A month-long dispute over industrial restructuring hit Spain's publicly-owned
coalmining companies in December 1997-January 1998. The dispute arose
following the Government's amendments of agreements reached in May 1997,
following the release of a critical report by the European Commission. A
satisfactory settlement was eventually reached on 27 January 1998.
The UK - then led by a Conservative Government - was one of two European
Union (EU) Member States (along with Denmark) that decided to "opt out" of
the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) which was agreed as part of the
Maastricht Treaty on European Union of 1992. The third stage of EMU,
involving a single currency - the euro - is due to get underway at the
beginning of 1999.
Total membership of the world's largest sectoral free trade union, the German
metalworkers' union, IG Metall, stood at 2.7 million on 31 December 1997, a
fall of 960,000 (or 27%) since 1991. For the first time since German
unification, annual membership figures have now fallen below the 1989
pre-unification level, when IG Metall existed in western Germany only. The
1991 post-unification net growth of 897,675 members ( 33%) has thus melted
away. The development of IG Metall's membership is examined in a new report
from the Institute of the German Economy (Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft,
IW) - "Rücksturz auf 1989 - Zur Entwicklung der IGM-Mitgliedszahlen 1997", W
Pege, in IW-Gewerkschaftsreport 1/98 (forthcoming). The table below provides
details of changes in membership levels since 1989.
Talks in the Luxembourg public sector over government plans to reform civil
service pensions broke down irretrievably in January 1998, and the social
partners will now appear before a conciliator.
On 3 February 1998, the Danish Association of Professional Technicians
(Teknisk Landsforbund, TL) publicly announced its intention to seek a shift
from a 37-hour working week with overtime payments for any additional hours
to a fixed monthly salary (known as joblønor "job-salary"), whereby
technicians would not receive overtime payments for working more than 37
hours per week.
Teleworking (fjernarbeidor telependling) is becoming an issue of increasing
importance on the agenda of the Norwegian social partners. Home-based
teleworking is the main focus of attention. Although the level of home-based
telework activity has remained relatively constant in the last 10 years, it
is expected to increase in the future. The existing statutory provisions, as
well as collective agreements, are regarded by many as inadequate for this
type of work, and home-based teleworking in particular seems to be completely
unregulated. A declaration on teleworking has been incorporated into the new
Basic Agreement between the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions
(Landsorganisasjonen i Norge, LO) and the Confederation of Norwegian Business
and Industry (Næringslivets Hovedorganisasjon, NHO), which was formally
ratified in February 1998. The legal state of affairs in relation to
teleworking is also undergoing scrutiny, and the likely outcome is amendments
to the 1977 Working Environment Act.
Among the conclusions of the special European Council Employment Summit [1]
held in Luxembourg in November 1997 (EU9711168F [2]) was a requirement for an
action plan on employment, based on the European Commission's guidelines, to
be drawn up in each European Union Member State.
At the beginning of February 1998, the media reported that the 56-year-old
managing director of the Stora forestry company, who was about to leave his
job after six years, would receive a "golden handshake" (or severance
package) worth SEK 58 million. In the first two years following his
resignation, he would receive SEK 2.8 million and from the age of 60 a large
pension. What made the information conspicuous, apart from the large sum, was
that the managing director was said not to have been dismissed but to have
left on his own initiative, and that his terms of resignation had been
renegotiated and improved shortly before he had made his decision.
While current sectoral agreements in Belgium favour the redistribution of
work, a variety of companies have been adopting novel approaches to the
reduction of working time in agreements signed in late 1997 and early 1998.
The last collective agreement on pay in the French civil service was signed
on 9 November 1993. Five trade unions signed the deal - the French Democratic
Confederation of Labour (Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail,
CFDT ), the Federated Education Union (Fédération de l'Education Nationale-
FEN), the Independent General Confederation of Civil Servants (Fédération
Générale Autonome des Fonctionnaires, FGAF), the French Christian Workers'
Confederation (Confédération Française des Travailleurs Chrétiens, CFTC)
and the General Confederation of Managerial Staff-French Confederation of
Managerial Staff (Confédération Française de l'Encadrement-
Confédération Générale des Cadres, CFE-CGC). On the basis of the results
of workplace-level elections, these five unions together represented the
majority of civil servants.
This series reports on the new forms of employment emerging across Europe that are driven by societal, economic and technological developments and are different from traditional standard or non-standard employment in a number of ways. This series explores what characterises these new employment forms and what implications they have for working conditions and the labour market.
The European Company Survey (ECS) is carried out every four to five years since its inception in 2004–2005, with the latest edition in 2019. The survey is designed to provide information on workplace practices to develop and evaluate socioeconomic policy in the EU. It covers issues around work organisation, working time arrangements and work–life balance, flexibility, workplace innovation, employee involvement, human resource management, social dialogue, and most recently also skills use, skills strategies and digitalisation.
The European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS) is carried out every four to five years since its inception in 2003, with the latest edition in 2016. It examines both the objective circumstances of people's lives and how they feel about those circumstances and their lives in general. It covers issues around employment, income, education, housing, family, health and work–life balance. It also looks at subjective topics, such as people's levels of happiness and life satisfaction, and perceptions of the quality of society.
This series brings together publications and other outputs of the European Jobs Monitor (EJM), which tracks structural change in European labour markets. The EJM analyses shifts in the employment structure in the EU in terms of occupation and sector and gives a qualitative assessment of these shifts using various proxies of job quality – wages, skill-levels, etc.
Eurofound's European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS) examines both the objective circumstances of European citizens' lives and how they feel about those circumstances and their lives in general. This series consists of outputs from the EQLS 2016, the fourth edition of the survey. The survey was first carried out in 2003.
Eurofound’s European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) paints a wide-ranging picture of Europe at work across countries, occupations, sectors and age groups. This series consists of findings from the EWCS 2015, the sixth edition of the survey. The survey was first carried out in 1990.
Eurofound’s European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) paints a wide-ranging picture of Europe at work across countries, occupations, sectors and age groups. This series consists of findings from the EWCS 1996, the second edition of the survey. The survey was first carried out in 1990.
Eurofound’s European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) paints a wide-ranging picture of Europe at work across countries, occupations, sectors and age groups. This series consists of findings from the EWCS 2001, which was an extension of the EWCS 2000 to cover the then 12 acceding and candidate countries. The survey was first carried out in 1990.
Eurofound’s European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) paints a wide-ranging picture of Europe at work across countries, occupations, sectors and age groups. This series consists of findings from the EWCS 2000, the third edition of the survey. The survey was first carried out in 1990.
Eurofound’s European Company Survey (ECS) maps and analyses company policies and practices which can have an impact on smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, as well as the development of social dialogue in companies. This series consists of outputs from the first edition of the survey carried out in 2004–2005 under the name European Establishment Survey on Working Time and Work-Life Balance.
This report explores the association between skills use and skills strategies and establishment performance, and how other workplace practices, in terms of work organisation, human resources management and employee involvement, can impact on this. It looks at how skills shortages can be addressed, at least in part, by creating an environment in which employees are facilitated and motivated to make better use of the skills they already have. This further supports the business case for a more holistic approach to management.
This paper provides an analytical summary of state of the art academic and policy literature on the impact of climate change and policies to manage transitions to a carbon neutral economy on employment, working conditions, social dialogue and living conditions. It maps the key empirical findings around the impact of climate change and the green transitions on jobs, sectors, regions and countries in Europe, identifying the opportunities and risks that climate change policies bring to European labour markets.
As part of its response to Russia’s war on Ukraine, the EU swiftly activated its Temporary Protection Directive for those fleeing the conflict in Ukraine – enabling displaced persons to settle in the EU and have access to the labour market and basic public services. This policy brief highlights the main barriers encountered by these refugees (over 5 million people to date) when seeking a job and provides suggestions on how to facilitate their integration.
Living and working in Europe, Eurofound’s 2022 yearbook, provides a snapshot of the latest developments in the work and lives of Europeans as explored in the Agency’s research activities over the course of 2022. Eurofound’s research on working and living conditions in Europe provides a bedrock of evidence for input into social policymaking and achieving the Agency’s vision ‘to be Europe’s leading knowledge source for better life and work’.
The term ‘hybrid work’ became popular due to the upsurge of telework during the COVID-19 pandemic. The term has been increasingly used to refer to situations in which (teleworkable) work is performed both from the usual place of work (normally the employer’s premises) and from home (as experienced during the pandemic) or other locations. However, the concept of hybrid work is still blurry, and various meanings are in use. This topical update brings clarity to this concept by exploring available information from recent literature and the Network of Eurofound Correspondents.
Housing affordability is a matter of great concern across the EU. Poor housing affordability leads to housing evictions, housing insecurity, problematic housing costs and housing inadequacy. These problems negatively affect health and well-being, create unequal living conditions and opportunities, and come with healthcare costs, reduced productivity and environmental damage. Private market tenants face particularly large increases in the cost of housing.
With the expansion of telework and different forms of hybrid work as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important for policymakers to consider both the opportunities and the negative consequences that may result. This report will explore potential scenarios for such work. In doing so, it will identify trends and drivers, and predict how they might interact to create particular outcomes and how they are likely to affect workers and businesses. Policy pointers will outline what could be done to facilitate desirable outcomes and to avoid undesirable ones.
Eurofound's annual review of minimum wages reports on the development of statutory and collectively agreed minimum wages across the EU and the processes through which they were set. The focus of this year’s report is on the impact of high inflation on the setting of minimum wage rates. In addition, new figures on the net value of minimum wages are presented, along with the latest policy-relevant research in the EU Member States and Norway.
Building on previous work by Eurofound, this report will investigate intergenerational dynamics over time. During the 2008 double-dip recession, worrying intergenerational divides appeared in many Member States, and while some of the economic and social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is universal, early data suggests disparities across demographic cohorts. Eurofound will examine how different age groups may have been affected in terms of their health, labour market participation, quality of life and financial needs, both in the short term and in the long term.
The COVID-19 pandemic triggered an extraordinary level of provision of social services across the EU. Healthcare and care providers carried much of the burden and, together with essential services, played a crucial role in getting citizens through the crisis. This report explores how public services adapted to the new reality and what role was played by the digital transformation of services. The aim is to contribute to the documentation and analysis of changes in funding, delivery and use of healthcare and social services during the pandemic.
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