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Highlights
- Pushing the limits: the European Central Bank’s role in restoring sustainable growth
- Social policy in the European Union 1999-2019: the long and winding road
- Working under pressure
- A global struggle: worker protest in the platform economy
- The European minimum wage on the doorstep
Publication
03/2020
The euro has failed to deliver on its promises. While the euro area’s performance during the euro’s first decade was mediocre, things turned truly dismal when the global fi nancial crisis of 2007–2009 struck. In contrast to the rest of the world, which started to recover from the crisis in 2010, the euro area suffered a ‘double-dip’ recession. This study evaluates the ECB’s unconventional monetary policies and its role as euro crisis...
Publication
Edited by 03/2020
This anniversary edition looks back at the main developments in EU social policymaking over the past two decades. Key questions addressed in this volume include: What was the place of the social dimension during the financial and economic crisis? Who has driven, and who has braked, EU social policymaking? Which instruments does the EU have at its disposal for ‘market correcting’ policies? And last but not least, what are the next ste...
Publication
Edited by 02/2020
Public sector workers have frequently had to shoulder the burden of budgetary pressures through declining employment levels and job quality, including stagnating or declining (real) wages and the intensification and ‘extensification’ of work. Declines in the number of jobs and job quality have been strongest in the countries where the crisis has been felt the deepest, in particular Italy and Spain. However, in the last few years, the...
Publication
02/2020
The main cause globally for labour protest is pay, with considerable geographical variation when it comes to other causes for dispute. Types of platform labour protest appear to vary more substantially between regions than between industries. Mainstream unions play a vital role in defending platform workers’ interests, especially in western Europe, while in the global South, protests are much more likely to be led by grassroots union...
Publication
02/2020
The European Commission published a consultation document with a view to take legislative action to establish fair minimum wages in Europe. In this policy brief, the researchers argue for a pragmatic approach of taking the ‘in-work-poverty-wage’ threshold of 60 per cent of the national full-time gross median wage as the reference to assess the adequacy of minimum wages.
News
The COVID-19 crisis and short-time work in Germany in a European context
1 April 2020Short-time work (STW) is one of the most frequently used tools in times of economic crisis. It involves the temporary reduction of working time in order to secure employment and employees’ income, while at the same time enabling companies to reduce labour costs through state support.
How the COVID-19 crisis offers lessons for dealing with the climate crisis
27 March 2020The unprecedented pandemic that has changed our daily lives, our work and the entire economy from one day to another is, and will remain, the number one priority for policymakers and social partners in the foreseeable future. Everything needs to be done now to slow down the exponential spread of the virus and empower our healthcare systems to cope with the health emergency. At the same time, urgent measures are needed to fend off the damage caused by the shutdown of the economy and to protect workers in this extraordinary situation.
England: rise in poor-quality work a key factor in the deterioration of public health
25 March 2020“England is faltering,” declares the opening lines of the Marmot Review of Health Equity in England, published in February 2020 and coordinated by esteemed epidemiologist Sir Michael Marmot, Director of the Institute of Health Equity. The life expectancy rate, which, alongside continuous improvements in health, had been rising steadily since the beginning of the twentieth century, has been slowing down since 2011 to an extent not witnessed for 120 years: a phenomenon not seen anywhere else in Europe. In the most deprived communities outside London it actually fell for part of the decade 2010-2020.
Twenty years of European social policy: a “long and winding road”
24 March 2020The recently published Social Policy in the European Union is the twentieth edition of this joint ETUI and European Social Observatory (OSE) publication. A conference took place on 12 March 2020 at the ETUI to celebrate the occasion. The publication has had different editors since its first edition in 1999 but it has always delivered an invaluable analysis of social policy at the European level, according to Bart Vanhercke, Director of the OSE and one of the editors of the current edition. Philippe Pochet, General Director of the ETUI and the first editor of the series, added that the publication not only looks at social policy in the strict sense but also at the social implications of economic policy and the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice (ECJ). It is important to understand how something that happens in one domain at EU level influences other policies, he said. Dalila Ghailani, senior researcher at OSE and co-editor of this publication, gave a presentation of the content of this year’s volume.
Revising the machinery directive: beware of visionary projections
18 March 2020Experts who have an interest in safety at work welcome the European Commission's current efforts to analyse and possibly improve the performance of the Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC as part of its regulatory fitness and performance (REFIT) programme. The Machinery Directive is a very important and successful instrument for European industry, and many believe its basic approach must be left unchanged. While everybody agrees that some changes are needed, massive changes of the Machinery Directive, in particular to the Essential Health and Safety Requirements (EHSRs) in Annex I, might have a deep negative impact on the work of developing harmonised standards and should be avoided.
France: Uber drivers are employees, says the French Court of Cassation
9 March 2020On 4 March 2020, the French Court of Cassation ruled in favour of reclassifying the contractual relationship between Uber and one of its drivers. This is the second court ruling in France in favour of platform workers, coming in the wake of the one concerning Take Eat Easy, a former food delivery company.
Collective Bargaining newsletter February 2020
5 March 2020Please find below the highlights of the February issue of the Collective Bargaining newsletter with the most important developments at European and member state level over the past month.
Publication
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Covid Social Impact
The ETUI logo is also social distancing, keeping the distance between each other now to get closer together after the crisis. On Covid-19, we are focussing on the workers’ perspective. This is why we are launching Covid Social Impact platform to monitor the social and employment consequences of the Covid-19 in European member states. Additionally, we have compiled a special Timeline of events to track and trace specifically the EU’s and member states responses very first responses to this new global crisis.
Read more
Events
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24
Jun24 Jun - 26 Jun 2020
Hotel Thon Europe, 1000 Brussels, BelgiumETUI/ETUC conference: Towards a new socio-ecological contract
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16
Nov16 Nov 2020
Room TBC, 1th floor, ITUH; 10h - 16hNEW DATE New beginnings? The European Pillar of Social Rights and the new Commission
Tags
- Sustainable development
- Digitalisation
- Reforms Watch
- Pensions
- Climate change
- Demography
- Economic policy
- Education/training
- Employment
- Energy
- EU enlargement
- EU legislation
- Flexicurity
- Gender
- Globalisation
- Health & Safety
- Industrial relations
- Labour law
- Mobility
- Multinational corporations
- Nanotechnology
- Psychosocial risks
- Restructuring
- Social dumping
- Trade unions
- Wages
- Welfare State
- Work organisation
About ETUI
The European Trade Union Institute is the independent research and training centre of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) which itself affiliates European trade unions into a single European umbrella organisation. The ETUI places its expertise – acquired in particular in the context of its links with universities, academic and expert networks – in the service of workers’ interests at European level and of the strengthening of the social dimension of the European Union. Read more
The ETUI is financially supported by the European Union
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