of minimum wages across Europe. It then looks into the area of ‘working poor’, that is people who are in employment but still at risk of poverty. To what extent do governments and social partners put forth policy responses to address the issue of in-work-poverty? And to what extent did the crisis have an impact? In order to answer these questions, the paper draws on Eurofound research on the situation of the ‘Working poor’. Finally the paper presents a collection of recent ‘information updates’ from the European Industrial Relations Observatory (EIRO) on various issues in relation to pay from Member States

Foundation Focus: Job Creation, Job Preservation or Job Loss? The Future of Europe\u27s Labour Market

This issue of Foundation Focus looks at the state of play of the European labour market and what governments, social partners and companies are doing to overcome the crisis. Over the last few years, many jobs have been lost, and mass unemployment has become the reality in some Member States. Eurofound’s latest European Quality of Life Survey points to growing inequalities and social exclusion. At the same time, the EU remains committed to the idea of creating and maintaining high-quality jobs. So where are these jobs going to come from? And is job quality being compromised in the attempt to cut costs and maintain competitiveness? All this and more in this issue of Foundation Focus

Greening of Industries in the EU: Anticipating and Managing the Effects on Quantity and Quality of Jobs

[Excerpt] All jobs will be affected as the EU moves to a green economy: new jobs will be created and some will be eliminated, but most existing jobs will be transformed. To ensure a socially responsible transition towards high-quality green jobs, concerted efforts by governments, employees, employers and other stakeholders are crucial in anticipating and managing this process. The research carried out in this study examined green business practices and greening processes aimed at mitigating climate change – if radical mitigation measures are not taken in time, adaptation could eventually prove impossible. The study had two main objectives: to provide an overview at both sectoral and cross-sectoral level in the EU of the effects of greening on the quantity and quality of jobs in 10 sectors (automotive, chemicals, construction, distribution and trade, energy, furniture, non- metallic materials, shipbuilding, textiles and transport); to analyse good practice examples of the anticipation and management of green change at company level in these sectors

Working Time and Work-Life Balance in a Life Course Perspective

[Excerpt] Since the 1980s, most industrial societies have experienced a marked trend towards the diversification, decentralisation and individualisation of working time patterns, driven both by companies’ needs for greater adaptability in order to meet market constraints, and by large changes in the gender division of labour. At the same time, and linked to the increased participation of women in the labour force, various forms of working time arrangements have become more widespread, in particular part-time work. However, it is largely women who have taken advantage of the increased diversity and flexibility of working time. Drawing on data from Eurofound’s fifth European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS), based on interviews with more than 38,000 respondents in 34 countries, this report documents the prevailing working time patterns of employees, the self-employed and lone parents across five country clusters. It also analyses the relationship between paid employment and domestic activities, work–life balance and working time preferences across the life course

Working Conditions in Morocco

CCC_Working_Conditions_in_Morocco.pdf: 917 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Working Conditions in Zanzibar

The first Zanzibar Working Conditions Survey, carried out in 2010, found that the incidence of physical risks, namely exposure to vibrations, noise and high temperatures, is considerably high. Hearing problems and respiratory problems are particularly prominent in manufacturing, whereas shoulder and neck problems, injuries, stress and skin problems seem to affect a considerable proportion of workers in the hotels and restaurants sector. Overall, working conditions in Zanzibar vary considerably across sectors but are, in general, characterised by a relatively high incidence of physical risks and work-related health problems

Working Conditions in Central America

[Excerpt] In Central America, there is very little information on working conditions, which hampers policymakers in deciding how best to improve health and well-being in this politically and economically important region. Getting a reliable system of information is a top priority for several global health and development programmes. The First Central American Working Conditions and Health Survey (I ECCTS) (Benavides et al, 2012) was designed with two main goals: to assess working and employment conditions and related health outcomes in order to inform policymaking on occupational safety and health in Central America; to serve as the basis for further Latin American surveys driven by the Ibero-American Strategy in Occupational Safety and Health of the Ibero-American Social Security Organisation (OISS, 2009)

Wages and Working Conditions

This paper presents another extension of the approach initiated by Brown. As in Brown's work, the wage change specification is used to control for bias due to omitted ability data. Then, as in Duncan and Hoimlund's study, working conditions are measured using subjective self?reported data. However, in this paper, working conditions are measured by a single comprehensive variable. This approach eliminates omitted working conditions as a source of bias. The working conditions measure is then treated as an unobserved variable which limits measurement error to an unknown scale factor. The model is estimated using a technique derived by memiya (1978).

Working Conditions in Central Public Administration

During the last few decades, public administration workers have been subject to a number of structural, modernising reforms, in a framework often designated as ‘new public management’. The current economic and financial crisis has also meant that the steep rise in public debt has prompted many authorities to try to reduce public expenditure by introducing freezes and reductions in pay and employment for civil servants. This report sets out to provide an overview of the main causes and reasons for change in central public administration in the European member states plus Norway. It also looks at the impact these changes have had on the sector\u27s working conditions, as well as exploring how this situation is expected to evolve

Manufacturing: Working Conditions and Job Quality

This report gives an overview of working conditions, job quality, workers’ health and job sustainability in the manufacturing sector. It is based mostly on the fifth European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS), which gathers data on working conditions and the quality of work across 34 European countries. Additional information on the structural characteristics of the sector is derived from Eurostat data. The fifth EWCS contains responses from almost 44,000 workers in manufacturing. The report compares aspects of work in the manufacturing sector with the EU28 as a whole and examines differences across the 11 subsectors within the sector: • food (NACE 10): 11,838 cases; • textiles (NACE 13): 14,468 cases; • leather (NACE 15): 106 cases; • wood (NACE 16): 251 cases; • paper (NACE 17): 107 cases; • printing (NACE 18): 328 cases; • chemicals (NACE 20, 21): 22,599 cases; • steel (NACE 24): 200 cases; • metal (NACE 25 to 30): 1,382 cases; • furniture (NACE 31): 351 cases; • other manufacturing sectors (NACE 12, 19, 23, 32): 33,357 cases