Non-standard employment

In 2001-2, trade unions in the Catalonia region of Spain have taken a number of initiatives aimed at examining and criticising the level of unstable employment. CC.OO's Catalan organisation has drawn up a 'blacklist' of the 200 most unstable companies in the region, using a 'barometer of employment

The European Commission issued on 20 March 2002 a proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on working conditions for temporary agency workers [1]. This is the third subject to be regulated within the framework of the Commission's September 1995 social partner consultation on the

Spain has a very high level of temporary employment, especially among women. However, in recent years the temporary employment rate has been falling slightly in the private sector, while increasing in the public sector, which previously had a relatively low level of such non-permanent employment

Between November and December 2001, the Italian government launched three important reform initiatives in the fields of labour market institutions, the pension system and the tax system. The Cgil, Cisl and Uil trade union confederations sharply criticised the government's action, both because of the

TheProtection of Employees (Part-Time Work) Act 2001 [1] took effect in late December 2001. It seeks to implements the December 1997EU Directive (97/81/EC) on part-time work [2], which was based on a framework agreement negotiated by the European-level social partners in 1997 (EU9706131F [3]) under

The Finnish Ministry of Labour published its yearly 'working life barometer' in December 2001. The results indicate that employees on fixed-term and temporary contracts are discriminated against more than other groups at the workplace. Employees' general attitude to changes in working life has also

A general election took place in Denmark on 20 November 2001. The result was a comfortable victory for the coalition of the Liberal Party (Venstre) and Conservative People's Party (Konservative Folkeparti), which shortly afterwards formed a government under the leadership of Anders Fogh Rasmussen of

A survey carried out in November 2001 by Iref, a research centre linked to the Christian Association of Italian Workers (Acli), examines the aspirations of young Italians towards work. The majority of them seek an independent and flexible employment relationship, which is able to offer the same