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The Directive on Adequate Minimum Wages represents a watershed initiative adding substance to the EU's social dimension. It contains two ambitious objectives: establishing the minimum level of statutory minimum wages at 60% of the gross median wage, and increasing collective bargaining coverage (CBC) to at least 80% of workers. In this article, we assess how statutory minimum wages and collective bargaining coverage are associated with the likelihood of low pay. Using a time series cross-section of EU-SILC for income years 2004–2019, we identify and assess the absolute and relative size of 'effective wage floors' for full-time employees in 30 countries. We specify multilevel, random effects within-between regression models to assess the individual and joint associations of SMW and collective bargaining coverage with wage floors. Our results indicate that SMWs and CBC both have distinct roles in establishing the effective wage floor. First, higher collective bargaining coverage is on average associated with a lower share of workers earning below 60% gross median wages. Second, higher SMWs are strongly associated with higher effective wage floors. Third, both collective bargaining coverage and union density are strongly associated with higher wage floors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resumen: El objetivo de este número monográfico es enriquecer el debate sobre la nueva regulación («rerregulación») del derecho individual del trabajo, aplicando el concepto de segmentación legal desde una perspectiva mundial y distinguiendo tres funciones de la legislación laboral: estandarización, constitución de privilegios e igualación. En este artículo introductorio se utiliza una nueva base de datos creada por los autores, que permite agrupar los países según una tipología de segmentación legal. Además de abordar las cuestiones metodológicas, se exponen las conclusiones preliminares, contrastándolas con los estudios regionales y temáticos de este monográfico, que proponen políticas destinadas a crear y aplicar normas protectoras inclusivas para todos los trabajadores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As employment and relationship status are important long-term outcomes in individuals with a diagnosis of first episode psychosis (FEP) disorders, there is a need to elucidate more accurately the extent of these social deficits in people with FEP. This in turn can aid treatment planning and policy development ultimately ensuring more complete and sustainable recoveries. We carried out a systematic review and meta-analysis of longitudinal studies in FEP reporting on employment and relationship status during the illness course. Random effects meta-analyses and meta-regression analyses were employed. Seventy-four studies were included with a sample totalling 15,272 (range = 20-1724) FEP cases with an average follow-up duration of 8.3 years (SD = 7.2). 32.5% (95%CI = 28.5-36.9) of people with a diagnosis of FEP disorders were employed and 21.3% (95%CI = 16.5-27.1) were in a relationship at the end of follow-up. Studies from high-income countries and Europe had a higher proportion of people in employment at the end of follow-up compared to middle-income nations and non-European countries. The inverse was found for relationship status. The proportion of people with a diagnosis of FEP in employment decreased significantly with longer follow-up. Living with family, being in a relationship at first contact and Black and White ethnicities were identified as significant moderators of these outcomes. These findings highlight marked functional recovery deficits for people with FEP, although cultural factors need to be considered. They support the need for interventions to improve employment opportunities, and social functioning, both in early psychosis and during the longitudinal illness course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of the recent increase in the inflows of refugees to Europe, governments have made considerable investments in public policies aimed at facilitating the labour market integration of refugees. Despite these efforts, the labour market participation of refugees remains low. This situation raises the question of whether employers actually appreciate these public policies and whether refugees' participation in specific active labour market policies (ALMPs), such as work practice or wage subsidies, increases their likelihood of being hired. In this article, we take a novel approach and combine employers' evaluations of specific ALMPs with their attitudes towards refugees. We argue that these labour market policies can only be successful when employers hold positive attitudes towards refugees in the first place. We investigate this question by means of a factorial survey experiment with employers in Austria, Germany and Sweden. Our results show that, indeed, employers' evaluations of fictional refugee candidates who participated in ALMPs are influenced by their attitudes towards this group. Participation in these policy measures is regarded positively only by those employers who already hold positive attitudes towards refugees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migrant inclusion in a society is a process that ultimately succeeds or fails at the local level and cities have increasingly taken a proactive stance in delivering their own policies for integration. The literature on the topic has focused particularly on the cooperation between local political institutions and civil society organizations, underestimating the key role played by social partners. This paper demonstrates the participation of social partners in the local governance of migrant integration in three European cities: Barcelona, Lyon and Gothenburg. Drawing on process tracing analysis and qualitative interviews, the article illustrates the different responses of local unions and employers' organizations to immigration and the variety of approaches to supporting migrant integration into employment and society. The article argues that these approaches, which take place within different institutional and structural contexts, shape different patterns of migrant inclusion and allow us to explain the new and traditional ways in which social partners operate as social and political actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Process and product innovation have the greatest influence on job quality. • Work-life balance quality is significantly and positively associated with innovation. • Industrial relations do matter for job quality. • Unions plays an important role in the translation of innovation into higher job quality. • Innovations with a labor-saving impact have a negative impact on job quality. The aim of this paper is to investigate the relation between innovation and job quality at the firm level for a large sample of companies in 32 European countries. Using data from the Third European Company Survey (ECS-2013) we develop indices of innovation and job quality that are later used to quantitatively explore their relationship. The results show significant differences in the relationship between the type of innovation (process, product, marketing and organizational) at the firm level and job quality, with a clear positive association only in the case of process innovation. Labor relations, the evolution of employment, outsourcing or the demographic characteristics of firm are important mediating factors. In particular, the analysis suggests that union representation plays an important role in facilitating the translation of innovation into higher job quality in the firm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on long‐term fieldwork in multiple locations, our article questions the approach that posits a Chinese model of work and employment relations as increasingly exporting its form of labour management and dominating worldwide. It does so by focusing on Europe and discussing two labour regimes considered as typically Chinese: the Chinese fashion workshops in the Italian fashion industry, and the Foxconn electronics plants in the Czech Republic. Our findings bring new insights to bear on issues for which research is still thin on the ground and challenge the hypothesis of a 'Chinesisation' of work and employment practices in Chinese small firms and MNCs operating in Europe. We move the focus away from the simple analysis of firm management prevailing in the literature and suggest that, in order to understand the firm's behaviours, the role of the state, the unions, the migrant workers and the role of temporary work agencies should all be taken into consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on cultural difficulties in trade union cooperation and transnationalization in Europe. The aim is to understand cultural differences that are seen as obstacles to cooperation by trade union representatives with transnational work experience from the ETUC and ETUFs. The theoretical inspiration for this work comes from the sociological variant of neo-institutionalism and organization theory, as well as from existing approaches in industrial relations and trade union research. The empirical analysis is based on 38 interviews with 46 representatives from trade unions from nine European countries. The findings point to problems arising because of language and translation issues, differences in cultural conceptions, values and everyday practices, and differences in trade union traditions, ideologies and identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The posting of workers from the European periphery has generated the longest and most tumultuous series of labor disputes in the history of European Integration. On the basis of relevant archives, this article conducts the first historical review of posting rules in the European Union, from the first negotiation in 1955 until the latest directive in 2018. This historical review enables to discard the idea of a neoliberal turn in posting rules from the 1980s onward. It also leads to reject the explanation of disputes by the movement out of the European periphery under posting rules of a Lumpenproletariat insensitive to class struggle. Instead, the article identifies the increasing regulation of the labor market at the expense of posting opportunities since thirty years. It reveals the dominant role played by governments and their invariable support for their workers. It highlights the constant asymmetry of power between core richer countries and the Southern and Eastern periphery of the European Union. Eventually, this article locates the long-term problem in the contradictions between the interests of workers and firms in richer destination countries and the enlargements of the Single Market to poorer countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past four decades, high-income countries have seen a thorough socio-economic restructuring with important implications for the jobs of many workers, including health- and safety-related aspects. Much attention has been paid to psychosocial risks related to intrinsic features of contemporary work tasks, while the occupational health and safety consequences of 'new' conditions and relations of employment have remained neglected. This relative neglect is unjustified given the disrupting nature of many contemporary forms of employment. In this commentary, I introduce the concept of 'employment quality' as a novel approach towards measuring employment-related OHS risks. Employment quality involves a 'typological approach' towards employment arrangements, identifying five employment types in European labour markets, showing a distinct profile in terms of health-related employment characteristics. Moreover, these types align with segmented labour market theory, have a clear socio-economic profile, and show strong associations with workers' self-reported health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Women’s awareness of fetal movements is important as perception of decreased fetal movements can be a sign of a compromised fetus. We aimed to study rate of labor induction in relation to number of times women seek care due to decreased or altered fetal movements during their pregnancy compared to women not seeking such care. Further, we investigated the indication of induction. Material and methods: A prospective population-based cohort study including all obstetric clinics in Stockholm, Sweden. Questionnaires were distributed to women who sought care due to decreased or altered fetal movements ≥ 28 week’s gestation in 2014, women for whom an examination did not indicate a compromised fetus that required induction of labor or cesarean section when they sought care. Women who gave birth at ≥ 28 weeks’ gestation in 2014 in Stockholm comprises the reference group. Results: Labor was induced more often among the 2683 women who had sought care due to decreased or altered fetal movements (RR 1.4, 95% CI 1.3–1.5). In women who presented with decreased or altered fetal movements induction of labor occurred more frequently for fetal indication than those with induction of labor and no prior fetal movement presentation (RR 1.6, 95% CI 1.4–1.8). The rate of induction increased with number of times a woman sought care, RR 1.3 for single presentation to 3.2 for five or more. Conclusions: We studied women seeking care for decreased or altered fetal movements and for whom pregnancy was not terminated with induction or caesarean section. Subsequent (median 20 days), induction of labor and induction for fetal indications were more frequent in this group compared to the group of women with no fetal movement presentations. Among women seeking care for altered or decreased fetal movements, the likelihood of induction of labor increased with frequency of presentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To cope with an increased proportion of older workers, organisations develop old-age adaptation policies. Two strategies underlie these policies: phasing out and activating. Although the existence of these strategies is widely recognised, the reasons for their presence have rarely been explored. We identify three arguments that explain the extent to which these strategies are present: profit, principles and pressures. We hypothesise that the intensity of the phasing out strategy is higher when it is profitable and easy to replace older workers, when employer's age norms support the principle of treating older workers differently, and when external pressures are high. We also hypothesise that the intensity of the activating strategy is higher when it is profitable but hard to replace older workers, when the employer's age norms reject the principle of treating older workers differently, and when external pressures are high. We use pooled regression analysis to study imputed managerial data from 5,410 organisations in seven European countries. Results confirm the importance of external pressures for the adaptation of both strategies, and of principles for activating. Although policy feasibility is important for the adaption of both strategies, the other profit variables showed mixed results. Net benefits of older workers to the organisation are only important for phasing out, and substitutability only for activating. This paper discusses the wider implications of the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on new social risk (NSR) groups, such as single parents and temporary workers, has argued that they are less likely to join trade unions than other employees. It has been suggested that this is due to the unions’ incapacity or unwillingness to promote policies that mediate NSRs. We argue that there are differences in unionization between different NSR groups, and that country-level institutional structures, operationalized here as industrial relations (IR) regimes, have effects on how likely NSR groups are to unionize. Our multilevel logistic models using European Social Survey (ESS) data produce three main results: (1) family policy-related NSR groups (single parents, female employees with children and female caregivers) are more – not less – unionized than the average worker; (2) precarious workers (low-skilled service employees, temporary employees and part-timers) are, indeed, less unionized than average but (3) this result concerns mostly the liberal and transitional IR regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Following the seminal work of Richard Titmuss, who coined the term occupational welfare (OW) 60 years ago, the article approaches OW provision in Europe today. We first define OW as the sum of extra‐statutory social benefits and services provided by employers and/or trade unions as a result of employment. We then look at its recent evolution: OW expenditure and coverage have been increasing significantly in Europe since the 1990s. While pensions are still the main policy area of OW, the latter has also advanced in other social protection areas (e.g., health insurance, reconciliation). This has led to four different ideal types of OW—defined on the base of their organizing principle (voluntarism vs. collectivism) and the level of OW scheme coverage and expenditure. By looking at the main drivers of OW, the analysis has found no evidence of a “crowding out” effect between public welfare and OW. Collective bargaining, national political economy, and the timing of reforms prove to be important factors explaining the OW development. As for the present and future of OW, dualization is a major risk. At present, the main fault lines created by OW follow sectoral, industry, company size, and occupational group lines. To avoid the worsening of inequalities originated by OW, even in those countries which were able in the past to avoid dualization, strong industrial relations may play a key role. The article concludes with some suggestions on the agenda of future OW research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue uses the occasion of the centenary of the Whitley Commission Reports to illuminate the contemporary crisis in public service industrial relations from a historical perspective. In all six countries studied—Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and the USA—public service employment is labour intensive and quantitatively significant in the overall economy. Public services have also been major targets of neoliberal reforms, starting in the UK and the USA at the turn of the 1980s and in the other countries about a decade later. In addition, the relatively high union density and the political dimension of public services and public union strategies have been major targets of new public management and more latterly austerity. However, the regressive period has had a differential impact in different countries. In the liberal market economies of the UK and the USA, the neoliberal turn has destabilised traditional patterns of public sector industrial relations to greatest effect. While in the more coordinated market economies, traditional arrangements and values have been more resistant to austerity and neoliberal reforms. We attempt to shed light on these differential impacts through a critical analysis of the historical evolution of public sector industrial relations in each country. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We examined the relationship between spirituality in the workplace and occupational health and explored the benefits for employees, employers and the organisation. Using a qualitative methodology, we focused on secular organisations in the service sector to analyse this question in the context of labour relations in Europe. Our results indicate that embracing spirituality in the workplace yields a number of benefits in addition to those of a health-related nature. Religious beliefs and practices can be accommodated in the workplace provided that a balance is maintained between the needs of employers and employees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industrial child labor laws were the earliest manifestation of the modern regulatory welfare state. Why, despite the absence of political pressure from below, did some states (but not others) succeed in legislating working hours, minimum ages, and schooling requirements for working children in the first half of the nineteenth century? I use case studies of the politics behind the first child labor laws in Germany and France, alongside a case study of a failed child labor reform effort in Belgium, to answer this question. I show that existing structural, class-based, and institutional theories of the welfare state are insufficient to explain why child labor laws came about. Highlighting instead the previously neglected role of elite policy entrepreneurs, I argue that the success or failure of early nineteenth-century child labor laws depended on these actors' social skill, pragmatic creativity, and goal-directedness. At the same time, their actions and influence were conditioned by their field position and the architecture of the policy field. By specifying the qualities and conditions that enable policy entrepreneurs to build the alliances needed to effect policy change, this analysis lends precision to the general claim that their agency matters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although studies have examined the distribution and conditions of employer-provided work-family arrangements, we still lack a systematic investigation of how these vary for different countries and industries. Based on the European Working Conditions Survey 2010, this study examines the conditions under which firms provide family-friendly working time arrangements and what the differences are across four countries (Austria, Denmark, Italy and the UK) and four industries. The impact of employee representatives, employee involvement, manager support and female managers varies across countries and industries because of the institutional environment (prevailing family model, industrial relations) and workforce composition (gender). The impact of employee representatives depends on their co-determination rights, and the direction of their effect on the prevailing family model (e.g. negative in conservative countries such as Austria) and the gender composition of the workforce (negative in male-dominated production, but positive in services). Employee involvement in the work organization is significantly positive in Austria and Denmark (both with co-operative industrial relations), while manager support has the strongest effect in the UK (liberal regime). At the industry level, female supervisors are positively associated with family-friendly working time arrangements only in the male-dominated production industry. These findings suggest that the effects of agency variables and their direction vary depending on the institutional context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The European Disability Strategy (2010-2020) seeks to significantly raise the proportion of people with disabilities working in the open labour market. The ERGO WORK project is a collaboration of academic and industrial partners in six European countries, focused on understanding and tackling barriers to workplace inclusion for workers with disabilities. Methods: This study sought to explore the perceptions and needs of stakeholders in terms of workplace adaptation to the needs of employees with disabilities. An exploratory online survey was completed by 480 participants across six countries. Results: The analysis suggests that workplaces could be further improved to meet the needs of employees with considerable scope for training within companies to raise awareness about employees' needs, employers' obligations and workplace adaptation. Conclusions: This snapshot suggests there is still a gap between intent and reality in workplace inclusion and further strategies are needed to improve the opportunities for employees with disabilities. The paper argues that ergonomics may have a key role to play in tackling these challenges and adapting the workplace environment and job design to suit the needs of individual employees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the fall of communism and its impact on the structure of the labor market as it impacts the building of a democracy during the postcommunist transitions. Topics include modes of labor politics in Eastern Europe, changes in labor relations with the shrinking of labor unions, and emergence of privatization. Also discussed are topics such as rising unemployment rates and economic growth in Europe.

The article examines the purposes of the European Union Acquired Rights (Business Transfers) Directive 2001/23 (ARD) which states that transfer of an activity alone is not sufficient to amount to a transfer of an undertaking. It reports the decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union in the case 'Ferreira da Silva e Brito & others v Estado Português;' concerning transfer of undertakings rules.

The goal of this article is to explore the discursive construction of social citizenship of various labor market actors during crisis. Using the newspaper data from nine countries we conduct a quantitative and qualitative study of the rights and duties attributed to employees, employers, and outsiders in the labor market. We find that the attribution of rights to all groups prevails and the most frequent are the claims supporting employees' rights. In a context of crisis severity, we find three distinct groups of discourse on rights and duties in the labor market sphere. A severe crisis created conditions for labor organizations to claim the rights of employees. A moderate crisis created the ground for the state to (re)call the rights of the outsiders. In countries in which crisis was present in the discourse, rather than in real terms, a window of opportunity emerged for markets and employers to claim their freedoms and rights. Related Articles [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the level of work-family conflict of self-employed persons, a changing but neglected group in work-life research, compared to employees in Europe. Differences between the two groups are explained by looking at job demands and resources. The inclusion of work-family state support makes it possible to examine differences between countries. Multilevel analysis has been applied to data from the European Social Survey (ESS ). The results show that job demands and resources operate differently for employees and the self-employed. The relationship between employment type and WFC is mediated mainly by job demands such as working hours, working at short notice, job insecurity and supervisory work. The results also reveal variation across countries that cannot be explained by state support, signalling the need for a more complete understanding of WFC from a cross-national perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes what channels trade unions in Europe use when trying to influence European Union (EU) policies. It compares and contrasts trade unions in different industrial relations regimes with regard to the degree to which they cooperate with different actors to influence EU policies, while also touching on the importance of sector differences and organizational resources. The study is based on survey data collected in 2010-2011 from unions affiliated with the European Trade Union Confederation and from below peak unions in 14 European countries. Results of the survey show that the 'national route' is generally the most important for trade unions in influencing EU policies in the sense that this channel is, on average, used to the highest degree. In addition, the survey delineates some important differences between trade unions in different industrial relations regimes with regard to the balance between the national route and different access points in the 'Brussels route'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resumen Se esbozan tres hipótesis sobre el futuro de las relaciones laborales en Europa. La primera, quizás la más realista, contempla el deterioro persistente de los sistemas nacionales y de las condiciones de trabajo, siguiendo la tendencia actual. La segunda imagina una reforma de élite que reinventaría las relaciones laborales y protegería a los trabajadores siguiendo una política social ideal (improbable dada la prioridad otorgada a las consideraciones financieras y a la competencia mundial). La tercera apuesta por una oposición desde las bases que confrontaría a los sindicatos con el gran desafío de movilizar a los descontentos fuera de sus filas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The explanatory model behind Esping-Andersen’s ‘three-regime’ typology points to the variance in ‘political coalition building in the transition from a rural economy to a middle-class society’, particularly to whether or not farmers and workers were able to form coalitions during this transition. The article reconsiders the relation between party systems and welfare state regimes. It highlights the systematic variation among European party systems with respect to the electoral success of communist parties. The electoral strength of communist parties is argued to be related to the intensity of past conflicts between the nation-state and the Catholic church in the mono-denominational countries of Europe’s south. These conflicts rendered a coalition between pious farmers and the anticlerical worker’s movement unthinkable and furthered the radicalization of the left. The article argues that the split on the left explains much of what is distinctive about southern Europe’s postwar political economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since its creation in 1973, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) has sought to integrate Europe's diverse labor movement within a single organization for the purpose of influencing political developments at the European level. This article examines the ETUC's 40-year history, focusing on internal debates around three fundamental – and contentious – questions: who belongs in a European organization of trade unions? what objectives should the ETUC prioritize? and what tactics will be most effective to advance the interests of workers at the European level? It concludes with an assessment of how enduring internal divisions are likely to limit the ETUC's influence into the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on European trade unionism has discussed whether the tendency towards ‘union diplomacy’ has meant that that unions are largely disinterested in mobilizing members and pursue contentious action at the European level. Other studies have identified activities that suggest an Europeanization of political mobilization, in demonstrations and strikes and in cooperation with NGOs and social movements. The present paper analyzes attitudes towards transnational action among trade unions in Europe, as well as the degree to which national unions actually partake in more and less contentious action. The study, which is based on a survey to trade unions in Europe carried out in 2010–11 (n 250), focuses particularly on the production of joint statements and petitions, demonstrations and boycotts, and strikes. The aim was to identify the similarities and differences between industrial relations regimes and sectors in Europe and the analyses have revealed that there are in fact significant differences. Trade unions in the continental social partnership regime and the southern polarized/state centered regime tend to approve of and partake in European demonstrations and boycotts to a higher degree than unions in the other regimes, while the Nordic unions in the organized corporatist regime tend to be more skeptical and also participate to a lower degree. In addition, unions in services and organizing professionals tend to partake and approve of such action to a lower degree than unions in other sectors and national peak level unions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article revisits one of the established hypotheses in the literature on European industrial relations. Focusing on the context in which wages are set via central coordination, the hypothesis explores why the wage-setting system often collapses and is replaced with sectoral or company-level bargaining. The answer revolves around the issue of wage costs, with the main claim being that the change (that is, de-coordination) occurs when employers are not satisfied with the performance of cost control. This article asserts that the hypothesis has only limited applicability. In particular, it holds only if central coordination remains a potential source of high wage costs. If the system turns to a reliable mechanism for wage moderation, which is true in the Eurozone countries, the hypothesis does not hold. Under this circumstance, employers will no longer consider de-coordination as a means of cost control. Instead, de-coordination can occur as a consequence of intra-union politics, as diverse union actors interact with each other in their response to the wage issue. The article will examine this new hypothesis of de-coordination in the context of three Eurozone countries in the 1990s and 2000s: Finland, Ireland, and Belgium. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: By considering entrepreneurs who hire employees – employers – and entrepreneurs without personnel – own-account workers – as related but distinct groups within entrepreneurship, this work analyzes the roles of different factors in entrepreneurship survival in Europe from a new perspective: contrasting the determinants of own-account workers’ survival with those affecting employers’ survival in the EU-15. Our results confirm the presence of persistence in entrepreneurship. However, we also obtain a strong negative effect on survival of entering entrepreneurship from unemployment. Hence, policymakers should balance these mixed results to evaluate the medium- and long-term suitability of the existing entrepreneurial promotion policy across European regions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The term 'flexibility' means a certain capacity to react and adapt to changes, it refers to both partners of the employment relationship, making it imperative that both European companies and their workers manifest more flexibility and more adaptability to the continuous economic changes. Companies are confronted daily with the challenge of striking a balance between the needs of the organization (work productivity, customer satisfaction, profit), and the needs and interests of the employees (balance between work and personal life, career development, improving working conditions, etc.). This balance can be achieved through fixed-term employment regarded as an indispensable practice to establishments, in order to cover the need for flexibility in labor relationships. This practice has been supported and promoted by the government through its introduction to the various strategies and to the labor law. In this paper we precisely propose an approach both theoretical and practical of fixed-term employment seen as a way of expressing external numerical flexiblity [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on a conference on the self-regulation of the judiciary in Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, held in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, from January 31-February 2, 2013. Topics of discussion included jury and lay courts in Germany, Great Britain, and France, commercial law and arbitration, and the Bundesarbeitsgericht (Federal Labor Court) of Germany as an arbiter in industrial relations disputes.

This paper primarily deals with the relationships between academics and their university in European countries. The aim of this paper is therefore not to produce new results but provide a synthesis of the main trends that can be identified from the literature and then suggest what can be borrowed from sociological theories to highlight the on-going evolutions. The first section of the paper reviews the main results to be drawn from previous research on this issue and focuses on the management of academic careers and the management of academic activities at the university level. The second section suggests alternative interpretative frameworks to be borrowed from sociological theory in order to complete the already existing research and develop new perspectives to explain and interpret these changes in the relationships between academics and their institutions. Four perspectives are successively explored particularly useful here: a sociology of work; a labor market perspective; an analysis in terms of careers and trajectories and finally considerations about the traditional tension between organizations and professions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the breakthrough in relations between Russia and Europe. Topics discussed include the strategic partnership between Russia and the European Union and the anticipation on the transition of global economic activity from Atlantic to Pacific and Europe being ready for globalization.

Based on quantitative indicators for fifteen advanced countries between 1974 and 2005, and case studies of France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Ireland, this article analyzes the trajectory of institutional change in the industrial relations systems of advanced capitalist societies, with a focus on Western Europe. In contrast to current comparative political economy scholarship, which emphasizes the resilience of national institutions to common challenges and trends, it argues that despite a surface resilience of distinct national sets, all countries have been transformed in a neoliberal direction. Neoliberal transformation manifests itself not just as institutional deregulation but also as institutional conversion, as the functions associated with existing institutional forms change in a convergent direction. A key example is the institution of centralized bargaining, once the linchpin of an alternative, redistributive and egalitarian, model of negotiated capitalism, which has been reshaped in the past twenty years to fit the common imperative of liberalization. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Social dialogue refers to discussions, consultations, negotiations and joint actions involving organisations representing the two sides of industry, namely employers and workers. The constitutional basis for social dialogue is located within Articles 153-155 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. In July 2008, a social dialogue committee in European professional football was established. This article assesses the significance of this move and argues that the committee has the long-term potential to transform industrial relations in European football based on the conclusion of binding collective agreements. In the shorter term, the committee performs two functions: first, as a means of effecting a change in governance standards in European football and as a lobbying technique for the social partners in terms of their relationship with the EU; second, as a venue for a negotiated settlement between the rival interests operating within the EU's sports policy subsystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from 5,695 employees in 345 supermarkets in Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia, the authors examined whether leadership climate strength (LCS), defined as the shared perceptions of employees concerning their supervisors, is related to employees’ affective commitment (AC) to the supermarket and to colleagues. In addition, the authors examined if LCS moderates the relationship between the individual perceptions of the supervisor and AC. Two-level analyses (supermarket and employee) showed that LCS has an added effect for both foci of AC in that LSC strengthens the relationship between individual perceptions and AC to the supermarket. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is concerned with the conflicting perspectives of pay systems and structure that arise between legal opinion and labour economics/industrial relations theory and practice. It considers the progress of two equal pay claims concerning service-related pay involving the same employer, within uncontested ‘work rated as equivalent’ criteria and on basically similar facts. The article describes the payment systems adopted by the employer that are at the root of the claims and describes the Employment Tribunals’ principal findings of fact and summarises the judgments of the UK courts and the European Court of Justice. The findings and decisions provide a basis for a discussion of the impacts that bring about conflicts between these perspectives and questions whether the present arrangements for dealing with equal pay claims that challenge a pay structure are appropriate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to introduce the special issue on "Labour, productivity and growth". Design/methodology/approach -- The paper discusses the articles in the special issue, which investigate the main theme -- labour, productivity and growth -- from different points of view by employing a variety of econometric methods. These include improvement of the evaluation of the impact of labour market flexibility on economic performance, analysis of the macroeconomic law of decreasing returns to labour, a new panel co-integration method, and a reinterpretation of co-integration analysis to assess the impact of incomes policy. Institutional variables, in particular the system of industrial relations, are duly considered. Findings -- The papers in the special issue highlight different causes of sluggish economic (productivity) growth in Europe, in the light of not only traditional macroeconomic variables, such as total factor productivity and labour market flexibility, but also such factors as neo-corporatist industrial relations and management practices, which are generally neglected in the literature. Originality/value -- The paper introduces a number of articles proposing innovations in the interpretation and application of a wide range of theoretical approaches and econometric methodologies. It also discusses several policy suggestions for fighting sluggish productivity growth, including investment in research and development, human capital, flexicurity, innovative industrial relations practices and high-performance workplace practices also considered capable of affecting macroeconomic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we focus on workplace practices aimed at increasing workers' direct voice, and their connection to job quality. After contextualizing historically the various reasons for increasing different types of workers' participation and exploring the muddled role of direct participation in European policy, it reflects on possible indicators for workplace worker involvement (direct and through representatives) and offers a brief review regarding research on the impact of workers' direct participation on job quality in Europe, identifying essentially positive but also some negative outcomes. The interaction of the workers' direct voice with representative participation at the workplace in terms of substitution or complementarity and the mediating role of productive and industrial relations contexts are also reflected upon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the end of the Cold War, Europe's defence industry continues to consolidate, and this process has resulted in significant restructuring across European borders. Having examined the post-Cold War changing economic and technological conditions in the armaments market, the article investigates how the interplay between the defence industries' strategies in facing this new environment and the EU initiatives in the security realm has transformed Europe's defence industrial base. The implications of these changes for transatlantic industrial relations are then analysed in the space sector. It is argued that the political economy of the transatlantic relationship has experienced a shift of relative market power away from the US towards Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Encompassing labor movements and coordinated wage setting are central to the social democratic economic model that has proven successful among the nations of Western Europe. The coordination of wage bargaining across many unions and employers has been used to explain everything from inequality to unemployment. Yet there has been limited theoretical and quantitative empirical work exploring the determinants of bargaining coordination. I argue formally that more unequally distributed resources across unions should inhibit the centralization of strike powers in union federations. Using membership as a proxy for union resources, I find empirical evidence for this hypothesis in a panel of 15 OECD democracies, 1950-2000. I then show that the centralization of strike powers is a strong predictor of coordinated bargaining. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The globalization of economy determines the European countries' competitiveness to become a categorical imperative. The increase of the competitiveness and the protection of the social rights do not exclude each other, on the contrary, the innovative social policy plays an essential role in the protection and increase of the European economy competitiveness inside the global economy. The high educational standards, an effective and efficient protection against some risks like illnesses, accidents, unemployment, as a protection of the living level of elder people, represents decisive factors for a company's competitiveness in the age of globality. For these reasons, the actual social policy plays a key role in the global economic competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the competing demands faced by Deutsche Telekom for global consistency and local responsiveness as it attempted to coordinate its human resource management strategies across its Eastern European subsidiaries. It considers the degree to which the former economic and political histories of Eastern Europe continue to influence and/or constrain multinational corporation strategies and practices in the post-2000 era. Institutional path dependency, strategic international human resource management, and international industrial relations theories are used to assist in analyzing the data. The study concludes that managerial constraints associated with the historical and economic legacies of these former socialist countries are rapidly declining, thereby allowing multinational firms to implement “Western-style” human resource management strategies. It further suggests that industrial relations institutions at the European Union level, rather than individual country level, have the greatest potential to impact on international human resource management strategies in the region. Multinational corporations should therefore engage in more-integrated strategic international human resource management and international industrial relations approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]