The European Trade Union Institute

The need to effectively tackle global warming puts under pressure the existing industrial relations models in Europe. A new logic of sustainability needs to be incorporated into the social contracts in order to (re)build harmonious labour relations. A viable world of labour requires a new sustainability paradigm, which encompasses all three of its dimensions: economic, social and environmental.

Achieving economic sustainability (within the planetary boundaries) has become more challenging. Actual economic growth has come at a critically high cost in terms of inequality of opportunities and outcomes, planetary resources, biodiversity and environmental degradation, thus undermining both social and environmental sustainability. Social sustainability is also likely to come under increasing pressure from the impending fourth industrial revolution. In turn, widening inequality and climate change are forcing us to question the way we measure prosperity and wellbeing.

The need to effectively tackle global warming puts under pressure the existing industrial relations models in Europe. A new logic of sustainability needs to be incorporated into the social contracts in order to (re)build harmonious labour relations. A viable world of labour requires a new sustainability paradigm, which encompasses all three of its dimensions: economic, social and environmental.

Achieving economic sustainability (within the planetary boundaries) has become more challenging. Actual economic growth has come at a critically high cost in terms of inequality of opportunities and outcomes, planetary resources, biodiversity and environmental degradation, thus undermining both social and environmental sustainability. Social sustainability is also likely to come under increasing pressure from the impending fourth industrial revolution. In turn, widening inequality and climate change are forcing us to question the way we measure prosperity and wellbeing.

The Covid-19 pandemic has affected women disproportionately and is likely to have adverse effects on gender equality. It is essential that efforts to promote gender equality be increased in order to ensure that hard-won progress in this area is not reversed.

As part of this effort, the European Commission should table a proposal on binding pay transparency measures strengthening the principle of equal pay between men and women, in accordance with the Gender Equality Strategy 2020–2025.

This publication focuses on practices in the labour market integration of asylum seekers and refugees in the main EU reception states in the post-2015 period. It takes a comparative approach highlighting areas of good practice across the countries while also examining integration barriers. A lack of co-ordinated action and solidarity at European level, more restrictive national policies due to political tailwinds and institutional barriers are key factors why member states have been unable to capitalise on the generally favourable labour market situation.

It is still remarkable that many of them have achieved faster labour market integration for refugees than in previous periods of immigration. At the same time, with hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers still
in limbo, with limited rights and in vulnerable situations (either waiting for a final decision or having been rejected), Europe faces a humanitarian crisis within its borders.

The 20th edition of the joint ETUC and ETUI yearly publication Benchmarking Working Europe has been released. The Covid-19 pandemic and the ensuing economic recession offers the crudest and harshest of “stress tests” to probe the ability and willingness of the EU to emerge from this new crisis without repeating some of the mistakes of the past. Without the pandemic the report would have continued to dissect the variety of EU economic policies and benchmark their effects against the needs and the living conditions of European workers. Instead, this 20th anniversary issue of the Benchmarking report explores the challenges posed by the pandemic on both European economies and the world of work - challenges such as unemployment, rising public debt, shortages in the health and care sectors - and sets out the case for a socially responsible and ecologically sustainable road out of the Covid-19 crisis. Key elements in this strategy are the need for unprecedented levels of public spending, the acknowledgement of the redistributive function of decent working conditions and fair wages, and last but not least the recognition of industrial democracy as a key pillar for the current recovery strategy. All those aspects need to be developed and reconciled with the overarching priority of a just transition to a green economy, which is undoubtedly the greatest challenge that Europe needs to embrace in the years to come.

In the coming months, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) will reach a decision on the case European Public Service Union (EPSU) and Goudriaan v Commission (C-928/19 P), which could be crucial for the future of the EU social dialogue. The EPSU case initially originated from the Commission’s refusal to transmit a proposal for a Council Decision, which could have given legislative implementation to the social partners’ agreement stipulated by TUNED and EUPAE.

With 180 000 work-related deaths every year in the European Union and more than 2.5 million worldwide, occupational health is a crucial issue for workers and trade unions. Knowing that, somewhere in the world, a worker dies every 11 seconds because of a lack of proper prevention, you might wonder whether there is any point in campaigning for more employment or better wages if these jobs end up taking workers’ lives. And in more than nine out of ten cases, these deaths are largely invisible, because they result from occupational diseases rather than accidents.

All chapters of Social policy in the EU: state of play 2020 consider the consequences of the unfolding public health crisis. Covid‑19’s hijacking of the book had important implications for the contributors, whom we asked not only to analyse key developments in the EU social agenda during 2019 but also to describe the initial Covid‑19-driven EU and domestic policies between January and July 2020, thereby pushing forward the book’s time horizon by six months.

The European Social Observatory (OSE) has again worked closely with the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) and renowned external scholars to draw up this year’s edition of the book. Through this collaborative publication, we aim to contribute to the debate between policymakers, social stakeholders and the research community, while providing accessible information and analysis for practitioners and students of European integration. This year’s Bilan social in many ways complements the 20th-anniversary issue of the ETUI’s Benchmarking Working Europe, which provides a state-of-the-art analysis of the impact of the pandemic on the world of work.

This publication stresses that it is high time for international tax rules to be adjusted in light of the coherent business and tax strategies which multinational enterprises deploy at global level.

This new number of the ‘open’ issue of Transfer contains five articles alongside a sixth, launching a new section of this fourth annual issue of Transfer, entitled ‘EU Policy Debate’. The five articles cover the developments in the industrial relations systems of several European countries, with common features in terms of their analysis read more