ETUI Research

SEER entered its 13th volume with a new name of SEER Journal for Labour and Social Affairs in Eastern Europe and under the sole publishing responsibility of the ETUI. With SEER arriving at a crossroads, the decision has been taken to strengthen its background and explore new territory with an extended profile. The current 1/2010 issue focuses on political changes and the role of institutions using the example of recent developments in certain countries that might have a broader impact on future developments in the entire region.

The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) has instituted an award in order to honour the outstanding and most dynamic scientific work and its high relevance for the European trade union movement of the late Labour Law Professor Brian Bercusson: the ETUC – Brian Bercusson Award. With this Award, the ETUC and the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) support academic research that deepen understanding of and promote transnational workers’ rights in Europe. The focus on European Labour Law shall raise awareness about new scientific research in academia as well as among practitioners in the European Union in order to encourage scientific, legal and political actions towards the further development, full recognition and better implementation of trade union- and workers’ rights.

This recent ILO publication, edited by Nicolas Pons-Vignon, is a collection of short articles examining the causes and consequences of the global financial crisis, with a focus on labour. The articles, one of them written by ETUI senior researcher Andrew Watt, first appeared in the Global Labour Column. They suggest ways to strengthen labour’s capacity to influence policy debate, offering inspiration to those who feel that national and international policies must change and who are convinced that the labour movement has much to contribute after years of declining influence.

The economic crisis which began in most European countries in mid-2008 has had severe effects on labour markets. Although no country has escaped the crisis, the extent of output losses and the number of jobs lost, as well as the resulting rise in unemployment, vary considerably between countries. In order to shed light on this issue, this paper examines empirically how the current economic crisis has affected the different European economies in terms of the impact on output, and the knock-on effects, influenced by the specific institutional frameworks, on employment and unemployment.

In the aftermath of the most serious economic and financial crisis since the Great Depression, governments of most EU countries are confronted with both substantial fiscal deficits and high and rising public debt levels. A key policy concern in the coming years is therefore how to reduce both deficits and debt levels in such a way as not to endanger (but rather as far as possible to contribute to) the achievement of other important policy goals, notably: economic growth, employment, and correcting current account imbalances. This ETUI Policy Brief European Economic and Employment Policy, written by Franz Nauschnigg, draws on both theoretical and empirical considerations to propose growth friendly fiscal consolidation strategies in Europe.

The recent global recession has had differing effects on wages across Europe. This paper presents wage patterns for EU countries since the impact of the financial crisis, and compares them to previous trends. Wages in the countries hardest hit by the recession have underperformed when compared to past developments. The role of wages in determining international competitiveness is also examined and the importance of the general price level as opposed to wage levels is highlighted.

The third ETUI Policy Brief European Economic and Employment Policy in 2010 analyses the performance of European countries in the crisis according to their levels of flexibility and security. To this end, the author, Andranik Tangian, of the Institute for Social Research at the Hans-Böckler Foundation (WSI), develops and applies composite indicators of the impact of the crisis, flexibility and security. Overall, the analysis shows that countries with high flexibility rankings have performed comparatively poorly in the crisis. Generous security systems, by contrast, have served to mitigate its negative impact in a number of cases. The findings suggest that flexicurity in its current form does not pass the test imposed by the crisis and requires revision in the direction of a 'normalisation' of employment relations.