Small and medium-sized enterprises

A law to reform France's employee savings schemes was presented to parliament in October-November 2000. There are two parts to the law: the first overhauls the existing company savings scheme and extends it to cover smaller companies; while the second creates a new voluntary longer-term savings

The Irish social and economic context has changed considerably in recent years. In particular, while the Irish economy was burdened with mass unemployment and poor performance during the 1980s, there has since been very strong economic growth. The expansion of the economy has resulted in continual

The National Auxiliary Joint Committee for White-Collar Workers (CPNAE/ANPCB) is the most important sectoral joint committee in Belgium. In addition to its weight in numeric terms, it also covers an unusually wide spectrum of activities, including a significant proportion of the new "emerging"

The reduction of working time drove the collective bargaining process in France during 1999. The number of company-level agreements rose by over 130%, while sector-level bargaining was dominated by the implementation of the 35-hour working week, enabling 4.5 million employees to have their working

The UK's first national minimum wage (NMW) was introduced in April 1999 against the backdrop of immense uncertainty over what its effects might be (UK9904196F [1]). The Labour government aimed to introduce the NMW in such a way that it would bring substantial benefits to low paid workers without

In November 1999, the Institute for Health, Safety and Working Conditions (IYASE) presented the results of a study on developments in health, safety and working conditions in Greece over the past 20 years. It finds that there is a considerable shortage of data on workplace-level developments, and

Shipbuilding in Italy presents a fragmented picture in terms of both industrial relations and sectoral structure, with a polarisation between a handful of medium to large companies (with Fincantieri being by far the largest) and many smaller enterprises. At the beginning of 2000, an important issue

In June 1999, the Federation of Finnish Enterprises, representing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), was given a mandate by four of its affiliates to participate in national incomes policy negotiations. The organisation thus aims to achieve the status of a central social partner organisation