On 28 May 1997, the Labour Court ruled that the municipality of Mjölby in
southern Sweden did not discriminate against two women teachers by paying
them SEK 1,119 less per month than their male colleague was paid for the same
job (AD 1997:68). The judgment is the latest of several setbacks for women
invoking the Act on Equality between Men and Women by claiming sex
discrimination in relation to pay.
The 1997 collective bargaining round for the 1.3 million employees in the
German construction industry started on 27 February. In contrast to most
branch-level bargaining, which takes place at regional level, negotiations in
the construction industry are traditionally held at national level. The
collective bargaining parties - the construction union IG Bauen-Agrar-Umwelt
(IG BAU) and the two employers' associations, Hauptverband der Deutschen
Bauindustrie (HDB) and Zentralverband des Deutschen Baugewerbes (ZDB) - had
to find new agreements on at least four main issues:
On 3 June 1997 the Transport and General Workers' Union (TGWU) representing
9,000 British Airways ground staff and BASSA, the cabin crew union (linked to
the TGWU) representing a further 9,000 employees, began balloting members
over whether to take industrial action. On 9 June, they were joined by 4,500
members of the GMB general union. If the ballots support strike action, it is
likely to take place in mid-July.
In June 1997, the Norwegian Parliament turned down a legislative proposal
which would provide employees with a right both to choose their own
organisation or not to be organised. The aim of the proposal was primarily to
prohibit collective agreements with closed shop clauses. This would have had
a particular impact on employees in enterprises affiliated to the labour
movement.
An agreement concluded in the Italian banking sector in June 1997, with
government mediation, provides for the creation of an employer-financed fund
to support redundant workers, and for negotiations on cost reductions.
Immediately following the Left's victory in France's May/June parliamentary
elections, Peugeot's management announced a new mass redundancy programme,
cutting 2,816 jobs, to the company-wide works council.
The Luxembourg Government has recently announced plans to legislate to reform
the civil service pension scheme, following inconclusive negotiations with
the civil servants' trade union. The aims are to cut costs and bring about a
degree of convergence between private and public sector pensions - an issue
which has been politically controversial for some years.
The renewal of the Spanish system of occupational classification is marked by
the change from the old system of "Labour Ordinances", which were established
by law, to a new classification system based on occupational groupings, which
is the result of collective bargaining. This process has been accelerated by
the labour reforms of the 1990s: the 1994 reform established a deadline for
the replacement of the Ordinances, and the 1997 reform established an
agreement on occupational classification for those sectors in which one had
not yet been established.
The Unemployment Insurance Act (Arbeitslosenversicherungsgesetz, AlVG) makes
benefit entitlements, but not contributions, dependent on nationality. On 16
September 1996 the European Court of Human Rights found this inequality to be
in violation of human rights, creating the need to amend the law, and on 11
June 1997 Parliament passed the requisite act.
A traditional characteristic of Sweden's trade union movement has been that,
with rare exceptions, the unions do not compete with each other for members.
It is true that there is a revolutionary syndicalist union that organises all
categories of workers, but it is no real competitor to the others. So if a
worker wants to join a union, it has often been more or less self-evident
which organisation he or she should belong to. For example a blue-collar
worker in the paper industry would apply for membership of thePaper Workers'
Union, a non-graduate white-collar worker in the same enterprise would join
the Union for Clerical and Technical Employees in Industry (SIF) while the
company's graduate engineers would belong to the Association of Graduate
Engineers (CF). The employer is thus bound by different collective agreements
for different categories of employees.
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.
In 2022, the European Semester was streamlined to integrate the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) established on 19 February 2021 (Regulation (EU) 2021/241). While facing the geopolitical and economic challenges triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Member States have been implementing the national Recovery and Resilience Plans (RRPs) for more than one year and around 100 billion euro in RRF funds have already been disbursed.
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.
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.
This report explores the drivers of economic and social convergence in Europe, using a selected set of economic and social indicators to examine trends in the performance of individual Member States. It also investigates what role the Economic and Monetary Union plays in convergence, particularly in southern and eastern Member States. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on convergence is analysed and initial conclusions are drawn about the impact of EU recovery packages and their ability to prevent divergence.
As economies emerge from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, labour shortages are becoming increasingly evident. These include shortages exacerbated by the crisis in some sectors and professions where they had been endemic for some time. This report will look at measures implemented at national level to tackle labour shortages in the health, care and information and communications technology sectors, as well as those arising from the twin digital and green transitions.
Adequate, affordable housing has become a matter of great concern, with an alarming number of Europeans with low or lower household incomes unable to access any, especially in capital cities. Housing was a key factor in people’s experience of the COVID-19 pandemic: its quality and level of safety significantly affected how lockdowns and social distancing measures were experienced, with those who had no access to quality housing at higher risk of deteriorating living conditions and well-being.
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.
The urban-rural divide in EU countries has grown in recent years, and the depopulation of certain rural areas in favour of cities is a challenge when it comes to promoting economic development and maintaining social cohesion and convergence. Using data from Eurofound and Eurostat, this report will investigate the trends and drivers of the urban-rural divide, in various dimensions: economic and employment opportunities, access to services, living conditions and quality of life.
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.