Biletta, Isabella

This EurWORK topical update summarises the views of European and national-level stakeholders on recent debates on implementing the principle of ‘equal pay’ for posted workers. Directive 96/71/EC foresees that posted workers must be granted the minimum standards of employment conditions applicable in the host country, including the minimum rates of pay.

Low-wage jobs have been a focus of debate in six countries across Europe during 2016. However, the issues discussed have reflected differing national concerns. For some countries, the key issue is the integration of migrants into the labour market; for others, how to stimulate job creation and reduce unemployment.

The sixth European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) builds on the lessons learned from the previous five surveys to paint a wide-ranging picture of Europe at work across countries, occupations, sectors and age groups. EU employment policy priorities aim to boost employment levels, prolong working life, increase the participation of women, develop productivity and innovation and adapt to the digital challenge.

This EurWORK topical update considers how EU Member States have dealt with transposing Directive 2014/67/EU to improve enforcement of European regulations as regards the posting of workers. The situation at mid-2016 is analysed, based on contributions and updates from Eurofound’s network of European correspondents from June 2016 onwards.

Well-functioning social dialogue is a key component for the successful design and implementation of reforms needed to increase the competitiveness of Europe’s economies and create more jobs. It balances workers’ and employers’ interests and contributes to both economic competitiveness and social cohesion.

Social dialogue still matters in Europe. Recent EU-level policy debates have highlighted that, particularly since the 2008 crisis, the emergence of new debates on social justice, democracy, the quality of work and new models for labour relations have been challenging traditional industrial relations and social dialogue systems. The main objective of this comparative study is to gather information on how social partners in the EU28 and Norway have responded to the many new political, legal and social challenges that have arisen in recent years.

Strike activity across the EU dropped in 2014 following a crisis-related peak in 2010. However, evidence from EurWORK correspondents suggests that the more highly unionised public sector has been a focus of industrial action recently. In general, strikes have been triggered by pay freezes and cuts, as well as by other unpopular effects of fiscal tightening such as lay-offs or changed working conditions.

There is an absence of commonly agreed definitions of key concepts such as public sector, public services and public administration, not to mention ‘central’ public administration. This absence is problematic when comparing several institutions, or even when addressing different issues within one organisation. The aim of this paper is to deliver a working definition of central public administration (CPA).

In recent years, practices such as outsourcing and contracting-out have increasingly blurred the boundaries between dependent employment and self-employment. A new group of workers has emerged, which comprises workers who are formally ‘self-employed’, but present some characteristics of employees. These ‘economically dependent workers’ usually have a commercial contract (or ‘service contract’) rather than an employment contract; they are therefore registered as self-employed when in reality their working conditions have a lot in common with those of employees. The purpose of this short exploratory paper is to investigate the position of these economically dependent workers and to find out whether overall their working conditions are more similar to those of the self-employed or to those of employees. This exercise builds on data from the 2010 wave of the European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS).

The aim of flexicurity is to improve employment opportunities for workers, while at the same time increasing flexibility, enabling organisations to adapt their operations and employment levels to business needs. The past few years have, however, been particularly challenging for European labour markets: the recent financial crisis and recession have had an inevitable negative impact on EU labour markets and unemployment levels. This has called into question the effectiveness of the flexicurity strategy in terms of supporting vulnerable workers. Eurofound research in six EU Member States analysed company initiatives targeting young workers, older workers and women.