Publications

Recent studies published in the Netherlands show that discrimination on
grounds of age and other factors occurs frequently in job recruitment and
selection, while inappropriate treatment of applicants is also common.

Following failure to agree in their current round of negotiations, about 400
journalists belonging to the Belgian Union of Professional Journalists
(Algemene Vereniging van Belgische Beroepsjournalisten, AVBB) carried out a
protest on Thursday 5 June 1997 in Brussels. The former collective agreement
had expired in March and negotiations between the journalists and the Belgian
Union of Newspaper Publishers (Belgische Vereniging van Dagbladuitgevers) had
not led to any new agreement.

At its annual assembly in May 1997, Confindustria, the main Italian
employers' confederation, kept up its pressure on the Government to make
changes to the welfare and social security system.

SAK and TT announced the renewal of their basic agreement on 6 June 1997. The
new agreement permits SAK and TT's member organisations at industry level to
agree on certain issues outside the auspices of the national agreement. The
agreement also states that agreements on subcontracting and hired labour will
include a clause whereby subcontractors or the company responsible for
subcontracting commit themselves to complying with the relevant collective
agreement as well as labour and social legislation. Furthermore, the new
basic agreement includes a section on the notification of political strikes
and sympathy strikes. The period of notification is four days.

A reform of Portugal's Statute on Teaching Careers is currently under
negotiation in a context that has favoured strengthening the power of the
teaching trade unions, given that education is one of the Government's
priorities. This feature highlights the strategy employed by the teaching
unions to assume greater control over their profession in terms of autonomy,
social mobility and control of their labour market.

Apprenticeships, together with secondary vocational schools (ninth to 13th
grade, around 15 to 19 years of age), form the backbone of the Austrian
skill-formation system. They are a part of the formal educational structure,
and are usually entered into at the age of 15, after completion of the
compulsory nine years of schooling. They involve an employment relationship
plus formal schooling over a period of three or sometimes four years.
Schooling is for the equivalent of one and a half or two days per week.
Apprentices graduate through a final examination in which they have to prove
their theoretical and practical grasp of the occupation concerned. There are
about 45,000 establishments having certified trainers among their employees.

On 21 May 1997, after five bargaining rounds, the miners' trade union
Industriegewerkschaft Bergbau und Energie (IGBE), the salaried employees'
union Deutsche Angestelltengewerkschaft (DAG) and the Unternehmensverband
Ruhrbergbau (UVR) employers' association for the hard-coal mining industry in
Northrhine-Westphalia, concluded a pilot agreement which covers roughly
75,000 employees in the Northrhine-Westphalia hard-coal mining industry. The
framework for the contents of the agreement was partly set by the "coal
compromise" of 13 March 1997 (DE9703104F [1]).

[1] www.eurofound.europa.eu/ef/observatories/eurwork/articles/undefined/miners-revolt-ends-in-corporatist-compromise

The aim of the ETUC day of action (EU9704120N [1]) was to mobilise pressure
on the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) (EU9704117F [2]) and the Amsterdam
European Council meeting (EU9706133N [3]) for a strong commitment to
employment creation in the revised European Union (EU) Treaty.

[1] www.eurofound.europa.eu/ef/observatories/eurwork/articles/etuc-organises-european-day-of-action-for-employment
[2] www.eurofound.europa.eu/ef/observatories/eurwork/articles/undefined/progress-of-the-intergovernmental-conference
[3] www.eurofound.europa.eu/ef/observatories/eurwork/articles/amsterdam-summit-agrees-new-draft-treaty

Over May-June 1997, the dialogue between the Italian Government, trade unions
and employers has been extended to welfare reform and policies related to EU
Economic and Monetary Union (EMU).

Jarmo Lähteenmäki, the chair of the Finnish Paperworkers' Union- one of the
most powerful unions in the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions
(SAK) - announced after a meeting on 11 June 1997 that the union will not
enter national negotiations on incomes policy. Instead, "the Paperworkers'
Union will focus directly on talks with individual unions" - ie, it will
engage only in direct industry-level negotiations with employers in its
sector. The union cited special problems in its sector which prevented it
from participating in comprehensive national incomes policy discussions, such
as the utilisation of outside labour in factories, the move to shorten
working hours, the contracting-out of different factory operations, and the
decision by two of the largest firms in the forestry industry to discontinue
personnel funds (a form of profit-sharing scheme).