The Response of Social Europe in Times of Covid-19

This article addresses selected issues relating to the current situation of Social Europe, examining a possible legal basis for a Directive on short-time work as proposed by Sylvaine Laulom. Subsequently, it discusses the legal basis for the proposed Directive on minimum wages, concluding that there is no sufficient legal basis in EU primary law as a result of Article 153 (5) Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). The article then provides a brief overview of developments in long-term care and collective bargaining for self-employed persons. Finally, it concludes with examples taken from Austrian case law of how the COVID pandemic can open up a new perspective for dealing with existing problems in labour and social security law. © 2023 Kluwer Law International BV, The Netherlands

Introduction

Individualised employment relations formed a key pillar of the shift to neoliberal economic policy in the 1980s, complementing other dimensions of orthodoxy deployed across governments, public administrations and central banks in the same time. In the neoliberal narrative, market forces would ‘naturally' and justly compensate labour for its contribution to productivity, like any other input to production. Consequently, redistributive institutions empowering workers to win more adequate wages and conditions (through minimum wages, Awards, unionisation, and collective bargaining) were dramatically eroded, or discarded entirely. Combined with welfare state retrenchment, this restructuring of labour market policy increased the pressure on people to sell their labour, and under terms over which workers wielded little influence. Since then, forms of insecure, non-standard work have proliferated globally, and employment relations have been increasingly individualised. Now, most workers in Anglo-Saxon market economies, and a growing proportion of workers in European and Nordic nations, rely on individual contract instruments (underpinned only by minimum wage floors typically far below living wage benchmarks) to set the terms and conditions of employment. Wages have stagnated, the share of GDP going to workers has declined, and inequality and poverty (even among employed people) has intensified. More recently, after years of this employer-friendly hegemony in workplace relations, successive crises (first the GFC and then the COVID-19 pandemic) have more obviously shattered traditional expectations of a natural linkage between economic growth and workers' living standards.After a generation of experience with this individualised model of employment relations, and with the human costs of that approach becoming ever-more obvious, there is renewed concern with reimagining policies and structures which could support improvements in job quality, stability, and compensation. Important policy dialogue and innovation is now occurring in many industrial countries, in response to the negative consequences of neoliberal labour market policies. In those conversations, institutions like collective bargaining have returned to centre stage.

The Teacher as Union Member and Professional Educator: The Continuing Challenge of Bread and Butter and Professionalism

Teachers are central to education;they stand at the crossroads of education. It is chiefly through their efforts that the goals of education are achieved or thwarted. Susan Moore Johnson, Harvard Graduate School Professor of Education, sagely wrote just over 30 years ago, "Who Teaches Matters” (Teachers at work: Achieving success in our schools. Basic Books, New York, 1990, p. xii). Eric Hanushek concurs writing, "First, teachers are very important;no other measured aspect of schools is nearly as important in determining student achievement” (The economic value of higher teacher quality. National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research, Calder The Urban Institute, Washington, DC, 2010, p. 3). The COVID-19 pandemic with its shutdown of many schools brought to the forefront the importance of teachers interacting with their students in classroom settings. Try as the teachers may, their virtual presence was a questionable substitute for the personal dynamics created by teachers with their students. Teachers consider themselves to be professionals, providing a fundamental service, and seek to present themselves to the public as professionals. Juxtaposed to the critical importance of the teacher is the fact that public school teachers are part of a heavily unionized workforce. For some, there is a challenge between being a professional educator and being a member of a union. Dana Goldstein, in The Teacher Wars: A History of America's Most Embattled Profession, asked, "Could unionized teachers fight for their own interests as workers for the educational interests of the city's children? Or were those two priorities at odds?" (The teacher wars: a history of America's most embattled profession. Doubleday, New York, 2014, p. 74). Essentially, is unionization organized in a way that supports the professionalism of teachers? DeMitchell and Cobb, in their study of unions and teacher professionalism, ask, "[Are] teacher unionism and collective bargaining compatible with teacher perceptions of professionalism?" (West's Educ Law Reporter 212:1-20, 2006, p. 19). This chapter explores the challenges of unions and teachers in developing and sustaining the union, which balances the traditional and legitimate responsibility that unions owe to the educators they represent while supporting the professional responsibility of the teachers to act in the best interests of their students. The discussion will begin with an exploration of professionalism - what does it mean to be a professional. Next, the rise of teacher unionization and the divergent paths of the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers in relation to professionalism and unionization will be discussed. The organizing principle of the emerging state collective bargaining laws formats public sector laws consistent with the industrial union model of private sector unionization and the impact of industrial unionism on teachers and teaching. The chapter concludes with a review of DeMitchell and Cobb's research on the tangled fit of being both a union member and a professional educator. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Impact of Direct Taxation on Economic Growth: Empirical Evidence Based on Panel Data Regression Analysis at the Level of Eu Countries

Through fiscal policy, the government can influence businesses and individuals in order to regulate their behaviour. The research used panel data from all 27 EU countries covering the period 2008–2020 to investigate the impact of direct taxation on economic growth at the level of two main clusters of countries concerning fiscal efficiency. Therefore, the analysis employed cluster methods to classify the main EU countries in both groups of countries with a high level of fiscal efficiency and those with a rather limited level of fiscal efficiency. The study employs fixed effect models and dynamic GMM methods to investigate the effect of direct taxation components (personal and corporate income taxes) on economic growth. The analysis also considers the informal economy's role in relation to the official economy. The empirical results revealed that corporate income taxes significantly negatively impact economic growth for both clusters of high- and limited fiscal efficiency countries. Additionally, personal income tax was associated with lower economic growth for countries in the limited fiscal efficiency group. Thus, from the perspective of policymakers, lowering direct taxation can increase disposable income, stimulate consumption and economic growth, encourage investment leading to job creation, increase competitiveness, and reduce tax evasion and avoidance, thereby leading to a more efficient tax system.

European Cross-Sectoral Collective Bargaining as Post-Crisis Social Policy

This article proposes a policy project, centered around coordinated collective bargaining at the European Union level, to redistribute income towards low-wage workers in post-crisis Europe. It suggests we allow labor unions in sectors employing low-wage workers to present common wage demands across sectors and EU Member States. It shows that this would make union wage increases less harmful to workers and consumers than under uncoordinated sectoral bargaining, while coming more directly at the expense of managers and investors. The article then describes existing EU legal institutions that-although they do not quite amount to the policy proposed here-constitute useful precedents for it. These institutions are European social dialogue, European Works Councils, and European Framework Agreements bargained for by multinational firms and worker representatives. The article also discusses doctrines of EU competition and internal market law that could potentially be held to prohibit European cross-sectoral collective bargaining coordination. The article lays out arguments in favor of finding such coordination lawful, so that it may form part of the EU's policy arsenal to address wrenching economic inequalities worsened by the ongoing economic and health crises.

Sozialpartnerschaft unter Spannung

Dieser Beitrag untersucht anhand von Pressemitteilungen, Gastbeiträgen der Vorsitzenden und Presseinterviews, wie die Tarifparteien der deutschen Metall- und Elektroindustrie, Gesamtmetall und IG Metall, die Corona-Krise in der Öffentlichkeit darstellten. Die mit dieser Untersuchung eingenommene Framing-Perspektive verspricht Aufschluss darüber, wie die Tarifparteien die Handlungsfähigkeit der Sozialpartnerschaft einschätzen und welche Prioritäten sie setzen. Die Sozialpartnerschaft steht auch in den Kernbereichen des deutschen Wirtschaftsmodells in zunehmendem Maße unter Druck. Das spiegelt sich auch in unserer Analyse wider. Während auf den ersten Blick in der Beschreibung der Krise und dem Ruf nach staatlichen Hilfen zur Unterstützung der Wirtschaft und Sicherung der Beschäftigten eine Interessenkoalition besteht, ist diese genauer betrachtet durch ein starkes Ungleichgewicht gekennzeichnet. Nicht nur handelt es sich um rein strategische Kooperation bei spezifischen Themen (Autoprämie, Kurzarbeitergeld). Die Arbeitgeberseite besteht außerdem auf Lohnzurückhaltung und lässt die gewerkschaftlichen Aufrufe zur weiter reichenden gemeinsamen Verantwortungsübernahme unbeantwortet. Insbesondere vor dem Hintergrund weiterer Auswirkungen der Pandemie auf den Arbeitsmarkt wird so die gewerkschaftliche Verhandlungsmacht geschwächt und die Sozialpartnerschaft gerät weiter unter Druck.Alternate :This paper examines how the collective bargaining parties of the German metal and electrotechnical industry, Gesamtmetall and IG Metall, portrayed the Corona crisis in the public sphere. The empirical basis consists of press releases, guest contributions by the chairpersons and press interviews. The framing perspective adopted by this study promises to shed light on how the collective bargaining parties assess the agency of social partnership and what priorities they set. Social partnership is generally coming under increasing pressure even in the core areas of the German economic model. This is also reflected in our analysis: While at first glance there is a coalition of interests in the description of the crisis and the call for state aid to support the economy and provide employement security, a closer look reveals a strong imbalance. Not only is this common interest restricted to purely strategic cooperation on specific issues. What is more, the employer side insists on wage restraint and leaves unanswered the trade unionsʼ calls for joint assumption of social responsibility. Particularly against the backdrop of further effects of the pandemic on the labor market, this weakens the unionsʼ bargaining power and puts further pressure on the institutional pattern of social partnership.

Locked in, logged out: pandemic and ride-hailing in South Africa and Kenya

This article examines the impact of the pandemic on ride-hailing drivers and their mitigation strategies during lockdown in Africa. Ride-hailing has emerged as one of the latest paid-work opportunities for the continent's many unemployed. Yet, ride-hailing companies such as Uber and Bolt misclassify drivers to avoid regulation and responsibilities towards workers' welfare. Drawing on 34 in-depth interviews with ride-hailing drivers, driver representatives and trade unions in South Africa and Kenya, this article makes two arguments. First, the gig economy in Africa provides work opportunities for the unemployed on the continent and simultaneously vitiates the working conditions through the commodification and informalisation of work. Second, the state-directed emergency measures act as a veneer to capital's efforts to commodify labour and the gig economy platforms have emerged as primary tools for it. Our account points to an urgent need for better regulatory systems to hold platform companies accountable and a collective bargaining mechanism in the gig economy.

The Electrical Contractors Case: Irish Supreme Court Illuminates Collective Bargaining and Delegated Legislation

As Europe begins to emerge from the Covid‐19 pandemic, two trends are clear: one, labour market reform is urgently needed, to cope with new economic and technological realities;and two, big government is back. The recent decision of the Irish Supreme Court in Náisiúnta Leichtreach Contraitheoir Éireann v Labour Court illuminates the relationship between collective bargaining and the regulatory state. In potentially one of the most important decisions in Irish labour law in decades, the Court rejected a constitutional challenge to legislation aimed at empowering social partners to regulate economic sectors through collective bargaining. This article situates that decision within recent scholarship on the ‘labour constitution' model of labour law, under which the social partners should participate in economic governance. It also highlights the relevance of the decision for the ‘Social Europe' agenda and the political economy of both national constitutional law and the EU internal market.

COVID's impacts on the field of labour and employment relations

The field of labour and employment relations covers work and employment from the perspective of workers, as distinct from the management-oriented field of HR. The COVID-19 crisis that spread across the globe in the early months of 2020 deeply affected employment and work in almost all sectors of the global economy. Already, many academic publishers in the field are demanding that articles and book manuscripts address it. More fundamentally, these developments pose challenges to some core assumptions of our field. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Making the ethical case for effective domestic abuse policy and practice: the role of trade unions

PurposeThis paper focusses on the role of trade unions in policy and practice designed to address the workplace impact of domestic abuse. The paper aims to examine this union remit through the lens of corporate social responsibility (CSR).Design/methodology/approachIn-depth interviews were conducted with 39 union representatives in a region of England to capture their views on and experiences of supporting members experiencing domestic abuse.FindingsThere is a clear ethical model by which the unions might articulate the key moral, legal and business drivers in determining effective domestic abuse policy and practice. Furthermore, the degree of "proximity”, in terms of union deliberation with employers and particularly joint action following disclosure, suggests that unions could play a key part in achieving "substantive” domestic abuse policy and practice within organisations.Originality/valueDespite unions' capacity to offer significant support to employers and employees, the role of unions in addressing the workplace impact of domestic abuse is under-researched. With reference to the concept of CSR, the article adds to the knowledge of how to address the workplace impact of domestic abuse.

The decline of paid overtime working in Britain

The share of paid‐for overtime hours within total paid‐for hours worked in Britain has declined from 5.4% to 2.0% between 1997 and 2020. We investigate this decline, focussing on its distribution across full‐time (f/t) and part‐time males and females and across 19 one‐digit industries. It is established that f/t males are dominant in the decline both of overtime working and overtime hours. We explore the implications of the decline on the share of overtime pay within total pay as well as on the gender pay gap. We test for economic, structural and cyclical influences on overtime working via a two‐part regression model that allows us to differentiate between the incidence of overtime working and weekly overtime hours of overtime employees. We examine how paid‐for overtime has varied with collective bargaining coverage, low pay, the 2008 financial crisis, the arrival of Covid‐19, job mobility and the public/private sector dichotomy. Combined marginal effects of changes in the incidence of overtime working and weekly overtime hours are also provided. The influence of the decline of collective bargaining in the last two decades on overtime working is highlighted using Blinder–Oaxaca decompositions.

Liber Amicorum Manfred Weiss

Liber Amicorum Manfred Weiss by Marius Olivier, Nicola Smit, and Evance Kalula (Cape Town, South Africa, Juta, 2021, 395 pp.).

NEGOTIATE LIFE? collective bargaining during the pandemic in Brazil

This paper analyzes how the union movement faced the challenges imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic, investigating the collective bargaining that took place between March 2020 and early 2021. Its core question inquires: have unions been able to build webs of protection for their members, in the form of collective norms agreed upon with employers? A pertinent question, since the 2017 labor reform immensely weakened the capacity of organized labor to act, by ending the union tax and limiting collective bargaining to consensual forms of funding, thereby impoverishing unions;and by reducing the scope of issues subject to collective bargaining, which was aggravated by the federal provisional measures aimed at facilitating the business response to the crisis, at the expense of workers’ income. The empirical research is based on collective bargaining results from four categories of essential workers: food and supermarket retailers, nurses, truck drivers, and bank clerks. © 2022, EDUFBA - Editora Universttaria. All rights reserved.

Did trade union presence and membership protect against deteriorating mental health during the Covid-19 pandemic?

BackgroundTrade union membership has massively declined in economically advanced economies. In addition, considerable variation exists between indicators of unionization, including trade union membership or presence rates. However, trade union membership and collective bargaining rates have recently risen in the UK. Yet, studies on the association between collective bargaining and workers’ mental health are sparse and non-existent in the current pandemic context. This study examines whether the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on UK workers’ mental health is moderated by the presence of trade unions within their industrial sector.MethodsWe used UK Household Longitudinal Study (Understanding Society) data from adults in paid employment, who participated in at least: one pre-COVID-19 Wave (9 or 10/11) and one COVID-19 wave. Primary outcome was probable psychological distress, defined by ‘caseness’ (score≥4) in the General Health Questionnaire-12 (GHQ-12). In model 1, exposure was trade union presence in workplaces, interacting with a variable splitting time between the pre and pandemic periods. In model 2, industry was added to the exposure in model 1 (3-way interaction). We fitted mixed-effects logistic regression models, adjusting for age, gender, ethnicity, UK country of residence and dummy variables for Understanding Society waves.ResultsOur final sample included 69,348 observations across 9,075 individuals. Pre-pandemic, odds of GHQ-12 caseness were almost 11% (OR:1.11 95%CI:0.98,1.26) higher for workers in unionised compared to non-unionised workplaces;however post-pandemic there was no difference between the two groups. Examining changes over the pre- to pandemic period, showed that odds of GHQ-12 caseness for those in non-unionised workplaces increased by 42% (OR:1.42 95%CI:1.23,1.64), whereas for those in unionised workplaces odds increased by 28% (OR:1.28 95%CI:1.11,1.47). Overall, industrial classification did not modify the relationship between trade union presence and GHQ-12 caseness, except for workers in Manufacturing (OR:0.61 95%CI:0.40,0.95) where we found a protective effect but the opposite stands for those in Transportation and Storage (OR:1.89 95%CI:1.18,3.03). Pre-pandemic, odds of GHQ-12 caseness for education sector workers were considerably higher in unionised workplaces (OR:1.70 95%CI:1.15,2.53) but declined during the pandemic period (OR:0.62 95%CI:1.05,2.47).ConclusionTrade union presence appears to have a protective effect for worker mental health during the pandemic. However, apart from Manufacturing, Transportation and Storage and Education, there is no evidence that type of industry modifies this effect. Therefore, policies should be designed to encourage and facilitate trade union presence across industries as they are likely to mitigate adverse mental health effects in times of extreme uncertainty.

Mot de l’éditeur: Covid 19 : plus qu’une pandémie, une nouvelle ère

Régime d’exception, banalisation et repli identitaire. : Sophie Breteshé et Sylvain Le Berre Technological Strikebreaking : A Case Study of Québec’s Anti-Scab Legislation : Andrea Talarico The pandemic is continuing, as are its consequences. Perhaps, but there is also a bigger picture — a picture that draws together and consolidates the potential of post-industrial technology, the priorities and aspirations of generation Xers and Ys and, of course, the modern imperative of work-life balance. [...]in this new reality, what happens to collective bargaining and the existing capital/labour power asymmetry?

Collaborative public service provision archetypes in healthcare emergencies: a case of COVID-19 administration in Sri Lanka

Purpose>This paper examines how the properties and patterns of a collaborative “networked hierarchy” incident command system (ICS) archetype can provide incident command centres with extra capabilities to manage public service delivery during COVID-19.Design/methodology/approach>The paper illustrates the case of Sri Lanka's COVID-19 administration during its “first wave” (from 15 February to 1 September 2020). Primary data were collected through in-depth interviews with government officials who were directly involved in the administration of the COVID-19 outbreak. Secondary data sources were government publications and web sources. The data were analysed and interpreted by using narrative analysis and archetype theory respectively.Findings>The findings highlight how Sri Lanka's public sector responses to COVID-19 have followed a collaborative “networked hierarchy” ICS archetype. More specifically, the government changed its normative ICS “properties” by incorporating a diverse group of intergovernmental agencies such as the police, the military, the health service and administrative services by articulating new patterns of collaborative working, namely, organisational values, beliefs and ideas that fit with the Sri Lankan public service context.Originality/value>In responding to high magnitude healthcare emergencies, the flexibility of a collaborative networked ICS hierarchy enables different balances of organisational properties to be incorporated, such as hierarchy and horizontal networking and “patterns” in public service provision.

AVOIDING A PIE IN THE FACE

Antitrust law has been here before. About fifty-five years ago, inflation was just beginning to creep up. Political and labor unrest characterized a national dissatisfaction with the status quo. And antitrust enforcers were pressing the law to its edges--and winning. These were just a few of the ingredients that would change US politics over the next two decades. Here, Walter offers a word of caution: tread carefully. To the extent that reformers still want to address concentrated labor markets through antitrust law, they should proceed mindful of reform's fragile political support and potential backlash.

RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS OF EMPLOYEES IN THE WORLD, IN THE N.MACEDONIA AND DURING THE COVID-19 CRISIS

A contract of employment is an agreement between an employer and an employee which sets out their employment rights, responsibilities and duties. These are called the 'terms' of the contract. This paper examines the impact of Covid-19 crisis on employees and their rights and obligations contained in the employment contract and during Covid-19 crisis.

Trande unions and hotel industry: Current trends

The subject of this article is to research the role of trade unions in the hotel industry in this century. Looking at trade union density across the Horeca sector in the EU27 plus Norway, it can be seen that overall density is relatively low (less than 15%), irrespective of the diversity within the Horeca sector in each country. Accordingly, the main objective of this article is to investigate the future of the trade unions in the hotel industry considering social and economic changes of the last few decades. It starts from four hypotheses, which refer to the attitudes of employees and union members towards the role of unions in the hotel industry and their power. The results of field research have served as primary data. The survey has been carried out among hotel employees (N=452) along the Adriatic coast in the summer season before the COVID-19 crises. In order to evaluate, formulate and present the findings, the following scientific methods have been applied: analysis and synthesis together with descriptive and inferential statistics.. The main finding of this paper points to the conclusion that employees who achieve high productivity do not have faith in the power of unions in the hotel industry. In terms of demographic variables, union employees above the age of 50 believe the least in the power of unions. These employees mostly point out that they are not adequately rewarded, that their superiors do not help them, and do not respect their working hours. The findings obtained may be significant for trade unions and their representatives to support them to form a new strategy that is necessary for unions to reach their goals.

Covid-19 and Employee Surveillance

While working from home is not a new concept, the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic has, for many in the workforce, rendered it the 'new normal', concomitant with enhanced use of workplace surveillance technologies to monitor and track staff working from home. Even prior to the global pandemic, organisations were increasingly using a variety of electronic surveillance methods to monitor their employees and the places where they work, whether it be in an office building or remotely. This technology traverses various facets of the work environment, including email communications, web browsing, the use of active badges for locating and tracking employees, and the gathering of personal information by employers. The application of these technologies, nevertheless, raises privacy concerns, which are exacerbated when work is undertaken in employees' own homes, a phenomenon that has become more prevalent due to Covid-19. This article addresses the issue of electronic workplace monitoring, its implications for employees' privacy and the role of collective bargaining in addressing this emergent practice, which has also been given new impetus during the pandemic.