Communiqué, issue 5, 2003
Articles
- Approaching enlargement
- Changes in Europe's financial services market
- Foundation seminar: living and working conditions in 2010
- EIRO expands to cover ten enlargement countries
- Promoting employee financial participation
- Enlargement: longer working hours in the acceding and candidate countries
- European Restructuring Monitor
- Observers from the acceding countries join the Administrative Board
Previous issues of Communiqué
Workers in the acceding and candidate countries work longer and report a higher level of risk to their health and safety than their counterparts in the EU. These are among the findings of the Foundation’s survey (summary available) of working conditions in acceding and candidate countries, published on 23 October.
The average working week in the future Member States is over six hours longer than in the current Member States (44.4 hours per week compared to 38.2 hours). The proportion of workers working very long weeks (over 45 hours) is nearly twice as high in the ACC as in the current EU. These findings based on survey data may go some way to explain the high levels of work-related fatigue reported by workers in the applicant countries (41% compared to 23% in the EU).
Scope of the survey
The Foundation extended its European working conditions survey to cover the then applicant Member States in 2001. The survey for Turkey was carried out in 2002. Over ten thousand workers were interviewed with the same questionnaire used in the Third European working conditions survey (2000). Their responses provide an interesting snapshot of working conditions in the future Member States and offer a basis of comparison with the existing fifteen Member States following the Foundation’s three EU working conditions surveys in 1990, 1995 and 2000.
Despite convergence in recent years, one of the principal conclusions of the report, Working conditions in acceding and candidate countries, is that there exist significant differences in terms of workforce structure and working conditions between the old and new EU Member States.
Structural and gender differences
One in five of the workforce in the acceding and candidate countries works in the agricultural sector compared to only one in twenty in the EU. In terms of work organisation, work tends to be less decentralised, less service-oriented and more hierarchical in the new states. But the gender differences that characterise the EU workplace are less marked in the acceding and candidate countries where the survey data reveals a more even distribution of women in different job categories and sectors as well as at different hierarchical levels within their organisations.
Positive input to enlargement
According to Willy Buschak, the Foundation’s Acting Director, "these survey findings will provide a positive input to the socio-economic policies for the new enlarged European Union and serve as a basis for monitoring future trends in working conditions." The fourth European working conditions survey, planned for early 2005, will cover workers in the 25 EU Member States as well as applicant states and selected third countries.
RESEARCH IN FIGURES
Levels of overall fatigue significantly higher in the acceding and candidate countries
Workers exposed to work-related health problems
The perception that health and safety are at risk because of work is more widespread in the acceding and candidate countries (ACC) than in the current EU Member States.
The most frequent complaints are overall fatigue, backache, stress, and muscular pains, together with other problems usually found in heavy industrial work, which characterises the work environment in the acceding and candidate countries.
While stress and muscular pain are as common in the current 15 EU Member States as in the ACC, overall fatigue is significantly higher in the acceding and candidate countries.