Publications

On 7 May 1997, a preliminary agreement (which requires ratification) was
signed for the renewal of the Italian national railworkers' contract. The new
contract, which comes into effect from January 1997 and will expire on 31
December 1999, deals with company recovery plans and pay.

Employment yielding less than ATS 3,740 gross per month or less than ATS 859
per week or ATS 288 per day, is defined as "minor". Below this threshold,
neither employee nor employer has to contribute to the national pension or
health or unemployment insurance. Only national accident insurance has to be
paid. Minor employment therefore does not earn an entitlement to unemployment
benefits, maternity benefits, a pension, or medical coverage. On the other
hand, because of the lower cost, minor employment may be an incentive for
employers to hire.

The publication of an assessment commissioned by the National Assembly's
Finance Commission, and the campaign for the May/June 1997 general election,
have reopened the debate in France on the content and efficiency of the
Robien law, which seeks to encourage working time reductions and
reorganisation to create or save jobs. Politicians, economists, employers and
unions remain divided whilst the number of collective agreements at company
level based on the law is increasing.

Non-wage labour costs are those categories of the enterprise's total labour
costs comprising other than direct compensation. Today, non-wage labour costs
account for a very substantial and rising proportion of total labour costs.
Since increasing labour costs tend to encourage substitution away from labour
to more capital-intensive methods of production, rising non-wage labour costs
are an impediment to job creation. Furthermore, some non-wage labour costs -
such as social security contributions - drive a wedge between the labour
costs that companies pay and the money that workers receive, thus making
collective bargaining more difficult. Via unit labour costs - nominal labour
costs divided by real value added - non-wage labour costs are likely to have
some effect on companies' location decisions.

An agreement on resolving labour disputes out of court was signed in January
1996 by Spain's largest unions (UGT and CC.OO) and employers' associations
(CEOE and CEPYME), covering the period until 31 December 2000. The agreement
built on the experience in mediation and arbitration at a regional level that
had grown on the basis of joint quasi-judicial institutions formed in the
1990s. We review the complex system which now applies in this area.

A frequently repeated statement in discussion on industrial relations is that
temporary employment will be much more common in the future. This assumption
is refuted in a recent report from the National Labour Market Board
(Arbetsmarknadsstyrelsen,AMS).

May 1997 saw Unilever defending its pro-European stance to shareholders,
while the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) was also signalling its
willingness to work with the trade unions prior to the adoption of European
Union legislation.

The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO), the largest employee
confederation in Norway, held its four-yearly congress on 10-16 May 1997. The
most important issues were the question of continuing with the "Solidarity
Alternative", and the adoption of the Action Programme for the period
1997-2001. A discussion also took place between LO unions regarding the
confederation's policy towards the privatisation of public activities
(services), while the vice-presidency election received considerable
attention.

The findings of a Eurostat study entitled /Statistics in focus: income
distribution and poverty in the EU 12 - 1993/, published on 14 May 1997, show
that one out of six citizens and households in the 12 pre-1995 EU member
states live below the "poverty threshold". In more than half of these
countries, the figure was even higher - one in five. Even more alarmingly,
over one-third of poor households were working. These findings are drawn from
the first wave of statistics generated from the European Community Household
Panel (ECHP). The ECHP consists of a sample of 60,500 households selected
randomly in the 12 member states, using a harmonised questionnaire. This data
does not allow for a comparison of social change over time, but does provide
important information on the magnitude and dimensions of poverty and income
disparity in the European Union in the early 1990s. The figures show that
there are approximately 57 million socially excluded individuals in EU, a
problem affecting both more and less affluent member states.

At a time when public opinion seems to be losing interest in the campaign for
the May/June 1997 parliamentary elections (if opinion polls published in the
middle of May are to be believed, less than half the electorate said they
were interested in the debates and manifestoes) the trade unions and
employers' associations, while not telling their members which way to vote,
are voicing their main demands and preparing the forthcoming social agenda.