Publications

A report published by the Statistical Office of the European Communities
(Eurostat) on 9 December 1997 shows that, despite the adoption of equal pay
legislation at European level more than 20 years ago, a large pay gap remains
between men and women. The report (, Eurostat statistics in focus, Population
and social conditions, 15/97 [1]), summarises the findings of a survey on pay
in four Member States and gives the hourly earnings of women as a percentage
of those of men as 84% in Sweden, 73% in France and Spain and just over 64%
in the UK. The study includes data on both full- and part-time workers, but
excludes overtime payments (which means that in certain occupations, pay gaps
are likely to be underestimated as women are less likely than men to work
overtime).

[1] http://europa.eu.int/en/comm/eurostat/compres/en/9597/6309597a.htm

Swedish employees are entitled to leave of absence for a number of reasons,
and the Government's plans to introduce yet another one - for starting or
working in their own businesses - were not met with overwhelming enthusiasm
when they were made public in spring 1997. The Swedish Employers'
Confederation (Svenska Arbetsgivareföreningen, SAF) and the National Agency
for Government Employers (Arbetsgivarverket) objected, and the Swedish Trade
Union Confederation (Landsorganisationen, LO) doubted that there was a need
for an act of the kind proposed.

The Minister for Women's Affairs has made it clear that she wishes to make
progress in 1998 on the issue of women's careers in enterprises. Studies in
the past years have proven the existence of a "glass ceiling" through which
women are unlikely to pass. An 11-point women's petition submitted to
Parliament in 1997 put combating this glass ceiling first on the list of
demands. Specifically, the petition suggested that companies should be
excluded from public contracts and subsidies unless they had taken measures
to employ women at all hierarchical levels in proportion to their share in
the population. The Ministry sees little opportunity to go quite that far,
but it does want to take action in this direction.

On 24 November 1997, the general meeting of the peak employers' association
(Vereinigung der Arbeitgeberverbände in Bayern, VAB) in the federal state
(Land) of Bavaria decided to merge with the Bavarian peak trade association
(Landesverband der Bayerischen Industrie, LBI). The new Landpeak association
for Bavarian enterprises is called Vereinigung der Bayerischen Wirtschaft
(VBW). On 17 December the constituent assembly of the VBW elected Erich
Sennebogen as president.

Although half of the private sector bargaining area conducted collective
bargaining in the spring (DK9705110F [1]), 1997 was a relatively peaceful
year on the Danish labour market, with fewer conflicts than in previous years
when bargaining occurred. According to statistics from the Danish Employers'
Confederation (Dansk Arbejdsgiverforening, DA) the number of working days
lost due to industrial action in 1997 - at 82,992 days - was significantly
lower than in 1995 and 1993. The main reason for the lower figure is that
only half of the private sector area conducted collective bargaining in 1997,
while the whole area did so in 1995 and 1993.

[1] www.eurofound.europa.eu/ef/observatories/eurwork/articles/undefined-working-conditions/the-1997-danish-collective-bargaining-round-completed

Ireland's Labour Court made its biggest ever individual equal pay award
recently when it held that four communications assistants represented by the
Civil and Public Services Union (CPSU) and employed by the Irish Aviation
Authority were entitled to equal pay with two male radio officers. The
government department with overall responsibility for the Authority, the
Department of Public Enterprise, has decided to accept the ruling, which was
issued on 28 November 1997 and which means each of the four women will
receive a total of IEP 100,000 on a backdated basis.

Since the 1980s, intense product market competition among the industrialised
countries has led to a search for new products and new methods of production.
At the same time, new technology is changing the ways that labour markets
work and UK labour institutions have increasingly come into question. The UK
in particular has experienced a sharp decline in the coverage of collective
bargaining and of unionisation. Most of these developments have either been
the consequence of, or the reason for, increasing flexibility. Yet what is
"flexibility", what does it mean and what is it doing?

A strike in the mining companies, Hunosa and Minas de Figaredo, escalated
into a well-supported general strike in the whole Spanish mining industry in
January 1998.

A new three-year collective agreement was signed at Cargolux SA, the
Luxembourg air freight company, in December 1997. It contains substantial
improvements, including the restoration of certain benefits lost in 1995.

There has, in recent years, been an increasing focus on corporate conduct in
terms of social, ethical and environmental performance. The experience of
large multinational corporations such as Nike and Shell, which have been
faced with protest campaigns against their social and environmental policies,
has galvanised actors in this area. Many organisations are beginning to
recognise that their profitability in the long term depends as much on on
their performance in satisfying the aspirations of their "stakeholders" -
including customers, suppliers, employees, local communities, investors,
governments, and interest groups - in terms of their social and environmental
record, as it does on price and quality.