Publications

In August 1999, Italy's main transport workers' trade unions signed an
agreement with the Atac-Cotral group, which is responsible for public
transport services in Rome and Lazio. The most innovative aspect of the
agreement concerns the use of 400 temporary agency workers for a four-month
period starting from September 1999.

In 1999, the number of interest groups representing self-employed people
without employees in the Netherlands has rapidly grown, while some trade
unions affiliated to the FNV confederation now also include these individuals
as a target group for recruitment. The increase in self-employment without
staff stems from the healthy economic situation, diminished social security
for employees and perceived greater opportunities for people to apply their
talents in a self-employed capacity. Whether the current trend will continue
in the future remains to be seen.

In July 1999, in preparation for the general election to be held in October,
Portugal's social partner organisations drew up their assessments of the
outgoing legislature and made their demands to the political parties for the
next four-year period.

In late July 1999, workers at Elf Exploration Production in France, who had
been on strike for over three months, were informed by the company's
management that the redundancy plan proposing major job cuts had been
shelved.

In July 1999, following earlier allegations of violations of working and
banking hours in Greek banks, the Greek Federation of Bank Employee Unions
(OTOE) lodged a complaint with the Labour Inspectorate against EUROBANK and
ASPIS Bank.

On 1 September 1999, 100 years have passed since the two most prominent
social partner confederations in Denmark - the Danish Employers'
Confederation (Dansk Arbejdsgiverforening, DA) and the Danish Confederation
of Trade Unions (Landsordanisationen i Danmark, LO) - concluded the
"September compromise" (Septemberforliget), the first basic agreement on the
regulation of Danish industrial relations. The main principles of this
agreement are still valid. Hardly any other event in recent history has
contributed more than the September compromise to the development of Danish
society as a "consensus society", in which conflicts between groups and
classes are resolved through compromises on the basis of mutual respect.

On 4 August 1999, the trade and industry secretary Stephen Byers published a
consultation document setting out the government's proposals for a statutory
right for working parents to take parental leave and for improved maternity
leave arrangements. The legislation will take the form of Regulations, and
will take effect from 15 December 1999 - the deadline for implementing the
requirements of the EU Council Directive on parental leave (96/34/EC) [1].

[1] http://europa.eu.int/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi!celexapi!prod!CELEXnumdoc&lg=en&numdoc=31996L0034&model=guichett

In late July 1999, a preliminary agreement on an "employment pact for the
city of Milan" was signed by the city's municipal administration, the trade
union confederations - with the important exception of Cgil - and the
employers' associations. Under the deal, September will see the start of
local-level consultations and dialogue aimed at drawing up pay and employment
measures to promote the entry into employment of weaker sections of the
labour force - immigrants, long-term unemployed workers, workers over 40
expelled from the labour market, and disadvantaged young people. The Milan
Cgil organisation has pulled out of the talks because it fears that the
proposals for pay and employment contract flexibility put forward by the city
council will open the way for more precarious forms of employment.

In August 1999, several Dutch trade union organisations announced plans to
support their members with financial advice and professional education, thus
further developing the role of unions away from their traditional collective
bargaining function.

Summer 1999 saw increasing concern among Portuguese trade unions over a
number of economic indicators. Although individual income has gone up, the
inflation rate and the rate of indebtedness of Portuguese families are
considered to be sources of major concern.