Employment Policy

Margareta Holmstedt

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• eBook ISBN: 9781134956791
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Economic Theory
• Index: Economics

The nature and structure of work is changing across Europe with new working patterns, flexible working practices, and demands for new unemployment rights. Moreover, the move towards establishing a Single European Market from 1992 onwards involves the creation of a new legal framework for employment rights and practices. This volume explains what EC legislation means in this sphere, and outlines what is likely to happen as part of the `1992' programme. Employers - big and small - employees and trade unions alike will find this volume an invaluable guide and a single source of reference. It will also be of interest to those in public administration and social organisations concerned with employment rights and practices. A single European market raises many issues for how and when we work, what rights we have, and what we can ask for. Employment policy within the EC is thus set to undergo important changes and most of us will need to be aware of them.

SECTION I: THE EMERGENCE OF EUROPEAN EMPLOYMENT AND SOCIAL POLICIES

(The figures referred to in this section are positioned between pp. 165 and 189)

INTRODUCTION

European Community policies on employment do not form a coherent or comprehensive programme, but are rather a patchwork of different policy areas where the EC reasons for acting and powers to act vary greatly.

This volume is intended to give a comprehensive overview of European Community legislation, action programmes, funding and research reports in the area of employment and social policy. Community activities in this area now cover a very large number of diverse subjects from health and safety and equality legislation to the funding of training projects. Some knowledge of Community activities in this field is essential for employers, training agencies, voluntary organizations, policy-makers, lobbyists, trade unionists, personnel managers and many others.

Several articles in the original European Economic Community Treaty refer to social and employment policy and authorize the Commission and Council to take an interest in this field. The rationale of Community legislation in the field of employment is two-fold. A very large proportion of the Community’s efforts to harmonize provisions in Member States aim to produce ‘a level playing field’ for enterprise. Many types of provisions in the area of employment increase labour or production costs and are therefore a natural target for harmonization. An obvious example is health and safety legislation which impose obligations to install filters, extractor fans or personal protective equipment. The second reason for harmonization is to facilitate freedom of movement of labour which requires some regulation of the rights of migrant workers.

From the beginning there existed in addition a third motive for Community action in the social field which is not strictly generated by the customs union but by the wider political aims of the European Community. This is the need to create a Community which is relevant to the people of Europe as well as to entrepreneurs and businesses. This consideration has gained greater force with the implementation of the single market. It has been deemed by most member governments to be impossible to introduce measures which will increase competition and may at least in the short term cause new unemployment, without also taking some action to improve conditions for employees and citizens in general. This has led to a very substantial expansion of the potential scope of Community action in the social field. However, action in this sphere is hotly contested between member governments and between the two sides of industry.

A number of policy areas which all concern different aspects of employment are specifically mentioned in the EEC Treaty: freedom of movement, equal opportunities, health and safety, labour law and employment conditions. However, in only two of these areas are the Treaty provisions non-discretionary: free movement of labour and equal pay. In these areas Member States are required to act to eliminate discrimination and Community institutions are obliged to adopt legislation. Freedom of movement within the EC area is part of the original purpose of the Community. Article 1 in the Treaty establishes the aim of the EC to be the setting up of a customs union which according to Article 2 includes free movement of labour. The Treaty also stipulates that there shall be equal pay between men and women within the EC. From this provision in Article 119 have followed legislation and action programmes on gender equality.

Other Treaty provisions on employment and social policy encourage rather then oblige Member States to take action. These include Article 117 where the signatory states agreed on the need to promote improved working conditions and an improved standard of living, and Article 118 which authorizes the Commission to promote co-operation between Member States in the areas of employment, labour law and working conditions, social security, various aspects of health and safety and industrial relations. In most of these areas the Community has legislated to set minimum standards and to ensure harmonization or at least coordination of the policies of Member States. In two areas, however, efforts to achieve harmonization or regulation have met with little success: social security and industrial relations. The EC has also become increasingly active in trying to promote both employment growth and measures to aid the unemployed. In this area the Community has acted not through legislation but through recommendations on co-ordinated action to member governments and by funding pilot projects on training and other types of support for the unemployed.

Finally more recent efforts to promote the integration of certain underprivileged groups, such as the disabled into the world of work, are part of EC employment policies. EC social policies have until very recently been almost entirely concentrated on policies relating to employment. In the few instances where such policies deal with groups outside the labour market or have objectives which are not related to employment, they have as far as possible been included in this directory, because they are often developments from employment-related policies and are difficult to separate from these without creating artificial boundaries which are more limiting than enlightening.

Originally the processes of regulation and harmonization of Member State policies in these different areas developed independently of each other. Not until 1974 was an action programme adopted by the Council of Ministers which pulled together all the different areas of action which could loosely be defined as relating to employment. Recently the single market programme has led to the development of the concept of the social dimension which includes not only employment-related policies but objectives relating to improved living conditions in general. The discussion about the social dimension has led to the adoption of the Social Charter, intended to be a bill of rights for European citizens in the social sphere. However, the Social Charter is no more than a series of recommendations on minimum standards. Most of these still relate to different aspects of employment. In the action programme adopted by the Commission on the different measures the Commission intends to propose to implement the Social Charter, almost all potential actions which the Commission intends to initiate fall within the distinct areas of freedom of movement, equal opportunities, health and safety, employment conditions (including remuneration), trade union rights, employee consultation and participation and employment promotion. The action programme is less coherent than the Charter. Very different levels of activities are proposed in different areas. With relation to health and safety, already a field covered by extensive legislation, the Commission is proposing a long list of subjects for future legislation. In other areas recommendations rather than legislation are proposed and, in the area of trade union rights and collective agreements, the Commission will take no action but leave the field to governments and their social partners without any enforceable minimum safeguards.

The lack of a coherence in the EC policies on employment and social policy is a consequence of the fact that EC institutions are not the government machinery of a nation state or even of a federal state, but still have very circumscribed powers, limited to framework legislation and funding of special demonstration and pilot projects. Community institutions do not have direct lines of command to national, regional or local administrations. This is still the monopoly of the national governments. The lack of coherence is also a product of the fact that individual member governments are the decision-makers in the Community and that until recently individual governments have had a veto over all policy initiatives. Agreement on Community action is easier to achieve in some policy areas than in others.

It is possible to categorize EC policies in the social sphere quite differently from the way it has been done in this book. The European Commission in its reports on the progress of the single market deals with the abolition of frontier controls under the heading ‘the removal of physical barriers’; with freedom of movement for workers and non-workers under the heading ‘the removal of technical barriers’; the structural funds and measures to combat unemployment appear in the section headed ‘horizontal measures’, subsection ‘Social and Economic’ cohesion; while all other aspects of employment policy are discussed in the same section under the heading ‘the social dimension’. We feel that while this might make sense in the context of the implementation of the single market programme, the division set out in the Treaty is more practical for practitioners seeking information on EC policies in areas relevant to their work situation.

The division of policy areas in this volume is loosely based on the divisions adopted by the Treaty. It is also the division we have felt to be most useful for the practical users of the book. For example, we have assumed that people who want to know details of EC health and safety legislation would be helped by a chapter containing only policies which relate strictly to this subject without additional information on other types of employment conditions such as retirement or working hours.

There are a number of subjects within the social field which so far have been excluded from Community initiatives. The health services, housing (despite the ECSC funding of housing for miners and steel workers), compulsory and traditional secondary education—with the exception of language teaching —are large areas so far excluded from the EC areas of interest. Income tax and other employment taxes and social security with the exception of the social security rights of migrant workers are also areas where harmonization would contribute to the purpose of the Community, but where EC action is likely to remain politically impossible for some time to come.

Despite the political difficulties attached to harmonizing provisions in the area of labour law and industrial relations, the Commission has been very active in developing draft legislation in this field. A chapter on employee consultation and participation has therefore been included to discuss these different initiatives. However, in the early days of the Community the Member States stopped the Commission from developing any policies on co-ordination of social security except in relation to migrant workers. There is, therefore, no separate chapter on social security; social security rights of migrant workers are discussed in the chapter on freedom of movement.

There also is an introductory chapter which compares the situation in the member countries with respect to different aspects of employment and social policy.

EC actions catalogued here include legislative proposals, legislation in the form of Regulations and Directives, action programmes and other Recommendations adopted by the Commission and/or the Council, funding schemes and comparative research reports.

Employment Policy is intended to give a comprehensive overview of European Community legislation, action programmes, funding and research reports in the area of employment and social policy. Community activities in this area now cover a very large number of diverse subjects from health and safety and equality legislation to the funding of training projects. Some knowledge of Community activities in this field is essential for employers, training agencies, voluntary organizations, policy-makers, lobbyists, trade unionists, personnel managers and many others.

This book is aimed at policy-makers and researchers in the private, public and voluntary sectors who need quick access to EC legislation and other initiatives in the social and employment field. The first section consists of an account of the development of legislation including Commission proposals which have not yet been adopted. It starts with a chapter which looks at the demographic and employment situations in the Community member countries and provides a short comparative account of the education and training systems.

Section II contains summaries of the most important Regulations, Directives, draft Directives, Commission Proposals and Reports. Section III lists the majority of the remaining documents in each field of social and employment policy, including some of the most important European Parliament resolutions and committee reports and opinions of the Economic and Social Committee. Each item will include a very brief indication of the content where the title is not self explanatory.

In order to make this volume easily accessible, each chapter is intended to be self contained so that anyone wanting information on, for example, ‘Freedom of Movement’ would be able to read this chapter only without needing to refer to any other chapter. This inevitably leads to a certain amount of repetition of information.

A good strategy for tackling this book would be to read the first two chapters on Employment and Social Policies in the Member States and Employment and Social Policies of the Community and leave the rest of the book to be consulted as required.

Any re...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• SPICERS EUROPEAN POLICY REPORTS
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• LIST OF FIGURES: (Figures appear on pp. 165–189)
• FOREWORD
• THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY: ITS ROLE, INSTITUTIONS, AND LEGISLATION
• SECTION I: THE EMERGENCE OF EUROPEAN EMPLOYMENT AND SOCIAL POLICIES
• SECTION II: KEY DOCUMENTS ON EMPLOYMENT POLICY
• SECTION III: OTHER DOCUMENTS OF RELEVANCE TO EMPLOYMENT POLICY
• APPENDIX I
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• APPENDIX II
• USEFUL ADDRESSES