Publications

The SEFES and PIMEC employers' organisations agreed in July 1997 to merge,
creating a single association that will represent small and medium-sized
enterprises in Catalonia. The new association will be called PIMEC-SEFES,
will represent more than 45,000 companies and 111 employers' unions and
associations, employing 340,000 workers.

In the Netherlands, trade unions were originally poorly represented at
workplace level, where works councils have traditionally been viewed as the
appropriate forum for representing employees' interests. Although works
councils and trade unions are cooperating to an increasing degree, this has
not progressed without tension. For a long time, workplace-level union
structure has been (and still is) a rather touchy issue. To address this, in
April 1997 the bipartite Labour Foundation published several new
recommendations concerning union structure at workplace level.

In July 1997, the German subsidiary of the US-based computer manufacturer
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) struck a new company collective agreement
with the metalworkers' trade union Industriegewerkschaft Metall (IG Metall),
and a new works agreement with the DEC works council. The company agreement
provides for the application of the sectoral collective wage agreements of
the Bavarian metalworking industry, including the provisions regarding the
pay structure and the grading system, to all 2,700 DEC employees.
Furthermore, the agreement is the first in the metalworking to abolish the
distinction between white-collar and blue-collar workers. All employees at
DEC are to be allocated to the different pay groups by 1 January 1999. The
works agreement foresees the introduction of performance-related pay for all
employees working in the sales department. Both agreements contain a status
quo clause [1] (Besitzstandsklausel).

[1] www.eurofound.europa.eu/ef/efemiredictionary/status-quo-clause

As the debate continues over the need to treat employees as valued assets,
the MSF survey of employees, published on 11 July 1997, indicates that within
companies there is a very wide divide between management and other staff. The
table below shows the extent to which separate, and better, facilities and
conditions are provided for senior managers

On 23 July 1997, the European Commission adopted a proposal for a Directive
to transpose the social partners' framework agreement on part-time work into
European law. The agreement was signed on 6 June 1997 by the European Trade
Union Confederation (ETUC), the Union of Industrial and Employers'
Confederations of Europe (UNICE) and the European Centre of Enterprises with
Public Participation and of Enterprises of General Economic Interest (CEEP)
(EU9706131F [1]). This is the second time that an agreement reached by the
European social partners has been submitted to the Council for adoption,
following the European framework agreement on parental leave (a Directive to
implement which was adopted in June 1996). The aims of the new agreement are
to prevent discrimination against part-time workers and to facilitate the
development of part-time work at Member State level.

[1] www.eurofound.europa.eu/ef/observatories/eurwork/articles/undefined/social-partners-reach-framework-agreement-on-part-time-work

The agreement between LO and AC comes as a reaction to the need for fewer
organisational disputes over boundaries and more cooperation with a view to
improving the service to their members. At a press conference, the LO
president,Hans Jensen, and the AC president,Søren Vang Rasmussen, pointed
out that the main objective of the new agreement is to ensure and safeguard
employees' influence on the development of Danish society. Both recognise the
growing need to speak with only one voice on a number of issues. One of these
issues is the need to upgrade and to meet the increasing demand for qualified
labour in Denmark. In this respect the two confederations will initiate two
joint projects - one aimed at forecasting developments which are likely to
characterise the labour market in the near future, and the other considering
the future need for further education and retraining.

In mid-July 1997, the system of workers' participation was at crisis point in
the Electrolux-Zanussi group. Negotiations broke down between trade unions
and the company management board over maintaining the agreements which -
through joint committees at both factory and group level - had enabled the
creation of one of the most advanced models of participation in Europe
(IT9706206F [1]).

[1] www.eurofound.europa.eu/ef/observatories/eurwork/articles/undefined/negotiations-start-at-electrolux-zanussi-to-resolve-participation-controversies

The collective agreement recently approved in the insurance sector provides
for a reduction of 10 minutes in the working week in 1997 and a further 20
minutes in 1998. Henceforth, weekly working hours will be below the 36
established by law across this sector for many years. The agreement, however,
lays down two particular types of working pattern, relaxing a rather rigid
traditional system to adapt it to new commercial policies:

In his general policy statement to the National Assembly in June 1997,
France's new Prime Minister announced the decision to close the Superphoenix
fast breeder reactor, drawing protests from trade unions.

Almost 400 members of the Irish Airline Pilots Association (IALPA) in
Ireland's state-owned airline, Aer Lingus, are to receive a pay award
averaging 7% after accepting the findings of an independent pay review on 5
July 1997. The review, which means a restructuring of pilots' pay in the
airline, was carried out by Phil Flynn, the former general secretary of the
Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) and the current chair of the
state-owned ICC Bank.