Publications

Until recent years, largely due to the voluntary system of industrial
relations in the UK, a universal national minimum wage has never been more
than a passing thought. Instead, because of the growing awareness of poor
working conditions and low wages, trade boards were established in 1909 in
certain "sweated trades" to set minimum wages and standards. The areas and
industries under the boards' coverage began to widen, so that by the time
they became known as Wages Councils (WCs) in 1945 they covered some 4.5
million workers. But from the 1960s, the WCs came under increasing criticism
for three main reasons:

The 1994 labour market reform led to a spectacular increase in part-time
employment contracts, which had hardly been used in Spain before that time.
This feature describes this development and points out the main
characteristics of the workers employed under these contracts, who are mainly
women.

The Ministry of Labour has chosen 20 municipalities in different parts of
Finland to participate in new forms of working time organisation on an
experimental basis. Results so far have been favourable.

After a legal battle lasting more than three years between the management of
La Samaritaine (one of the five large Paris department stores), and its works
council and CGT union branch, two rulings by the highest court in the French
legal system on 13 February 1997, imposed the reinstatement of staff made
redundant, as part of the cancellation of a corporate "downsizing" procedure
(plan social). These rulings reveal the growing role of judges in the
supervision of redundancies.

In its response to the Commission's September 1996 Communication on the
development of the social dialogue (see Record EU9702102F [1]), UNICE (the
Union of Industrial and Employers' Confederations of Europe) welcomes the
opportunity for debate and calls for a reinforcement of consultation with the
social partners. However, it argues that the treatment of fundamentally
different processes in one Communication adds a source of confusion to the
debate. These varied processes include: the consultation and negotiation
within the meaning of Article 118B of the EC Treaty and Article 3.1 of the
Agreement on social policy; Advisory Committees; the Standing Committee on
Employment; the joint sectoral committees and informal working groups;
tripartite bodies; joint operational initiatives; European Works Councils,
and the social dialogue in trans-boundary region. UNICE feels that the
Communication should have:

[1] www.eurofound.europa.eu/ef/observatories/eurwork/articles/undefined-industrial-relations/the-future-of-the-social-dialogue-at-community-level

The typical trade union member of the future could well be a 30-year-old
female VDU operator, balancing both work and family responsibilities,
according to the TUC. A new report launched at the TUC's women's conference
held in Scarborough on 12-14 March, argues that if unions can rise to the
challenge, the number of women members could increase by as many as 400,000
by the turn of the century. According to the report (/Women and the new
unionism/), women now make up half of the workforce, but only a third are
members of a union. Young women are thought to be particularly difficult to
organise. Only 6% of women employees under the age of 20 years are presently
union members, compared with 24% aged between 20 and 29 years old.

The major labour market reform legislation of 1994 made important changes to
the framework for collective bargaining in Spain. This feature examines
bargaining trends since 1994, and analyses the positions of the parties
involved and the results of the reform.

Portugal's major Lisnave shipyards are being privatised. New industrial
readjustment and work organisation strategies are reforming human resource
management and training standards. However, in a company that has strong
trade union traditions, discussions with employee representatives on
restructuring have been conducted in a relatively formal and
institutionalised way, with little participative input from the employees
concerned themselves.

The announcement by the French auto manufacturer, Renault, of the closure of
its plant with a workforce of 3,100 in Vilvorde in the Flanders region of
Belgium, has caused a wave of indignation throughout Europe. The closure is
part of a European restructuring project which also includes the axing of
2,800 jobs in France. The response by the unions, of an unusually rapid and
massive nature, took the form of strikes in all the group's European plants,
and a series of joint demonstrations.

The issue of the use of national and European subsidies to support employment
in a particular country, region or sector, has come under the spotlight in
recent weeks in the context of the controversy which has arisen from
Renault's announcement of the closure of its factory at Vilvoorde in Belgium
(see Record EU9703108F [1]). Renault's request for subsidies to expand its
operations in Spain was blocked by European competition policy commissioner,
Karel Van Miert, in order to investigate whether EU funding was being used to
transfer employment to a region offering lower wage and social costs.

[1] www.eurofound.europa.eu/ef/observatories/eurwork/articles/undefined-working-conditions/the-renault-case-and-the-future-of-social-europe