The European Trade Union Institute

This book focuses on the role of industrial relations structures and related actors in terms of how far they remain relevant in addressing and facilitating the return to work of individuals following chronic illness.

This paper analyses the job retention schemes (JRS) implemented in response to the Covid-19 crisis, showing quantitative trends and differences in terms of expenditure on the schemes and the number of workers involved.

The key focus is on a qualitative analysis of the schemes’ key properties. In order to understand the diversity of job retention schemes implemented in the Covid-19 crisis, we first develop a typology, distinguishing between three underlying types: short-time work (STW) schemes, furlough schemes, and wage subsidies. 

This thematic special issue of Transfer titled ‘Transforming care work within an era of changing priorities of care policy’ explores how policy, institutional and market-driven transformations of care regimes across Europe impact upon the quality of care services and the quality of care work. In this special issue, we bring together a range of national perspectives on changing models of care delivery and care work that spans Ireland, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the UK, complemented by a transnational analysis of EU health-care policy. Although each contribution situates the specific challenges of precariousness in a particular institutional and market context, by collating these seven perspectives we see common challenges emerging for care workers in diverse settings including residential, domiciliary and long-term care, public and private sectors, liberal and coordinated market economies, as well as southern, northern and eastern Europe with varied traditions of formal and informal familial care.

The economic and social crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic in Europe and around the world is without precedent since World War II if not before. With more than 40 million known cases in Europe in one year, and over 900 000 deaths (March 2020 to March 2021), governments have stepped up their emergency measures to contain the spread of the coronavirus: locking down their populations, closing non-essential businesses, closing offices, factories, schools and places of worship; cancelling cultural events, suspending sports contests and festivals; restricting people’s movements, closing or monitoring borders, grounding airlines and more. Since March 2020, measures such as these have brought economic activity to a standstill.

The Covid‑19 pandemic is still causing tremendous human suffering, with serious and long-term implications for people’s health, wellbeing and quality of life as well as for the economy, work and employment overall. In this episode, we will be exploring together with Valeria Pulignano how millions of workers especially in the creative industries have been vulnerable to layoffs and income loss. etui.org/ZUc

This database of joint social dialogue documents is a useful tool that makes it possible to analyse the sectoral social partners’ ‘output’. It enables comparisons to be drawn between sectors, their levels of activity, the topics addressed, and even the approach to social dialogue developed by the social partners.

The aim of this research paper is to review the recent emergence on the European scene of the concept of open strategic autonomy and the consequences it may have for EU action.

Fiscal and monetary policies should remain expansionary to ensure that the nascent labour market recovery continues, allowing a quick recovery to pre-crisis employment levels. Fiscal policy should focus on pressing short-term needs, but also on supporting the EU’s transition to tackle challenges of the future, including the climate crisis and digitalisation.

Each year, the ETUI provides training to over 1,000 employee representatives from European Works Councils, SE Works Councils or Special Negotiating Bodies. Our mission is to impart practical know-how in order to strengthen the distinctive role of EU-level employee representatives. Our educational trademark combines an EWC benchmark (based on leading employee-oriented in-house research) with EWC action learning (interactive training formats, targeted towards improving EWC operations and functioning).

Europe’s industrial base needs to undergo a swift and persistent transformation towards carbon neutrality and circularity, but this transition must happen in a fair and socially just manner. In this working paper, we evaluate the support mechanisms for heavy industry which have been put in place over the past 20 years, comparing the state of play in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. We also compare recent developments in the industrial policy frameworks of these countries, considering European as well as domestic policy levers. We conclude that policy frameworks have largely been ‘defensive’, have lacked foresight, and have had negative distributional effects. Recent shifts in policy have opened up avenues for progress, but the level of ambition remains insufficient and uneven. Major economic incentives and support measures should cohere with a just transition, at the (sub-)national as well as the EU level.