Publications

At its plenary session of 13-17 January 1997, the European Parliament debated
two important measures relating to employee consultation in European
companies. After the European Works Councils (EWCs) Directive was passed in
1994, the Commission published a Communication on the future of employee
consultation in November 1995, in order to revive a legislative issue which
has been under discussion in various forms for over 15 years. Its aim was to
explore whether the model used for determining the structure and operation of
EWCs could be used in a wider context as a basis for making progress with the
long-delayed European Company Statute.

Following parliamentary controversy, a law clamping down on illegal and
undeclared "clandestine" employment was adopted in February 1997.

As the legislation regulating the postal delivery monopoly will expire by the
end of 1997, on 18 February Germany's governing coalition parties proposed a
new law which would limit the exclusive licence of Deutsche Post AG, the
national postal service, to handling letters weighting under 100g, and this
only until the end of 2002. According to the Ministry responsible, this
proposal would reduce Deutsche Post's current monopoly to 87% of the standard
letter market. The proposed new law would also open completely the bulk mail
market to licensed competitors from 1 January 1998.

According to the UGT trade union confederation, during the 1996 collective
bargaining round pay increases were generally settled in line with the Social
Concertation Agreement for that year.

Unskilled young people aged between 20 and 24 must undertake training or work
experience programmes in order to maintain their right to receive
unemployment benefit, according to a recent amendment to the Act on Labour
Market Support.

The executive committee (sekretariatet) of the Norwegian Confederation of
Trade Unions (Landsorganisasjonen i Norge, or LO), the largest union
confederation in Norway, has recommended a programme of action containing a
set of policy principles for the period 1997-2001. The programme encompasses
a wide variety of social and economic issues and is to be adopted at the
confederation's congress on 10-16 May 1997 after a plenary debate.

Following negotiations with the Education Minister, 3,300 unemployed supply
teachers won the right in late January 1997 to be temporarily reinstated in
their jobs.

Compared to many other western industrialised countries, Germany has the
image of being a high-wage economy with a relatively low inequality of
incomes and living standards. This is mainly the result of the German system
of branch-level central collective bargaining (Flächentarifvertrag), where
almost all employees in any sector receive the same basic payment.
Nevertheless, it is not widely known that there is still a large number of
sectors and areas of employment where collectively-agreed basic wages and
salaries are relatively low. This is the main finding of a recent study by
the Institute for Economics and Social Science (Wirtschafts- und
Sozialwissenschaftliches Institut,WSI) on low wages in Germany
("Niedriglöhne. Die unbekannte Realität: Armut trotz Arbeit", Gerd Pohl &
Claus Schäfer (eds), VSA-Verlag Hamburg (1996)). The study was inspired by
the European Commission which, in 1993, adopted an Opinion on an equitable
wage, the main purpose of which was "to outline certain basic principles on
equitable wages, while taking into account social and economic realities".

With the aim of abolishing "irregular" employment in the civil service, the
Portuguese Government is planning to integrate into its permanent staff lists
those workers who are currently on fixed-term and other forms of precarious
contract.

The Ford Motor Company announced on 16 January 1997 that it was to cut 1,300
jobs at its Halewood plant on Merseyside (in the north-west of England) This
was after five days of speculation following a report in the /Observer/
newspaper that Ford wanted to install new efficient working practices, and
that it would threaten to build its new -generation Escort model elsewhere,
or close the plant altogether if trade unions did not agree to concessions.
It was confirmed on 16 January that production of the new-model Escort would
not include Halewood but instead be located at Saarlouis (Germany) and
Valencia (Spain), and furthermore that Halewood would also immediately reduce
its shift pattern to one shift per day. Because production of the old-model
Escort is due to be phased out by 2000, there appears to be a real threat of
the plant closing down altogether