AIAS newsletter Autumn 2012 TW.indd

AIAS 

Amsterdam Institute for 

Advanced labour Studies 

www.uva-aias.net 


Autumn 2012 

Newsletter 

New management AIAS 

Interview with Prof. Edelman 

Georgetown University, Washington, DC 

New working paper series: ‘Labour markets 

and industrial relations in the Netherlands’


What can we offer you? 

CONTENTS 

What can we offer you? 2 

Editorial word 3 

AIAS conference 4 

Focus on... Peter Edelman 6 

Events 7 

Working Papers 12 

AIAS Series (Labour markets & industrial relations in the Netherlands) 13 

GINI Papers 14 

Newsletters 22 

Publications Academic 27 

Publications Professional 31 

Focus on... Research 34 

Data 36 

Research 37 

Overview research projects j 

38 

Onderwijs/Teaching 42 

AIAS 44 

People at AIAS 45 

Call for Papers 44 

Announcements 46 

Amsterdam Institute 

for Advanced labour Studies 

UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM 

AIAS is an institute for multidisciplinary research and teaching at the University of Amsterdam. Founded in 1998, it 

brings together the University’s expertise in labour studies from the Faculties of Law, Social and Behavioural Sciences, 

Economics and Business, and Medicine. 

AIAS’ mission is to strengthen its position as a leading academic centre in the fi eld of labour studies in the Netherlands and abroad, fostering 

its acclaim as an attractive partner for international cooperation in research and teaching. Our threefold task is to perform and facilitate 

research aimed at developing, empirically testing and applying theories that can explain the working of labour markets, labour relations and 

organisations, and social and labour policies in an internationally comparative perspective. We maintain and further develop multidisciplinary 

teaching programmes concerning these issues and provide expertise to society by supplying analytical tools, results and data to enlighten policy 

making in the fi eld of labour and to contribute to the intellectual and public debate on labour, employment and social policies. 

Research 

AIAS research focuses on the analysis of 

labour markets, social security and governance. 

It combines various disciplinary approaches 

along three perspectives: Societal 

regulations & coordination of markets, Individual 

transactions in markets and Societal 

and individual effects. Some of our research 

programmes we are involved in: 

● GINI Growing Inequalities’ Impacts 

● Equalsoc network of Excellence (Economic 

Changes, Quality of Life and 

Social Cohesion) 

● Solidarity in the 21 st Century 

● AMCIS Amsterdam Centre for Inequality 

Studies 

● Flex Work Research Centre 

● WageIndicator 

Teaching 

AIAS offers various forms of education: 

● The course cycle ‘Arbeidsvraagstukken en Beleid’ 

consisting of four courses (in Dutch): 

A. HRM in Beeld 

B. Arbeidsmarkt in Ontwikkeling 

C. Ongelijkheid en de Verzorgingsstaat 

D. Trends in Arbeidsverhoudingen 

● Various in-company courses 

● Together with the Graduate School 

of Social Sciences and the Faculty of 

Social and Behavioural Sciences, AIAS 

organizes the Master in Comparative 

Organisation Labour Studies 

● PhD Laboratory, which aims at providing 

a stimulating and structured environment 

for the support of external 

PhD students, specifi cally teaching 

staff of the University of Applied 

Sciences. 

Social involvement 

Annually AIAS organizes conferences 

about ongoing research and current trends. 

Furthermore, several (lunch) seminars and 

workshops take place during the year, offering 

interesting opportunities for the exchange 

and deliberation of research on labour 

issues from all over the world. AIAS 

has a major collection of academic socioeconomic 

data in the fi eld of labour relations, 

labour organizations, employment 

and working conditions in the Netherlands 

and abroad. AIAS and its staff contribute to 

society on many subjects, for different audiences 

and in varying formats (articles, books, 

reports, interviews, presentations etc...). The 

AIAS Working Paper, the ‘Labour markets 

and industrial relations in the Netherlands’ 

and the GINI Discussion Paper series also 

addresses a great variety of topics. 

COLOPHON 

This is a publication of the Amsterdam Institute for 

Advanced labour Studies, Plantage Muidergracht 12, 

1018 TV Amsterdam, The Netherlands 

Subscriptions / address changes 

aias@uva.nl or +31 20 525 4199 

(Final) editing 

Angelique Lieberton, Jan Cremers and Paul de Beer. 

Design / photo’s 

Creative Es & Angelique Lieberton 

Cover photo: ©Jordi Huisman 

Other photos: ©S. Stevenson, J. Cremers, AIAS and ©J. Huisman 

Print run / edition 

Print run: 2300 / © Autumn 2012 AIAS 

Printer: GVO drukkers & vormgevers B.V. | Ponsen & Looijen

Editorial 

AIAS is moving on! 

In April this year Maarten Keune and I have taken over the management 

of AIAS from Wiemer Salverda, who has reached the age of 65. Maarten 

and I hope to be able to continue the successful research and educational 

programmes that AIAS is renowned for both within and outside of academia. 

As an interdisciplinary institute, in which the 

faculties of Law, Social and Behavioural Sciences, 

Economics and Business and Medicine 

cooperate, AIAS studies quite varied 

societal phenomena and problems, using 

insights from various scientifi c disciplines. 

As usual, this Newsletter, which is published 

twice a year, gives an overview of completed, 

ongoing and new research programmes. 

One example of this is the cross-national 

GINI project, which is co-ordinated by 

Wiemer Salverda. This research project, 

funded by the European Union under the 

7th Framework Programme, focuses on the 

societal impact of growing income inequalities 

in 29 countries. This Newsletter gives an 

overview of a number of discussion papers 

that have been published recently as part 

of the GINI project. AIAS researchers also 

contribute regularly to international research 

programmes co-ordinated by scientifi c institutes 

abroad. Often, this takes the form of 

a country study, which is incorporated in 

an overall report or book. To make these 

country reports available for a larger audience, 

AIAS has just started a new working 

paper series, ‘Labour markets and industrial 

relations in the Netherlands’, in which these 

reports on the Netherlands are collected. 

Besides research, AIAS is also involved in 

interdisciplinary educational programmes. 

On the one hand, several AIAS staff members 

participate in the regular education 

of the faculties. On the other hand, AIAS 

has its own post-academic educational 

programme for professionals. In 2011 we 

started with a cycle of four short courses 

or ‘leergangen’, which focus on HRM, labour 

market developments, inequality and soli- 

darity, and industrial relations, respectively. 

These courses are followed by professionals 

from companies, trade unions, the government, 

etc. AIAS also organizes a PhD lab 

for so-called external PhD candidates, who 

are guided in the writing of their fi rst scientifi 

c paper. Next year, we will start a professional 

course for trainers of works councils. 

Apart from research and education, AIAS 

organizes seminars and conferences. The 

highlight of each year is the AIAS annual 

conference, which was organized on September 

26 and was attended by over one 

hundred participants. This Newsletter gives 

an impression of the conference and also 

includes an interview with one of the keynote 

speakers, Professor Peter Edelman of 

Georgetown University, Washington, DC. 

In 2013, AIAS will also organize the 10 th 

European Conference of the International 

Labour and Employment Relations Association 

(ILERA). The call for papers for 

this conference can be found in this issue. 

Last but not least, I would like to draw attention 

to the bi-weekly lunch seminars on 

Thursday, which give both AIAS staff and 

researchers from other universities the opportunity 

to present and discuss recent research. 

I would like to thank Wiemer Salverda very 

much for the way that he has led AIAS 

in the past decade. Maarten Keune and 

I hope that AIAS will continue to be an 

outstanding institute for interdisciplinary 

research and education in the next decade! 

Paul de Beer 

Editor AIAS newsletter & Co-director AIAS 

P.T.deBeer@uva.nl 

Prof Paul de Beer Prof Maarten Keune 

3

4 

AIAS CONFERENCE 

26 September 2012, Amsterdam 

Never waste a good crisis! 

On September 26, 2012, the annual AIAS conference took place in Amsterdam. As AIAS co-director Paul de Beer 

explained in his introductory remarks, the AIAS conference brings together scholars and practitioners from a variety 

of disciplines and backgrounds around one common theme. This year’s theme was “Never Waste a Good Crisis: 

Structural Labour Market Reform in Times of Austerity.” 

As Paul de Beer explained, the 2008 crisis has 

rendered visible the structural weaknesses of 

European labour markets, while tilting the political 

scales in many European countries towards 

fi scal conservatism. This begs the question how 

we can solve widespread unemployment in the 

face of persistent budget austerity. The three 

speakers of the day combined insights from the 

fi elds of economics, sociology and law to offer 

some preliminary answers to that important 

question. Prof. Sweder van Wijnbergen, Prof. 

Evelien Tonkens and Prof. Evert Verhulp (all 

University of Amsterdam) served as discussants. 

Dr. Stefano Scarpetta of the OECD presented 

an impressive collection of data on active 

labour market policies in OECD countries 

before, during and after the crisis. Dr.Scarpetta 

showed the disparities in this crisis: only have 

some countries been affected more than others 

(compare Spain with the Netherlands, for 

instance), socio-economic groups within those 

economies have also experienced the crisis in 

different ways. What immediately stood out 

from Dr. Scarpetta’s data, for instance, was 

the disproportionate effect of the crisis on 

young workers and the low-skilled. The sobering 

conclusion of these observations was that 

a single strategy to restructure labour markets 

across the OECD would be ineffective. Still, 

the speaker noted, some policy responses had 

proven to be better than others. Dr. Scarpetta 

was particularly sceptical of the deregulation of 

permanent employment contracts in countries 

like Spain and Italy: “not the type of fl exibility 

we’re hoping for”, he said. Rather, the most 

resilient labour markets did not dismantle, but 

combined traditional institutions like collective 

bargaining with fl exible employment practices. 

Dr. Scarpetta’s fi ndings tied in well with the 

second presentation of the day, by Prof. 

Giuliano Bonoli of the Swiss Graduate School 

of Public Administration, who focused on the 

effects of the crisis on low-skilled workers. 

While Dr. Scarpetta’s research had found no 

correlation between government spending on 

active labour market policies and actual labour 

market performance, Prof. Bonoli gave the 

audience a number of possible explanations. 

Low-skilled workers, Prof. Bonoli explained, 

face specifi c challenges in unemployment that 

may not be adequately targeted by active labour 

market policies. Consider, for instance, the 

problem of a double selection bias, whereby 

the more qualifi ed workers are more likely to 

participate in job training and are more likely to 

succeed at it. According to Prof. Bonoli, lowskilled 

workers also have to rely much more 

on informal channels to learn about jobs than 

high-skilled workers, thus creating a problem of 

labour market matching. Prof. Bonoli therefore 

suggested the idea of a “service Keynesianism”: 

using government stimulus to create highquality 

service jobs for the low-skilled. 

According to Prof. Bonoli, one of the causes 

for unemployment among the low-skilled is 

their displacement from low-skilled jobs by employment-starved 

medium-skilled workers. This 

broader theme of a downwardly mobile middle 

class also resonated in the presentation on poverty 

in the United States by Prof. Peter Edelman 

of the Georgetown Law Center. Prof. 

Edelman explained how a stunning 46 million 

Americans currently live below the poverty line. 

Although programmes to alleviate poverty in 

the United States do exist – from food stamps 

to earned income tax credits –Prof. Edelman 

pointed out how social stigma has long prevented 

an adequate response to rising poverty 

Prof Paul de Beer 

Prof Sweder van Wijnbergen is interviewing dr Scarpetta 

(Photo by Jan Cremers, © AIAS) 

Prof. Peter Edelmann

levels. In particular, the distinction between the 

“deserving poor” (veterans, elderly) and the 

“undeserving poor” (single mothers, people of 

colour) has stymied much of public policy in 

this area. I found Prof. Edelman’s cautionary 

tale highly relevant for our European societies 

as well: as our policymakers are currently (re-) 

considering which socio-economic groups are 

“deserving” of public resources, which normative 

underpinnings inform our social policies? 

Our concluding panel of the day had the diffi 

cult task to tackle this complex political issue. 

Composed of four representatives of political 

party think tanks (Mr. Arjan Vliegenthart 

from the Scientifi c Bureau of the Dutch Socialist 

Party, Mr. Frans Becker of the Wiardi Beckman 

Foundation, Mr. Raymond Gradus of the 

Scientifi c Institute of the Christian Democrats 

Party, and Mr. Raymond Brood of Mercer 

Marsh Benefi ts Benelux), the panel was asked 

for specifi c policy recommendations to improve 

labour markets in the Netherlands. The 

panellists were not generous with specifi c policy 

recommendation, despite the gentle urgings 

of the discussion leader (what did the panellists 

think of a comeback of the old Melkertbanen?). 

Nonetheless, their more general suggestions, 

from a new social pact between government 

and social partners to a more facilitating role for 

the government in job creation, gave the audience 

members plenty of room for discussion 

during the reception afterwards. Looking back 

at a very successful day, I encourage everyone 

who was unable to attend to watch the videos 

of all conference presentations, which will be 

made available through the AIAS website. 

Natascha van der Zwan 

N.A.J.vanderZwan@uva.nl 

Photos by Sean Stevenson, © AIAS 

Debate with representatives of some political parties 

Prof. 

Giuliano Bonoli 

Prof. 

Evelien Tonkens 

is interviewing 

Prof. Bonoli 

Prof. 

Evert Verhulp 

Dr. Stefano 

Scarpetta 

5

6 

To start off, what are the sources of 

poverty in the US? 

People are poor for all kinds of reasons. 

Certainly the strongest reason for poverty is 

low wage work. About 61% of the income 

of people who are classifi ed as poor comes 

from work. So the fact that people have 

only intermittent work, part-time work, or 

low wage work, that’s the major reason. A 

quarter of the jobs in the US, even if you 

have them full time all through the year, pay 

less than the poverty line for a family of 

four. There’s a large number of households 

where there’s only one adult, most often a 

woman, so they don’t get by. If you have 

two people in the household that both have 

a job, even if it pays in that bottom quarter, 

then they’re not going be rich, but they’re 

alright. Then, somebody loses their job and 

they, as we say, put more water in the soup. 

How do public programmes help poor 

people in the US 

There’s a big difference in our public policy 

between the people who work and those 

that, for whichever reason, have no work. A 

person, say a single mum, who has a minimum 

wage job earns about 15.000 dollars 

annually (the poverty line for a family of 

three is about 19.000 dollars). She gets the 

earned income tax credit of about $5500 

and she gets child tax credit for about 

$1500. So she gets almost a fi fty per cent addition 

to her income from those two things. 

Pretty good. 

The poor who do not work, however, are 

increasingly seen as undeserving. The number 

of people who receive unemployment 

FOCUS ON... 

PROF. PETER EDELMANN 

On the 26 th of September, the AIAS annual conference took place in 

Amsterdam. Peter Edelman, professor at the Georgetown University Law 

Center, gave a speech called Why is it so hard to end poverty in the US. 

AIAS PhD candidate Janna Besamusca interviewed Prof. Edelman about his 

experiences in fi ghting poverty that Edelman relates in his recent book ‘So rich 

so poor’, among others as legislative assistant to Robert Kennedy and assistant 

secretary for planning and evaluation in the Clinton administration. 

benefi ts, or what we call welfare, went from 

14 million when President Clinton took offi 

ce, down to 3.9 million before the recession 

started. If you earned too little, if you 

haven’t worked long enough, if you have a 

part-time job, you’re not eligible. So if for 

whatever reason someone has no unemployment 

insurance and no other income, 

all she’s going to get is food stamps. You 

have a legal right to food stamps. Used to 

be you had a legal right to welfare. Payments 

were very low, but at least you had a legal 

right to cash assistance. That isn’t there anymore, 

so states are free to help you or not, 

even if you’re eligible. 

In your book you mention President 

Obama’s health care reform helps fi ght 

poverty. Exactly how historic is the reform? 

The reform has two components. In the 

old system, you only qualifi ed for Medicaid 

as an adult of working age if you received 

cash assistance or were disabled. So there 

were almost no low-wage workers who were 

entitled. Some 16 million people who aren’t 

currently eligible for Medicaid will be entitled 

now. 

People who have incomes above the Medicaid 

level (132% of the poverty line) will be 

able to buy insurance at something called an 

exchange and they’ll have a subsidy for their 

premium on a fl ying scale up to four times 

the poverty line. About half of the newly 

insured people, another 16 million, will get 

in through the exchange. There are also a 

lot of people who currently have very expensive 

insurances, because they’re buying 

it themselves, who will shift to the exchange 

and be much better off. So 32 million of 

the 47 million currently uninsured are going 

to get health coverage. We’re reaching about 

two thirds, that’s a big thing. 

You also mention the retreat of unions 

from the private sector as a cause of 

working poverty. How detrimental has 

the lack of unionization in the private 

sector been on wage development? 

Clearly there is a trend towards low-wage 

work that includes countries that have a 

very high amount of unionism. But it’s even 

more diffi cult to organize those low wage 

workers in the US, because legal protection 

for organizing is very weak. A lot of low 

wage workers work in very big companies, 

like Walmart. And the point is that Walmart 

could be organized and people would still 

go doing their shopping there and just pay 

a little bit more. The future of unionism is 

most promising for some category of low 

wage workers, particularly in the services 

sectors. I also think it’s a question of discovering 

some way of representation that may 

be different from only the classic organizing 

of the workplace in doing collective agreements 

about the wage. It may well be that 

they attract people 

when they become 

more of a community 

based organization 

and people join 

them for reasons 

other than simply the 

wage and the fringe 

benefi ts.

EVENTS 

Jan Cremers 

Keynote speech on free 

movement of workers 

Cremers gave a keynote speech during the 36 th meeting of the Committee for 

interregional cooperation of the German-Polish governmental Commission for 

regional and cross-border cooperation. 

The German and Polish Ministries of Labour and regional authorities have established a permanent 

forum that exchanges views on social-economic and political aspects of labour migration 

and European policies. In a meeting on 19 April 2012 in Schwerin the members of the 

committee assessed the experiences with free movement of labour after the removal of the 

labour market restrictions (as of 1 May 2011). Jan Cremers was asked to deliver one of the 

keynotes speeches. He sketched out the existing framework for the free movement of workers 

and the pending questions that still have to be solved. He also stressed the necessity to fi nd 

joint solutions between social partners and governmental bodies in the fi eld of compliance 

with and respect for working conditions, equal treatment and the avoidance of distortion of 

competition 

In the fi nal memorandum that was signed at the end of the meeting the participants stated that 

the creation of decent work and “Equal pay at the place where the work is pursued” have to 

be guiding principles in the development of a competitive market economy. 

Jan Cremers 

Contribution to a panel 

at the International 

Conference of Europeanist 

Jan Cremers contributed to a panel EU free movement mid-crisis and post- 

Lisbon: What scope for a rights-based European labour geography? during the 

19th Conference of Europeanists in Boston on 22 March 2012. 

In his contribution In search of cheap labour in Europe he reported on research related to 

the cross border provision of services with posted workers, an integral part of the economic 

freedoms in the EU internal market. The EU Posting of Workers Directive (Directive 96/71/ 

EC), established in the mid-1990s, tried to settle posting rules that could guarantee the rights 

of posted workers within the territory where the work was pursued. The fi nal paper consists 

of an analysis of the theory and practice of the functioning of the posting rules in 12 European 

countries. The focus was on the practical experiences of compliance authorities, labour 

inspectors and other controlling bodies. The paper will be published in the autumn in Policy 

Studies, Routledge. 

Academic Medical 

Centre, 9 May 2013 

Conference 

“Healthy 

and Active at 

work” 

On May 9 th the research programme 

Preventative Occupational Health 

Care held its closing conference at 

the Academic Medical Centre in 

Amsterdam 

Objective of this research programme is to increase 

knowledge in the area of occupational 

health care and prevention. The theme of the 

conference was healthy and active at work; 

with a focus on sustainable employability and 

prevention at the workplace. Invited guest 

speakers were prof. Knottnerus (WRR) and dr. 

Rinnooy Kan (SER). Several workshops were 

organised for presenting, discussing and demonstrating 

research outcomes. At AIAS the research 

project de human resources van werknemers 

met een chronische aandoening: maak er gebruik van 

was conducted by dr. Haafkens, dr. Kopnina 

and Claire Hogenhout (MSc candidate). In this 

project the role of HRM and line management 

in facilitating job retention of chronically ill 

employees was assessed. Within this project a 

training programme for HR-professionals and 

student on the topic of prevention and sustainable 

employability of chronically ill employees 

was developed. A pilot of the programme was 

held within the minor HRM at The Hague 

University of Applied Sciences. Parts of the 

programme are (ad hoc) implemented in the 

AIAS HRM course. (see page 42). 

See for all workshop documents www.gezondactiefenbetrokken.nl, 

for the research programmewww.instituutgak.nl/deelprogrammas/preventieve_gezondheidszorg.php. 

7

8 

Kea Tijdens 

Presentation 

on the 

WISCO 

database 

On Wednesday 19 September 2012 

Kea Tijdens, research coordinator at 

AIAS, gave a presentation called "The 

WISCO database of occupations for the 

WageIndicator web-survey" for the ESCO 

Maintenance Committee in Brussels. ESCO 

stands for European Skills, Competences 

and Occupations taxonomy. 

ESCO is a Europe 2020 initiative. Its main 

aim is to build a multilingual classifi cation 

of European Skills/Competences, qualifi cations 

and Occupations. ESCO organises concepts 

that are relevant in the European labour 

market and in the education/training sector. 

It will be available free of charge to all stakeholders, 

and is predominantly developped for 

the public employment services in Europe. In 

the presentation, the WISCO database of occupations 

was detailed and the related research 

agenda was presented. For more information 

on the database, please contact Kea Tijdens at 

K.G.Tijdens@uva.nl 

Els Sol 

Paul de Beer 

EVENTS 

Presentation on the 

employer of the future 

On the annual 'science day' of the Netherlands General Employers 

Association (Algemene Werkgeversvereniging Nederland, AWVN) on 5 

September 2012, Paul de Beer gave a presentation on the employer of the 

future. 

He contended that the ideal future employer should adapt to the employee of the future. However, 

he criticized the usual picture of the future employee as being increasingly autonomous 

and independent and thus becoming more similar to self-employed workers. According to De 

Beer, for many low-skilled employees, being autonomous and independent may not be an attractive 

prospect but rather a threat. Moreover, in the knowledge-based economy of the future, 

the ideal company is not a loose network of independent workers, who are primarily interested 

in their own career, but rather a community that is based on the mutual commitment between 

employer and employees. 

Jan Cremers 

Presentation Collective 

Bargaining Newsletter 

During the annual meeting of the Trade Union related Research Institutes Jan 

Cremers has presented the work AIAS is doing on behalf of the ETUI for the 

monthly production of the Collective Bargaining Newsletter. 

In his presentation he stressed the fact that the Newsletter is a slim and lean instrument that aims 

to inform and alert on (ongoing) negotiations, compliance issues and related industrial disputes. 

Go to our website to see his presentation (PDF) www.uva-aias.net/uploaded_fi les/regular/ 

pptJCremersETUIParis1.pdf. See for more information on the Collective Bargaining Newsletter 

page 22 of this newsletter or see our website www.uva-aias.net/96#collective_barg. 

Workshop Pilot Parlement en Wetenschap 

Op donderdag 26 januari j.l. vond in het kader van een Pilot Parlement en Wetenschap in het gebouw van de Tweede 

Kamer een workshop plaats van de Vaste commissie voor Sociale Zaken en Werkgelegenheid. 

De pilot is een initiatief van de Tweede Kamer en onder meer de KNAW. Het doel daarvan is de parlementaire kennisvraag en het wetenschappelijk 

kennisaanbod beter op elkaar aan te sluiten. Onderwerp van de betreffende workshop was het re-integratiebeleid en de effectiviteit 

daarvan. Els Sol heeft een presentatie gehouden, waarin ze benadrukte dat de politiek bij het kiezen van de juiste invalshoek door het stellen 

van de juiste vragen aan wetenschappers in de toekomst meer op basis van empirie en minder op basis van vooringenomen standpunten het 

re-integratievraagstuk zou kunnen aanpakken. Ter illustratie maakte ze gebruik van het boek ‘Fit or Unfi t: naar expliete re-integratietheorieën’, 

waarin de belangrijkste werkzame mechanismen bij dienstverlening gericht op werkhervatting zijn geëxpliciteerd.

EVENTS 

Wiemer Salverda 

Adjustments in the Public Sector in 

Europe 

The International Labour Organisation ILO, with the 

fi nancial support of the European Commission, organised 

a one-year internationally comparative research project 

that examined the situation of the public sector in the 

Financial Crisis. 

Thirteen national experts contributed each on their own country. 

Wiemer Salverda did for the Netherlands. He drew a close comparison 

to the Dutch recession of the early 1980s. This was deep by international 

standards as Dutch disposable household income fell by 

at least 8 per cent. Public-sector adjustment meant that wages were 

frozen, and cut in the wake of the Wassenaar Accord. The public 

wage bill fell over the 1980s and has remained at a lower level since. 

The same policy targeted health care wages – in spite of the fact that 

employers and unions were private negotiating partners. The unions 

appealed to the ILO because of a violation of free collective bargaining 

– they won in the end. As a result, different rules were introduced 

in the 1990s. At the same time wage negotiations for the civil service 

and the educational sector were decentralised. It led the author to 

conclude that wage cuts are no longer a constructive policy option for 

public-sector adjustment in the Netherlands. It was nicely illustrated 

Frank Tros 

Presented on ‘Flexicurity in Europe’ 

Frank Tros has given a presentation at the 16 th World 

Congress of the International Labour and Employment 

Relations Association (ILERA) that was organised last July 

in Philadelphia. 

In the paper ‘Flexicurity in Europe: can it survive a double crisis?’ Frank 

Tros argues that since the fi nancial crisis, the economic and political 

conditions in Europe have become less favourable regarding the implementation 

of the policy-concept of ‘fl exicurity’. Furthermore, the 

paper examines the fact that the concept in itself seems in crisis since 

it meets more and more criticism of academics and because of disappointing 

outcomes of policies that are labelled as ‘fl exicurity’. Frank 

Tros concludes that the concept is currently ‘not dead’, but risks further 

erosion if the governments and the social partners in Europa will not 

follow two of the most important original principles of the fl exicurity 

by the agreement of the municipalities in 2011 to a wage rise in 2011, 

in the face of opposition by the government which aims to endorse 

a nominal freeze. 

Other countries in the project were the three Baltic States, Croatia, 

Germany, Greece, France, Hungary, Ireland, Portugal, Romania, 

Spain, Sweden, and the UK. Contributions were made by, inter alia, 

Jérôme Gautié, Gerhard Bosch, Philip O’Connell, Dominique Anxo 

and Damian Grimshaw. Daniel Vaughan-Whitehead coordinated the 

project; Jill Rubery contributed a special, cross-country chapter on 

gender. The public and the private sector differ radically in the presence 

of women – for example, two thirds of the Dutch public work 

force are female while in the private sector two thirds are male. 

The project results were presented at a concluding conference in 

Brussels on 20–21 June 2012, and discussed by several Ministers of 

Labour and by public-sector and private-sector social-partner representatives 

(see http://www.ilo.org/brussels/WCMS_181854/ 

lang--en/index.htm). The full results will soon be published by 

Edward Elgar. 

concept: (i) the view that investments in social and employment policies 

are an economic production function and (ii) integration of the 

policy areas of labour market policies, welfare arrangements and HRMpolicies. 

After the presentation, there was an interesting discussion about the 

question whether the fl exicurity concept can be blamed for the disappointing 

outcomes and whether there are alternative approaches that 

can bring employers as well as trade unions to the bargaining tables. 

From 20-22 June 2013, the European ILERA Conference will be held 

in Amsterdam. See the backcover or www.ilera-europe2013.eu. 

9

10 

Kea Tijdens & Maarten van Klaveren 

EVENTS 

Presented at the AELF in South Korea 

AIAS is a member of the Asian-European-Labour Forum (AELF). A few years ago 

the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES, Shanghai Offi ce) initiated the AELF to bring 

together labour research institutes, labour training institutes and think tanks 

closely linked to trade unions, as to exchange views on labour policy issues. 

The Forum is an annual event which is hosted 

by the participating institutions in a rotational 

arrangement. The 1 st AELF was organised by 

the Hans-Böckler-Stiftung (HBS) in Düsseldorf 

(Germany) in 2009, while the 2 nd Forum 

was hosted by the Institute of Workers and 

Trade Unions (IWTU) of the Vietnam General 

Congress of Labour (VGCL) in Ha Long, 

Vietnam, in 2010. The 3 rd AELF was hosted 

in 2011 in Oslo, by FAFO (Norway). AELF 

no. 4 again took place in Asia, from 7-9 May 

2012 in Seoul (South Korea). This meeting 

was co-hosted by the Research Centers of the 

two South Korean union confederations, the 

Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU) 

and the Korean Confederation of Trade 

Unions (KCTU). It was attended by 40 participants 

from over 20 institutes, from seven 

Asian countries (China, India, Indonesia, 

Pakistan, South Korea, Thailand, and Vetnam), 

fi ve European countries (France, Germany, 

Italy, Norway, and the Netherlands), 

and some international organisations. 

Actually, a number of participants is deliver- 

Robbert van het Kaar 

Presented for union 

offi cials 

On 10 Februari 2012 Robbert van het Kaar delivered a 

lecture for union offi cials of the largest Dutch trade union 

federation (FNV Bondgenoten) on corporate governance 

and industrial relations. 

Dutch legislation contains relatively strong union rights with 

regard to corporate governance issues, including the so-called 

right of inquiry (enquêterecht), but unions make hardly us of 

these rights. When they do, they appaear relatively successful. 

Recent noteworthy cases include Meavita and PCM. 

ing contributions to a reader that also is being 

shaped by introductions and debates in the 

AELF meetings. Its focus is on the interplay 

of minimum wages, collective bargaining and 

economic development in the participating 

countries. Of course, against this backdrop 

the current worldwide crisis was topical in 

the Seoul meeting, that was entitled “Income 

Inequality and Economic Crisis: Solution 

Strategies and Policy Issues”. Various 

speakers approached this theme from the 

angle of inequalities, drawing attention to in 

particular the worldwide growth of precarious 

work and youth unemployment. Frank 

Hoffer (ILO) focused on “Income Inequalities 

in the Age of Financial Globalisation”; 

Andrew Watt and Bela Galgoczi, of the 

Brussels-based European Trade Union Institute 

(ETUI), on “Fiscal Crisis and Income 

Inequalities in Europe”, while Prof. Alakh 

Sharma (Institute for Human Development, 

India) lectured on “Globalisation, Labour 

Market Flexibility and Inequality in India”. 

These and other contributions gave rise to 

lively debates. 

On the second day of the Seoul AELF, 

Maarten van Klaveren and Kea Tijdens 

(AIAS) presented their paper “Wage-setting 

and inequality in the Netherlands”. Based 

on various pieces of AIAS research, including 

the RSF low-wage research project on 

research based on the WageIndicator websurvey, 

they discussed the relations between 

wages and unemployment in the crisis, and 

wages and income inequality – both projected 

against changes in the structure of the Dutch 

economy, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) 

fl ows infl uencing this economy, and current 

economic policies as debated in the Netherlands. 

In the closing session, when debating 

future plans, representatives of the China Institute 

of Industrial Relations (CIIR) in Beijing 

promised to do their utmost to organise 

the 5th AELF in their home town. If so, it is 

most likely that the AIAS in 2014 will host the 

6th Forum meeting in Amsterdam. 

Expert meeting 

Brussels 

On 1 June 2012 Robbert van het Kaar took part in an 

expert meeting in Brussels on Industrial Relations in 

Europe, organized bij DG Employment of the European 

Commission. 

The main subject of the meeting was industrial relations in 

the public sector after the outbreak of the crisis. Van het Kaar 

delivered the comments on a second subject: the role of the 

social partners in occupational pension schemes. For more 

information, please contact R.H.vanhetKaar@uva.nl.

EVENTS 

Maarten Keune 

Transnational industrial 

relations as multi-level 

governance: presentation 

at IREC/ESA RN17 

Maarten Keune presented a paper, co-authored with Paul Marginson, at the 

joint conference of the Industrial Relations in Europe Conference (IREC) 

and the European Sociological Association’s Research Network on Work, 

Employment and Industrial Relations (RN 17) in Lisbon, 5-7 September 2012. 

The paper argues that processes of transnationalisation of industrial relations have been 

redrawing and increasing the complexity of the industrial relations map, adding new levels, 

actors and institutions, and creating new horizontal and vertical relationships and interdependencies. 

To capture these changes it proposes a multi-governance perspective, enriched 

by due attention to power relations. It then applies this perspective to analyse the evolution 

of European social dialogue (ESD), showing that the conventional reading of ESD moving 

from dependency to autonomy is a false one: negotiated regulation emanating from the 

ESD rests on two-directional relations, between the European and national levels involving 

autonomy and dependency at the same time. It also involves differing forms of horizontal 

interdependency between private actors and the public authorities. To show its wider applicability 

the paper also briefl y relate this approach also to International Framework Agreements 

and European Works Council agreements. The paper will be published in the near future in 

the 50th anniversary issue of the British Journal of Industrial Relations. 

Maarten Keune 

A presentation at SASE 

2012. 

The paper shows that in recent years, there is a marked increase 

in various types of atypical jobs , including fi xed-term contracts, 

temporary agency work, (dependent) self-employment, and (marginal) 

part-time contracts. Such jobs emerge in particular in certain 

sub-sectors and professions of the service sector. Although there 

is broad variation across countries, atypical jobs often have lower 

levels of job security, less access to social security, lower wages and 

worse working conditions, and less training opportunities. Such 

characteristics can turn atypical jobs into precarious jobs. The paper 

then discusses trade union strategies towards precarious jobs, 

drawing on a comparative research project covering seven EU 

countries. It outlines the various approaches taken by unions in the 

Nuria Ramos 

Lecture on 

‘EU Gender 

Equality Law’ 

Nuria Ramos gave the lecture at the 

summer course on Europe Labour Law at 

the Academy of European Law, ERA. 

The summer course was held from 25-29 June 

2012 at the ERA conference centre in Trier, 

Germany. This fi ve-day course provides a thorough 

introduction to European labour law: 

• Free movement of workers 

• Applicable law to employment contracts 

• Posting of workers 

• Transfer of undertakings 

• Information and consultation rights 

• Equality and non-discrimination 

• Part-time, fi xed-term and temporary 

agency work 

• Working time 

Participants we’re able to deepen their 

knowledge through case-studies and workshops. 

Maarten Keune presented a paper at the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) at MIT, 28-30 June 

seven countries, ranging from organising to exclusion, from collective 

bargaining to attempts to infl uence legislation, and from providing 

services to mobilisation. On the one hand it fi nds common 

trends including a move from excluding precarious workers towards 

inclusion and from rejecting atypical jobs towards improving their 

quality. On the other hand, it fi nds national diversity on the extent to 

which mobilisation, bargaining, attempts to infl uence legislation and 

other strategies are used, and shows how this is linked to national 

differences in legislation, government policy, industrial relations systems 

and labour market conditions. The paper is an outcome of 

the BARSORI project, the reports of which can be accessed at: 

www.uva-aias.net/355. 

11

12 

WP 122, Aug. 2012 

Skill-based 

inequality in 

job quality 

WORKING PAPERS 

Haya Stier Haya Stier and Meir Yaish 

This study focuses on skill-based 

inequality in job quality and the role 

of social institutions in structuring the 

relation of skills to job attributes. 

Four F measures of 

job jo quality are examined: 

in job security, job 

achievement, a 

job content 

te and fl exibility, and 

th their variation across 

wworkers 

with differ- 

eent 

level of skills and 

across countries. The 

study is based on the 

2005 ISSP module on work orientations and 

encompasses 27 countries. Obtained through 

multilevel modeling, the fi ndings show that 

low-skilled workers are disadvantaged in all 

aspects of job quality. However, skill inequality 

in the quality of employment depends on 

countries’ characteristics, with declining skillbased 

inequality in countries at higher levels 

of technological development and widening 

skill disparities in times of technological 

growth and when unemployment is high. 

Forthcoming 

Working 

Papers 

WP 117: An individual level perspective to the concept 

of fl exicurity Antonio Firinu 

WP 105: This time is different ?! The depth of the 

Financial Crisis and its effects in the Netherlands 

Wiemer Salverda 

WP 104: Integrate to integrate. Explaining institutional 

change in the public employment service – the 

one shop offi ce Marieke Beentjes, Jelle Visser 

and Marloes de Graaf-Zijl. 

All working papers can be downloaded for free at the website: www.uva-aias.net 

Go to the sections publications • working papers 


Occupational segregation 

and gender inequality in 

job quality 

We examine gender differences in perceived quality of employment 

(achievement, content, job insecurity, job fl exibility, and physical and emotional 

conditions). 

We W ask whether women’s occupations provide better conditions in areas 

that th facilitate their dual role in society, such as fl exible working schedule, 

aas 

a tradeoff for low monetary rewards. Specifi cally, we examine how 

cclosely 

women’s concentration in broader occupational categories, em- 

bbedded 

in particular national contexts, is associated with gender differ- 

eences 

in job quality. 

UUtilizing 

the 2005 ISSP modules on work orientation, we fi nd that wom- 

een 

lag behind men on most dimensions of job quality. This result runs 

counter to the hypothe hypothesis that women’s occupations compensate for their low wages and limited 

opportunities for promotion by providing better employment conditions. Just as important, 

however, the gender gap is found to narrow in most job quality dimensions as women’s relative 

share in occupations grows. The implications of these results are discussed. 


The impact of attitudes and 

work preferences on Dutch 

mothers’ employment patterns 

Justine Ruitenberg and Paul de Beer 

In the last decades, preference theory has gained signifi cance in the academic 

literature on the determinants of female employment patterns. 

Mostly, M within these studies gender and work attitudes and work preferences 

e (the number of hours a woman prefers to work) are treated as one 

concept. c However, in this article it is argued that relatively variable work 

preferences p act as a mediating factor between more stable gender and work 

attitudes a and actual labour market behaviour. With a path analysis of a representative 

re survey among 940 Dutch mothers, the study demonstrates that 

the th effect of gender and work attitudes on mothers’ labour market behaviour 

io is largely mediated by the variable work preference, which infl uence 

on actual labour partic participation appears much larger than the infl uence of objective background 

characteristics. Next, the analysis supports the claim that more or less stable gender and work 

attitudes have a balancing effect on otherwise more fl exible work preferences.

AIAS SERIES 

These papers can be downloaded for free at the website: www.uva-aias.net 

Go to the sections publications • NL Industrial Relations series 

Labour markets & industrial relations in 

the Netherlands 

This series aims to publish reports prepared by AIAS staff concerning the Dutch labour market and the industrial 

relations in the country. 

2011-1 - reprint 

Collective bargaining 

in the Dutch metal 

and electrical 

engineering industry 

Maarten van Klaveren and Kea Tijdens 

The current collective labour agreement covering the 

Dutch metal and electrical engineering industry dates 

as of 1985, when the earlier agreement was divided in 

an agreement for fi rms with 31 or more employees (the 

‘large metal industry’) and for smaller fi rms (the ‘small 

metal industry’). 

We W concentrate on the fi rst one, called in Dutch 

CCAO 

Metaal/Elektrotechnische industrie, currently 

ccovering 

about 150,000 employees. In the 1980s, 

th this agreement remained the wage leader in the 

DDutch 

industrial relations like its predecessor had 

bbeen 

before, but in the 1990s the collective agree- 

ment gradually los lost its leadership; the collective agreement for banking, 

soon to be split up in agreements for the various large banks, 

took over. Most recently, while wage increases remained slightly 

higher in the CAO Metaal/Elektrotechnische industrie, the small metal 

industry contained more innovative elements. Major explanations 

may be found in the heavy international competition to which large 

parts of ‘large metal’ were exposed, in the fact that small metal fi rms 

seem more inclined to negotiate integrative elements, in particular 

concerning training, with the trade unions, and a remarkably successful 

strike mobilisation of the union membership in small fi rms. 

2005-1 - reprint 

Quality standards 

of work in the 

Netherlands 

Kea Tijdens 

The project GendA – Network on Feminist Labour 

Research, based at the Institute of Political Science 

at the University of Marburg (www.gendanetz.de), 

is commissioning seven expert reports by scientists 

from various EU countries, to examine tendencies of 

increasingly atypical and precarious labour in Europe 

within a gender context. 

One O of these six expert reports is intended as a 

close c investigation of the undermining and re-formation 

m of quality standards of work, in connection 

with w women’s integration into the labour market in 

the th Netherlands. This expert report for the Netherlands 

e concentrates on the following points: 

• Political and academic discourse in the Netherlands on quality 

standards of work; which normality standards exist here, how are 

they changing, which quality standards are subject to particular 

criticism? 

• Overview of the development of increasingly atypical (and/or 

precarious) working conditions (particularly regarding type, extent 

and areas). Can a connection be observed between women’s 

integration into the labour market and the process of increasing 

atypicalness? What are the consequences of the de-standardisation 

tendency for gender relations? What opportunities and risks 

are emerging for women? 

• Analysis of quality defi cits – taking EU guidelines into account 

– and formulation of quality demands from a gender-democratic 

perspective; what infl uence does the EU have on national discourses 

and regulations related to the quality of work? 

• Open questions and gaps in existing research 

• Individuals and research groups working on this subject 

• Most important literature. 

13

14 

Discussion Papers GINI 

GINI PAPERS 

All GINI Discussion Papers can be downloaded for free 

www.gini-research.org 

The Associates and Core Team members of the GINI project will produce an impressive series of 

up to 120 Discussion Papers. These papers will analyse important aspects of inequality. Mostly 

this will be done in a cross-country perspective, but some issues of prime importance where 

comparable data are missing may be studied in depth at the national level. The results will serve as input into the 

overarching Analysis Reports in four areas (analysis of inequality drivers, social impacts, political and cultural impacts, 

and policy effects) on the one hand and where applicable into the Country Reports that will be produced in the 

next stage of the project. Recently, the fi rst four Discussion Papers have been published on the GINI website and are 

available for downloading. 

DP53, July 2012 

The Redistributive Capacity of Services in 

the EU 

Gerlinde Verbist and Manos Matsaganis 

Welfare W states provide social benefi ts 

in 

cash and in kind. Cash benefi ts are 

in income transfers, such as retirement 

ppensions, 

family and unemployment 

bbenefi 

ts and social assistance. 

Benefi B ts in kind are commodities directly transferred 

fe to recipients at zero or below-market 

prices (Barr 2012). 

In Europe, benefi ts in kind are usually services, such as health, education, 

child care and care for the elderly. For example, hospital care 

in most countries is provided either free of charge or at near-zero 

prices (at the point of use). User fees are even rarer in the case of 


In-Work Poverty 

primary and secondary education: enrolment is compulsory up to a 

certain age, while tuition is provided free of charge to all children 

attending publicly funded schools, irrespective of family income. 

Moreover, child care is often heavily subsidised; kindergartens are 

run by the state (most commonly local governments) or government-supervised 

private organisations, while user fees, where applicable, 

are usually income-related (in the sense that higher-income 

families pay higher fees, while lower-income ones pay less or are 

fully exempted). Elderly care may also be available on similar terms; 

besides, several countries have developed long-term care insurance 

schemes, to cater for the future needs of an ageing population. 

Ive Marx and Brian Nolan 

While W in-work poverty is not a new problem, the degree of attention it is receiving in Europe is more 

recent, re refl ecting at least two concurrent sources of concern (Andreβ and Lohmann 2008; OECD 2008; 

EEuropean 

Foundation 2010; Fraser et al. 2011; Crettaz 2011; European Commission 2011). 

Deindustrialisation, D 

intensifying international trade and skill-biased technological change are said to be threatening if 

not n effectively eroding the (potential) earnings and living standards of some workers in advanced economies. Yet at the 

same s time, policy at EU level and in many countries has become focused on increasing the number of people relying on 

earnings, e and particularly on drawing into the labour market those with the weakest education and work history profi les. 

The Europe 2020 targ target of boosting employment rates to 75 per cent of the population aged 20 to 64 shows this drive to be undiminished. 

Sharply increased unemployment in some countries following on from the onset of the economic crisis has only served to increase the emphasis 

on getting people into jobs. In light of these trends, there would appear to be legitimate concern that larger sections of the workforce 

are being expected to rely on jobs that do not generate suffi cient income to escape poverty.

GINI PAPERS 


Child Poverty as a Government Priority 

Natascha Van Mechelen and Jonathan Bradshaw 

In this paper Tackling child poverty is high on the Euro- 

‘Child ‘C Poverty as pean Union’s political agenda. It was a prior- 

a Government ity in the March 2006 European Council, a 

Priority: P Child focus of many of the National Reports on 

Benefi B t Packages Social Protection and Social Inclusion 2006for 

fo Working 

2008, and the main work of the EU experts 

Families, F 1992- on the National Action Plans in 2007. An 

2009” 2 the focus infl uential report by the Social Protection 

is on the tth the h ch chil child hil 

ild benefi be ben b t package for Committee (2008) refl ected much of this 

working families and its contribution effort and contained detailed comparative 

to tackling in-work child poverty. analysis of child poverty using the new 

European Statistics on Income and Living 

Conditions (EU-SILC) 2005. The report 


drew attention to the fact that in the majority 

of the EU member states, children are at 

a higher risk of poverty than the population 

as a whole. More recent analyses of the EU- 

SILC (Tarki, 2010; Atkinson and Marlier, 

2010; Tarki, 2011) confi rmed this fi nding. 

As a part of its 10-year economic plan, the 

June 2010 European Council set the target 

to reduce poverty and social exclusion in the 

EU by 20 million (European Council, 2010). 

If this objective is to be achieved, parents 

and their children will need to be a key focus 

of anti-poverty policies. 

The Fiscalization of Child Benefi ts in 

OECD Countries 

Tommy Ferrarini, Kenneth Nelson and Helena Höög 

Welfare W states time (Kamerman and Kahn, 1981; MacNi- 

have h been subject col, 1992; Wennemo, 1994; Gauthier, 1996). 

to a subtle and In the immediate Post-War period many 

a sometimes countries either complemented or replaced 

unrecognized 

u 

various types of income-tested child ben- 

transformation: 

tr 

efi ts with universal ones, introducing a shift 

the th fi scalization of in the distributive profi le of the system. 

social s benefi ts. However, far from all welfare states relied 

only on the principle of universalism in the 

This change of national policy is notable design of child benefi ts. Child tax benefi ts 

in the area of family policy, where vari- and fi scal policy has often been used as an 

ous forms of child tax benefi ts have been alternative or complement to social policy 

introduced. The composition and level legislation. During the era of welfare state 

of child benefi ts varies therefore not only stagnation and decline since the mid-1970s 

across countries, but also over historical some countries have relocated parts of the 

child benefi t package from social policy to 

the income tax system. During this process 

of fi scalization, elements of income-testing 

have once again been introduced to child 

benefi ts, thus, adding stronger elements 

of vertical redistribution between socioeconomic 

groups. The change of scenery 

involves not only a shift in the relative emphasis 

of social and fi scal policies in the redistributive 

budgets of the European countries, 

but also a greater degree of selectivity 

and low-income targeting is introduced to 

the provision of child benefi ts. 

15

16 

DP48, July 2012 DP46, May 2012 

Public 

Opinion 

on Income 

Inequality 

in 20 

Democracies 

Robert Andersen and Meir Yaish 

Utilizing U 

International 

In 

Social S Survey 

Program P (ISSP) 

data, d we explore 

the th relationship 

between b economic 

inequality—both in 

at 

the in indi individual-level di divi vidu idu 

al l-lev 

level 

and the nationallevel—and 

attitudes toward income 

inequality in 20 capitalist societies. 

Our fi ndings suggest that experience of 

economic inequality has an enduring effect 

on attitudes. Specifi cally, respondents’ own 

social class and their father’s social class are 

both signifi cantly related to attitudes, with 

working class individuals tending to be 

more egalitarian in their views than others. 

Still, our fi ndings also suggest that attitudes 

are unrelated to experience of social mobility 

per se. Tests for random effects of class 

origin and destination further demonstrate 

that class has a similar effect across societies. 

In terms of contextual infl uences, we 

demonstrate that as income inequality rises, 

people of all classes tend to have less egalitarian 

views. In contrast to suggestions of 

previous research, however, we fi nd no evidence 

that economic development or equality 

of opportunity infl uence public opinion 

on what is considered fair income differences. 

GINI PAPERS 

Analysing Intergenerational 

Infl uences on Income 

Poverty and Economic 

Vulnerability with EU-SILC 

Brian Nolan 

The T EU-SILC 2005 wave includes a special module on intergenerational 

g transmission of poverty. 

In addition to the standard data relating to income and material deprivation, 

ri information relating to parental background and childhood 

circumstances c 

was collected for all household members aged over 24 

and a less than 66 at the end of the income reference period. In principle, 

c the module provides an unprecedented opportunity to apply a 

welfare w regime perspective to a comparative European analysis of the 

relationship relationship between ppoverty 

and social exclusion and parental characteristics and childhood 

economic circumstances. In this paper we seek to exploit such potential. In pursuing this 

objective, it is necessary to take into account some of the limitations of the data. We do by 

restricting our attention to a set of countries where data issues seem less extreme. Finally, 

we compare fi ndings from one dimensional and multidimensional approaches to poverty 

and social exclusion in order to provide an assessment of the extent to which our analysis of 

welfare regime variation provides a coherent account of the intergenerational transmission 

of disadvantage. 

DP44, May 2012 

Immigration and Inequality 

in Europe 

Tommaso Frattini 

This T paper aims at assessing the effect of immigration on 

native n income inequality in Western Europe. 

I use different regional indicators of income inequality, which allow 

distinguishing d 

between dispersion at the top and at the bottom of the 

income in distribution, and correlate them to regional annual infl ows of 

im immigrants over the period 2004-2008. Results indicate that immigra- 

ti tion is associated with a decrease of income inequality at the bottom of 

the distribution distribution. How However, IV estimates do not show any causal effect of immigration on 

income dispersion.

GINI PAPERS 


Home-Ownership, Housing 

Regimes and Income 

Inequalities in Western 

Europe 

Michelle Norris and Nessa Winston 

This T article compares the structural features of homeownership 

o systems in EU15 countries (home-ownership rates, 

mortgages m and public subsidisation of this tenure) with data 

on o inequalities in outcomes (variations in home-ownership 

access, a risks and standards between income groups). 

Its It purpose is to assess the relevance of the debate on the convergence 

and a divergence of housing systems which has dominated the compara- 

tive housing literature literature. The article concludes that, depending on the level of analysis adopted 

and the particular variables selected for examination, elements of both convergence and 

divergence are evident in Western European home-ownership systems. The comparative 

housing literature has also largely failed to capture the key inter-country cleavages in homeownership 

systems that are between the Northern and Southern EU15 countries. These 

shortcomings are related to methodological and conceptual problems in this literature. 


Multidimensional Poverty 

Measurement in Europe 

Christopher, T. Whelan, Brian Nolan and Bertrand Maître 

As A awareness of the limitations of relying solely on income 

to t measure poverty and social exclusion has become more 

widespread, w attention has been increasingly focused on multidimensional 

d approaches. 

To T date efforts to measure multidimensional poverty and social exclusion 

in rich countries have been predominantly ad hoc and have relied on data 

that th are far from ideal. Here we apply the approach recently developed by 

Alkire A and Foster, characterized by a range of desirable axiomatic properties 

but mostly discussed so far in a development context, to European countries, exploiting 

the potential of harmonized microdata on deprivation newly available for the European Union. 

The analysis seeks to overcome the limitations of the union and intersection approaches 

that have characterized many earlier studies. Multidimensional poverty is characterized and 

decomposed in terms of the contribution of different deprivation dimensions, and an account 

of cross-national and socio-economic variation in risk levels is presented that is in line with 

theoretical expectations. Multilevel analysis of multi-dimensional poverty provides the basis 

for assessment of the role of macro and micro characteristics and their interaction in relation 

to levels and patterns of multidimensional poverty and social exclusion. 

DP39 March 2012 

Socioeconomic 

Gradient in 

Health 

Maite Blázquez, Elena Cottini and 

Ainhoa Herrarte 

In this paper we 

use u the Spanish 

Living L Conditions 

Survey S (2005- 

2008) 2 to investigate 

whether w there is 

a socioeconomic 

gradient g in health 

when whhen alt alternative lternati tivve 

mmeasures 

of 

socioeconomic status, apart from 

income, are considered. 

In particular we construct a material deprivation 

index that refl ects some minimum 

standards of quality of life, and we analyze 

its impact on self-reported health. To 

address this issue, we use a deprivation index 

that incorporates comparison effects 

with societal peers and we estimate health 

equations using a random effects model. 

Furthermore, the model is extended to include 

a Mundlak term that corrects for the 

potential correlation between the error term 

and the regressors. Our results reveal that 

the relationship between health and income 

operates through comparison information 

with respect to societal peers. In contrast, 

material deprivation in terms of fi nancial 

diffi culties, basic necessities and housing 

conditions exerts a direct effect on individual 

health. 

17

18 


GINI PAPERS 

Inequality and Happiness: A Survey 

Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell and Xavier Ramos 

In recent years there has been an accumulation of empirical evidence suggesting that individuals dislike 

inequality (Alesina and Giuliano, 2011 and Dawes et al., 2007). 

The literature has built upon estimating the degree of this dislike as well as its causes. The use of self-reported measures 

of satisfaction or well-being as a proxy for utility has been one of the empirical strategies used to this end. In this survey 

we review the papers that estimate or examine the relationship between inequality and self-reported happiness, and 

fi nd that inequality reduces happiness in Western societies. The evidence for non-Western societies is more mixed and 

less reliable. Notwithstanding that, trust in the institutions seems to play an important role in shaping the relationship 

between income inequality and subjective wellbeing. We conclude with suggestions for further research. 

DP37, March 2012 

Understanding Material 

Deprivation in Europe 

Christopher T. Whelan and Bertrand Maître 

In this paper, taking advantage of the inclusion of a special 

module on material deprivation in EU-SILC 2009, we 

provide a comparative analysis of patterns of deprivation. 

Our analysis identifi es six relatively distinct dimensions of deprivation 

with generally satisfactory overall levels of reliability and mean levels 

of reliability across counties. Multi-level analysis based on 28 European 

countries reveals systematic variation across countries in the relative 

importance of with and between country variation. The basic deprivation dimension is the 

sole dimension to display a graduated pattern of variation a across countries. It also reveals 

the highest correlations with national and household income, the remaining deprivation 

dimensions and economic stress. It comes closest to capturing an underlying dimension of 

generalized deprivation that can provide the basis for a comparative European analysis of 

exclusion from customary standards of living. A multilevel analysis revealed that a range of 

household and household reference person socio-economic factors were related to basic 

deprivation and controlling for contextual differences in such factors allowed us to account 

for substantial proportions of both within and between country variance. The addition 

of macro-economic factors relating to average levels of disposable income and income inequality 

contributed relatively little further in the way of explanatory power. Further analysis 

revealed the existence of a set of signifi cant interactions between micro socio-economic 

attributes and country level gross national disposable income per capita. The impact of 

socio-economic differentiation was signifi cantly greater where average income levels were 

lower. Or, in other words, the impact of the latter was greater for more disadvantaged socioeconomic 

groups. Our analysis supports the suggestion that an emphasis on the primary 

role of income inequality to the neglect of differences in absolute levels of income may be 

misleading in important respects.

GINI PAPERS 


Material Deprivation, Economic Stress and 

Reference Groups in Europe 

Christopher T. Whelan and Bertrand Maître 

In this paper we 

take advantage of 

the recent 

availability of data 

from the special 

module on material 

deprivation in the 

2009 European 

Union Statistics on Income and 

Living Conditions (EU-SILC) to 

develop a more comprehensive 

understanding of the relationship 

between material deprivation and 

economic stress. 


In particular, we focus on the moderating 

role played by cross-national differences in 

levels of income and income inequality such 

that the consequences of material deprivation 

for subjective economic stress are conditional 

on the value of macro-economic 

attributes. In an analysis focused on households 

clustered within countries, these questions 

can be most appropriately addressed 

by a multilevel analysis that allows us to explore 

the manner in which material deprivation 

measured at the household level interacts 

with national attributes in infl uencing 

household levels of economic stress. Evi- 

dence for such moderation is provided by 

a signifi cant statistical interaction between 

deprivation and country attributes. In this 

paper we undertake such an analysis and 

consider the implications of our fi ndings 

for competing perspectives on the nature of 

reference groups in Europe. 

Income Inequality and Solidarity in Europe 

Marii Paskov and Caroline Dewilde 

This paper studies 

the relationship 

between income 

inequality, a 

macro-level 

characteristic, and 

solidarity of 

Europeans. 

To this aim, solidarity is defi ned as the 

‘willingness to contribute to the welfare of 

other people’. We rely on a theoretical idea 

according to which feelings of solidarity are 

derived from both affective and calculating 

considerations, and we test competing hypotheses 

relating the extent of income inequality 

to both motivations for solidarity. 

Using data from the 1999 European Values 

Study (EVS), we apply multilevel analysis 

for 26 European countries. Controlling for 

household income and for other relevant 

macro-level characteristics which possibly 

infl uence feelings of solidarity of Europe- 

ans in different countries, we fi nd evidence 

that in more unequal countries people are 

less willing to take action to improve the living 

conditions of their fellow-countrymen. 

This is true for respondents living in both 

low- and high-income households. Following 

from our expectations derived from the 

literature, this fi nding furthermore suggests 

that, at least when measured in terms of 

‘willingness to contribute to the welfare of 

other people’, feelings of solidarity seem to 

be infl uenced more strongly by affective, 

rather than by calculating considerations. 

19

20 


Income Inequality and 

Access to Housing in Europe 

Caroline Dewilde and Bram Lancee 

This paper analyses the relation between income inequality 

and access to housing for low- income households. 

Three arguments are developed, explaining how inequality might affect 

housing affordability, quality and quantity. First, it is the absolute 

level of resources, not their relative distribution, which affects access to 

housing. Second, inequality affects access to housing in different ways, 

due to rising aspirations and status competition. Third, the effect of 

inequality is mediated by housing market pressures. Multilevel-models for 28 countries indicate 

that: 1) there is no relation between inequality and housing affordability – the level of 

resources matters, rather than their distribution; 2) there exists a positive relation between 

inequality and crowding for owners; 3) higher levels of income inequality are associated 

with lower housing quality for owners and renters. Although there is a relation between 

inequality and access to housing, it is complex and not mediated by our indicator of house 

price-changes. 

DP28, January 2012 

The impact of indirect 

taxes and imputed rent on 

inequality 

Francesco Figari and Alari Paulus 

This paper examines the redistributive impact of imputed 

rent (private and public) and indirect taxes (value added tax 

and excises), comparing this with the effects of cash 

transfers and direct taxes in fi ve EU countries. 

The extended income concept, taking into account both imputed rent 

and indirect taxes, provides a more reliable picture of inequality differences 

across countries. 

Our results show that indirect taxes have a regressive effect with respect to income in all 

countries considered but always smaller in magnitude than other tax-benefi t instruments. 

Imputed rent reduces overall inequality in particular where the prevalence of individuals 

living in own accommodation is high even among the poorest (Greece) and where the contribution 

of the public imputed rent is large (the UK). 

GINI PAPERS 

DP25, December 2011 

Is the 

‘Neighbour’s’ 

Lawn 

Greener? 

Lina Salanauskaite and Gerlinde 

Verbist 

To what extent can 

a country’s 

effectiveness in 

reducing child 

poverty be 

attributed to the 

size of family cash 

transfers (i.e. both 

benefi ts and tax instruments) or to 

their design? 

In this paper, we aim at disentangling the 

importance of each of these two factors, focusing 

on the family support system in Lithuania 

and comparing it with four other new 

member states. Despite increased susceptibility 

to poverty in Lithuania, single parent 

families have less state support than large 

families. This contrasts with other former 

communist countries, such as Estonia, Hungary, 

Slovenia or the Czech Republic, who 

protect both large and single parent families 

much better. The question is whether 

their family transfer systems would achieve 

similar results in Lithuania. We employ the 

EUROMOD microsimulation tax-benefi t 

model to swap family policies across countries 

and test whether size or design have 

greater effects on child poverty reduction in 

Lithuania.

GINI PAPERS 

DP27, February 2012 

Recent Trends in Minimum 

Income Protection for 

Europe’s Elderly 

Tim Goedemé 

In Europe, the elderly stand out for their heavy reliance on 

welfare state arrangements for securing their living standard. 

In spite of relatively high elderly at-risk-of-poverty rates in many EU 

member states, the past two decades have witnessed a tendency to restrengthen 

the link between past contributions and pension benefi ts, 

and to rely more strongly on private pensions. At the same time, public 

pension replacement rates are projected to decrease in a large number 

of European countries. In this context, minimum income protection for Europe’s elderly is 

likely to become even more important for alleviating elderly poverty than is the case today. 

Yet, minimum income protection schemes targeted at the elderly have remained largely undocumented 

in the international literature. Therefore, this chapter reviews existing minimum 

income policies for the elderly in Europe and develops a typology based on entitlement and 

eligibility criteria. Building on data from a project involving national experts from 25 EU 

member states, it is shown that in the 2000s welfare erosion of elderly persons’ non-contributory 

minimum income guarantees has been limited. Moreover, a substantial number of 

countries has pursued a deliberate policy of increases in minimum income benefi ts for the 

elderly. Nonetheless, only in a few countries benefi ts are adequate for lifting elderly persons 

above the poverty line. At the same time, differences between EU member states in terms 

of mode of access and benefi t levels remain large. 


On gender gaps and selffulfi 

lling expectations 

Juan J. Dolado, Cecilia García-Peñalosa and Sara de la Rica 

DP26, December 2011 

Endogenous 

Skill Biased 

Technical 

Change 

Francesco Bogliacino and Matteo 

Lucchese 

In this article we use 

the unifi cation of 

Germany in 1990 to 

test the hypothesis 

that an increase in 

the supply of a 

production factor 

generates skill 

biased technical change. 

We test for this mechanism in the context 

of the model presented by Acemoglu and 

Autor (2011) that allows endogenous assignment 

of skills to tasks in the economy. 

We use cohorts of workers from comparable 

countries as a control group. After discussing 

the possible confounding factors, 

we conclude that this effect is absent. The 

differential pattern among the countries 

seems to be determined by labor market 

fl exibilization and tax reform. 

This paper presents a model of self-fulfi lling expectations by fi rms and households which generates 

multiplicity of equilibria in pay and housework time allocation for ex-ante identical spouses. 

Multiplicity arises from statistical discrimination exerted by fi rms in the provision of paid-for training to workers, rather 

than from incentive problems in the labor market. Employers´ beliefs about differences in spouses´ reactions to housework 

shocks lead to symmetric (ungendered) and asymmetric (gendered) equilibria. We fi nd that: (i) the ungendered 

equilibrium tends to prevail as aggregate productivity in the economy increases (regardless of the generosity of family 

aid policies), (ii) the ungendered equilibrium could yield higher welfare under some scenarios, and (iii) gender-neutral 

job subsidies are more effective that gender-targeted ones in removing the gendered equilibrium. 

21

22 

NEWSLETTERS 

All (complete) newsletter can be downloaded for free 

www.uva-aias.net/96 

Collective Bargaining Newsletter 

February - August 2012 

Jan Cremers and Janna Besamusca 

The monthly Collective Bargaining Newsletter is produced by 

AIAS researchers Jan Cremers (editor) and Janna Besamusca 

in cooperation with the ETUI. As from July 2012 on the 

Newsletter includes under the heading Focus additional 

links to records that provide background information. The 

newsletter can be found on the AIAS and ETUI websites. 

February 2012 

DENMARK 

New two-year agreement for manufacturing 

After a marathon bargaining round over the 

weekend of 11 and 12 February, the trade 

unions, led by the eight making up Co-Industri 

and including 3F, Dansk Metal and HK/ 

Privat, concluded an agreement for 240,000 

manufacturing workers and 6,000 enterprises, 

the latter represented by Dansk Industri. 

The recommended minimum wage increase 

is €18 per hour effective 1 March, and the 

same amount again on 1 March 2013. A pay 

supplement of 1.4% each year is available for 

performing diffi cult work, and apprentices, 

trainees and interns will get a 2.25% pay hike 

in each year. Exact wage increases will now 

be negotiated at local levels and inside company 

agreements. Improvements were also 

achieved concerning training (accumulation 

of training rights, new possibility for training 

during short-time), precarious workers 

(new measure against social dumping), senior 

workers, and dismissed workers (severance 

pay). (February 22, 2012) 

FINLAND/HUNGARY 

Unions fi ght cuts at Nokia Siemens 

The Finnish-German telecom equipment 

maker, Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN), said 

on 7 February a previously announced global 

restructuring plan would entail 2,900 job cuts 

in Germany and 1,200 in Finland. The German 

IG Metall union and NSN works council 

have organised constant protests against 

the announced cuts. On 1 February, protests 

started in Munich with about 2,000 participants 

attracting signifi cant media attention. 

The Finnish unions will start a round of negotiations 

inside the company between the 

management and shop stewards from the 

trade unions inside NSN which include Finnish 

Metalworkers’ Union, Trade Union Pro, 

Union of Professional Engineers in Finland 

(UIL) and Tekniikan Akateemisten Liitto 

(TEK), signatories of the collective agreement 

with the company. Secondly, they will 

start tripartite negotiations between the management, 

involved unions and the Ministry 

of Employment and Economy on alternative 

jobs. (February 9, 2012) 

Besides job cuts at Nokia Siemens in Finland 

and Germany (see message under heading 

Finland), Nokia has announced to lay 

off 2,300 workers at its plant in Komarom 

in north-western Hungary. According to 

the cell phone giant, assembly would be replaced 

to Asia from Komarom, which currently 

employs around 4,400. The 2,300 jobs 

will be axed in two or three steps by the end 

of 2012, Nokia told its workers, adding that 

most of the losses would be blue-collar, 

manufacturing positions. The move hurts the 

labour market in Hungary as well as in Slovakia, 

from where about a third of Komarom 

workers have commuted. (February 27, 2012) 

March 2012 

GERMANY 

Latest news: Breakthrough after all-night negotiations 

in the public sector 

German interior Minister Hans-Peter Frie- 

drich, who led the talks with the public service 

union Verdi, announced in Potsdam 

shortly before 7 a.m. on Saturday 31 March 

that the negotiators had reached an agreement. 

Verdi, representing 2 million publicsector 

workers, had been seeking a 6.5% rise 

for one year after years of accepting modest 

pay deals and had rejected an earlier offer 

of 3.3%. If the deal is approved by the 

union membership (members have a fi nal say 

in a consultation between 11 and 25 April) 

public-sector workers will receive a 3.5% pay 

increase retroactive to March 1. They will 

receive a further 1.4% in January 2013 and 

another 1.4% pay rise in August 2013. The 

position of apprentices has been strengthened; 

after their qualifi cation and a successful 

fi rst year of service they will receive a permanent 

contract. Apprentices pay increases on 1 

March 2012 with €50 and on 1 August 2013 

with €40. The collective bargaining committee 

of the union approved the deal later on 

that Saturday. (March 31, 2012) 

LITHUANIA 

Government to re-classify Carlsberg breweries as an 

‘essential’ service 

In an attempt to keep its workers from striking, 

Carlsberg has convinced the Lithuanian 

government to re-classify its activity as ‘essential 

services’. Workers in essential services, 

previously limited to activities like emergency 

services and water, are banned from striking 

by law. (March 8, 2012) 

April 2012 

FRANCE 

Caterpillar agreement converts precarious labour in 

permanent jobs 

The annual negotiations at Caterpillar that 

started in December 2011 were fi nalised on 

with an agreement mid-April. Next to a pay 

rise of 2% for all (except for the management), 

the agreement consists of an extra 

payment based on merit (for approximately 

80% of the workforce), increase of the minimum 

wage (with 3.4%) to €1,515 and an extension 

of the pay structure. Furthermore 80 

precarious labour contracts will convert in

NEWSLETTERS 

2012 into permanent contracts. The agreement 

applies for the Grenoble and Echirolles 

plants with in total 2,400 workers and is valid 

for one year. (April 19, 2012) 

THE NETHERLANDS 

Cleaners end strike after 105 days 

The cleaners’ strike, lasting a total of 105 days, 

was ended after trade union members voted 

in favour of a new collective agreement. During 

the longest strike the country has seen 

since 1933, cleaners organised Marches of 

Respect, protests and media campaigns. The 

new collective agreement includes a 4.85% 

wage increase over two years, more training 

and job security, frequent workload tests and 

a pilot programme for a better sick leave arrangement. 

The lack of sick pay during the 

fi rst two days of illness was one of the core 

issues in the cleaners campaign Schoon Genoeg. 

(April 17, 2012) 

May 2012 

AUSTRIA 

Austrian Airlines dispute might go to court 

The dispute at Austrian Airlines created by 

the management decisions to opt out from 

the existing collective agreement and to 

transfer the workforce to the cheaper agreement 

of subsidiary Tyrolean enters a new 

stage. The planned reform will come into 

effect on 1 July unless executive board and 

works council fi nd an alternative solution in 

the coming weeks. Protest of the workforce 

has led to cancellation of fl ights. The trade 

union vida is considering juridical steps to 

declare the transfer null and void. Other demands 

are the respect for the existing agreements 

and the right for individual employees 

to oppose the planned company transfer. 

(May 18, 2012) 

GERMANY 

Agreement for the metal sector concluded 

After a period of warning strikes the partners 

in bargaining in the metal sector have 

concluded an agreement that includes a 4.3% 

wage raise for the sector’s 3.6 million workers. 

The deal between IG Metall union and 

employers in southern Baden-Wuerttemberg 

state — home to carmakers Daimler and 

Porsche — includes the wage raise, secures 

the position of apprentices and somewhat 

limits the use of temporary workers. The 

metal industry association president Martin 

Kannengiesser said the deal with a 13-month 

duration, initially reached for the state’s 

800,000 metal workers, will be applied to all 

of Germany. (May 21, 2012) 

NORWAY 

State sector negotiations become a battle 

The negotiations in the state sector have 

turned into a battle on wage compensation 

after mediation failed. It is the fi rst time in 

28 years that civil servants at state level go 

on strike. A demonstration is announced for 

30 May in Oslo, with other meetings planned 

all over the country. Government and union 

negotiators are arguing over the size of raises 

won by workers within industries that negotiate 

their wage agreement fi rst, when annual 

talks get underway in the late winter and 

early spring. The union demands are in line 

with the wage development in several other 

branches. Negotiations were held on the hiring 

in of workers, on inconvenient working 

hours and work in evenings and on weekends. 

(May 24, 2012) 

June 2012 

FRANCE 

Minimum wage increased 

For the fi rst time in 6 years the French minimum 

wage (SMIC) will increase. The socialist 

government has announced a (limited) 

rise to 0.6% above the infl ation rate. The rise 

amounts 2% to €9.40 an hour from 1 July 

2012, of which 1.4% is accounted for by infl 

ation. It is the fi rst time the minimum wage, 

which affects one in six workers, will be 

raised above infl ation since a 0.3% boost in 

2006, before former president Sarkozy froze 

it in real terms. (June 27, 2012) 

SPAIN 

Coal miners’ strike escalates 

Coal miners in the northern of Spain went 

on strike, staging protests in northern cities 

and Madrid. The actions started in response 

to a government announcement that state aid 

to the sector will be reduced by 64%. Trade 

unions CCOO and UGT have announced 

their support for the miners’ strike that enjoyed 

100% participation. Smaller actions 

involving blockades of mayor roads in the 

north were not authorised by the unions. The 

unions argue that the large scale retraction of 

public subsidies will kill the mining sector, 

which has already lost over 40,000 jobs in the 

last 20 years. Getting increasingly desperate, 

the miners have started to march on Madrid, 

vowing to walk the near 400 kilometre distance 

and hoping to be joined by more and 

more protesters along the way. Despite controversial 

actions and some clashes with the 

police, left wing parties, local and regional 

governments and trade union confederations 

across Europe have come out in support of 

the miners. (June 26, 2012) 

TURKEY 

Prominent union leaders arrested and offi ces raided 

On 25 June police raided the offi ces of education 

union Eğitim Sen and the Confederation 

of Public Employees (KESK). The 

police also searched the houses of prominent 

union leaders, confi scating documents 

regarding their union work. Union leaders 

were detained in over 20 cities, including 

KESK President Lami Ozgen; the General 

Secretary of the Health and Social Services 

Union (SES), Mehmet Siddik Akin; the General 

Secretary of the All Municipality and 

Local Administrations workers’ union (Tüm 

Bel Sen), İzzet Alpergin; and the President 

of the Agriculture, Forest, Livestock Service 

Workers’ Union (Tarım Orkam Sen), Metin 

Vuranok. Trade unions across Europe have 

condemned the attack on the unionists. (June 

25, 2012) 

July 2012 

BELGIUM 

Average wage €3,100 in 2010 

Detailed fi gures over the period 1999-2010 

published by the Economy Ministry (in 

French and Dutch) show that the average 

Belgian employee earned €3,100 before tax a 

23

24 

month in 2010. The statistics include gender, 

education, sector and skills related data. On 

average wages rose in 2010 by 2.51% (2.8% 

for women, 2.48% for men). The earnings of 

highly educated workers rose more quickly 

than those of the low-skilled. The highest 

wages are paid in the fi nancial sector and by 

utilities like water, gas and electricity whilst 

the lowest wages occur in the hospitality industry, 

in pubs, restaurants, hotels and cafes. 

(July 12, 2012) 

August 2012 

IRELAND 

HSE in confl ict with hospital consultants, home helps 

and staff 

Unions have reacted outraged at proposals 

by the Health Service Executive (HSE) 

to increase working time by two hours per 

week and pay over hours at fl at pay rates in 

order to address the health service’s defi cit. 

Trade union SIPTU stated that the proposals 

violate the Croke Park agreement and that 

it will begin to ballot its members for industrial 

action. Earlier this month, the Croke 

Park implementation body denied a request 

from the hospital consultants’ association 

for an extended time frame for negotiations 

with the HSE. The HSE said earlier that if 

the issues failed to be resolved between the 

two parties shortly, it will refer the confl ict 

to the Labour Court. The HSE wishes to address 

a lower entry pay and the elimination 

of the so-called historic leave, under which 

several hundred consultants are entitled to a 

fi nal year off as a compensation for past over 

time. Also home helps are in confl ict with the 

HSE, whom they accuse of not implementing 

a 2009 agreement. Focus on the Croke 

Park agreement: www.impact.ie/Croke- 

Park-Agreement.htm (August 14, 2012) 

SWITZERLAND 

Creative campaigning leads to social plan 

Merck Serono employees in Geneva accepted 

a Memorandum of Understanding that 

was reached in bargaining between worker 

representatives, trade union UNIA, and management 

of the pharmaceuticals giant, under 

NEWSLETTERS 

the mediation of Geneva authorities. Workers 

had renewed strike action in early August 

as the company refused to improve the social 

plan, in one of the largest industrial action 

campaigns in recent history (also in the June 

Newsletter). The decision to close the sites 

in Geneva and Coisins was not reversed, but 

gains were won enabling early retirement of 

older employees, on good terms. Minimum 

redundancy payments were increased. A 

special fund was created for compensation 

for temporary workers and subcontractors. 

Workers are released from work for one 

month to look for another job. Also achieved 

was the commitment from Merck Serono to 

support the creation of a biotechnology institute, 

under certain conditions. (August 13, 

2012) 

UNITED KINGDOM 

Blacklisting causes national scandal 

Growing political concern has been voiced 

over blacklisting, a practice of mainly construction 

companies to place workers who 

have been active for unions on a blacklist 

of workers never to hire. A list of union 

activists was circulated by the Consulting 

Association (that also fi led MP’s and academics 

like Charles Woolfson) to fi rms who 

subscribed to it. The list, fi rst revealed after 

a raid in 2009, contained 3000 names of 

‘troublesome workers’. In recent week, the 

Trade Union Congress passed a motion defi 

ning blacklisting as corporate bullying and 

demanding political action. A number of 

blacklisted workers, aided by the GMB, have 

launched a £600 million law suit for tort of 

illegal conspiracy against one of the biggest 

fi rms using the covert black list database, Sir 

Robert McAlpine. Opposition raised again 

as it became clear that the director of one 

of the fi rms using blacklisting was awarded 

a seat on the board of the Health and Safety 

Executive. Focus on the practice of blacklisting: 

www.hazards.org/blacklistblog/ 

(August 28, 2012).

NEWSLETTERS 

WageIndicator Gazette 

Keep yourself posted and read the WageIndicator Newsletter! 

www.wageindicator.org/main/WageIndicatorgazette/2012 

March 2012 

Women journalists sick and tired of gender pay gap 

Female journalists are paid less, receive fewer 

benefi ts and are more often without a fi xed 

contract than their male colleagues. They 

know it and it makes them less satisfi ed 

with their wage, working environment and 

– indeed – their colleagues, then men. Yet it 

seems hard to remedy these situations of factual 

discrimination in terms of working conditions. 

This fi nding is in line with the persistent 

pay gap typical for all gender relations 

of the working population, whatever their 

occupation, branch of industry, or region of 

the world they work in. It is however telling 

that this structural deprivation persists even 

amongst that part of the workforce that is 

supposedly well informed and assertive when 

it comes to getting things done. 

Male wages exceed female wages in all 16 

studied countries, from the EU, the former 

Soviet Union and in Central and Latin America. 

The only asset women broadly share 

seems to be that they, less then their male colleagues, 

work in shifts or at irregular hours, 

on Saturdays, Sundays, or in the evenings, or 

do telework. But their more regular working 

week apparently does not compensate 

enough to make them feel as satisfi ed with 

their jobs as the men they work with on an 

equal footing. 

These are the main fi ndings of the report 

Gender Pay Gap in Journalism, March 2012. 

It is based on the international dataset of 

wages per occupation, compiled through the 

Wage Indicator Salary Surveys from 2009 till 

2011. During this period nearly 2,000 journalists 

across the globe completed the questionnaire. 

The Gender Pay Gap in Journalism report 

has been made in cooperation with the International 

Federation of Journalists. 

Pay gap freeze around the globe 

Solution: facilitate childrearing tasks 

Frozen in Time, gender pay gap unchanged 

for 10 years, March 2012, is the apt title of a 

report covering trends in gender pay relations, 

since the beginning of the millenium. In search 

for an explanation of this big pay gap freeze 

across the globe, researchers from the University 

of Amsterdam found Wage Indicator data 

most helpful. Other than the aggregate data 

provided by national statistical offi ces and international 

public sources, the Wage Indicator 

data allows for a breakdown of labour market 

behaviour of working individuals in motivating 

and/or inhibiting factors. 

Individual´s motives and possibilities to participate 

in the labour market may and do vary 

per occupation, industry, composition of 

the household, education, fi rm size etc. Taking 

these variables into account researchers 

analyze that in most countries child rearing 

is much more detrimental to women´s wages 

than to men´s wages, thereby contributing to 

the gender pay gap. This conclusion is followed 

up by the obvious implication of what 

might be one of the strongest factors perpetuating 

the traditional gender pay gap well 

into the 21rst century. 

The researchers´ observe that: any policies to 

facilitate childrearing tasks for both men and 

women will decrease the gender pay gap. 

The report ´Frozen in Time´ has been compiled 

for the ITUC, the International Trade 

Union Federation, and is published at the occasion 

of Women´s Day March 8. 

June 2012 

Minimum Wage Comparison, Asian Countries Series 

In at least 7 Asian countries there is a formal 

minimum wage system in place: they all pay 

attention to it, one way or the other. 

These 7 countries were compared in terms of 

• number and types of minimum wage 

rates 

• minimum wage coverage 

• special provisions for certain groups 

• sectors or groups excluded from this 

type of protection. 

Types of minima 

The countries compared, i.e. Cambodia, 

China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka 

and Vietnam differ in occurrence and types 

of minimum wage. There can be a uniform 

national minimum wage, and at the other extreme 

there can be different rates at the district 

or city level even. Also the legal base for 

minimum wages varies considerably: India, 

Indonesia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have special 

minimum wage laws. Cambodia, China 

and Vietnam make do with legal provisions 

and/or a labour code. Also, the setting of 

minimum wages differs a great deal. In some 

countries minimum wages are set tripartite by 

representatives from workers, employers, and 

the government, while in others they are set by 

executive decree or legislative actions. 

Rates per region, occupation, industry, skills 

Thus in most countries more than one single 

minimum wages exist. A handful of criteria 

are used to set the levels. In India and Pakistan 

minimum wage rates are determined regionally, 

by states or provinces. Similar determination 

is followed by Indonesia and Vietnam. In 

Indonesia the geographical criterion is leading: 

each region is given the power to frame 

their own minimum wages. In addition to the 

geographic criterion India, Indonesia, Pakistan 

and Sri Lanka also determine minimum wage 

rates at the occupation level. Only Sri Lanka 

and Vietnam determine minimum wage rates 

at industry level. All countries, except Cambodia 

and Indonesia, determine minimum wage 

rates at the sector level too. India and Pakistan 

in addition may determine their minimum 

wage rates according to skills required. Use of 

multiple criteria helps to decentralise the institution 

and make it relevant to specifi c target 

groups. But very complex systems may arise in 

the process – and they do. And on top there 

25

26 

are special provisions, as well as exceptions to 

the national rule. 

Special groups 

China does not have special minimum 

wage provisions for any specifi c categories 

of labour. India and Pakistan are the only 

countries included in this study with special 

minimum wage provisions and laws for specifi 

c groups like domestic workers, trainees, 

youth and piece-rate workers. Cambodia 

has specifi c minimum wage rates only for 

piece-rate workers. Indonesia has special 

minimum wage rates for contract labour, 

piece-rate workers and for workers on probation. 

Sri Lanka is the only country which 

has considered separate minimum wage rate 

for disabled workers. It also has special minimum 

wage provisions for domestic trainees 

and piece-rate workers. Vietnam has specifi c 

minimum wage rates for employees on probation, 

trainees/apprentices and workers 

who have received some vocational training. 

Unprotected workers 

Though all 7 countries have some form 

of minimum wage, its applicability across 

the labour market is not complete. There 

are some loopholes in the system of each 

country, except China. In Cambodia public 

servants and domestic workers are excluded 

from minimum wage protection. This leaves 

the most vulnerable section of society unprotected. 

In India disabled persons are not 

covered. In Indonesia the entrepreneurial 

class is prohibited from paying less than the 

minimum wage. But if a private company is 

not in a position to pay minimum wage, it is 

exempted by law. In Pakistan public servants 

and unskilled workers are excluded from 

minimum wage protection. And in Vietnam 

too, like in Cambodia and Pakistan, public 

servants are excluded. Only in China, there 

are no exceptions made for special groups. 

NEWSLETTERS 

CLR-News 

Jan Cremers 

The quarterly CLR-News (ISSN 1997-1745) acts since the start in 1993 as an 

organ of information and debate on labour and employment in construction. 

From 2001 on the issues of CLR-News are available as PDF fi le on www.clrnews.org 

under publications or at www.uva-aias.net under publications. 

CLR-News C 1-2012 

The T road to cross border justice 

‘Since ‘S the implementation of the internal market and the development of the 

Community C acquis, trade unions and the workers they represent in Europe are 

confronted c with the question how to defend workers’ rights that can be derived 

from fr European Union (EU) law, especially in a cross-border context. Although 

in theory it is often claimed that foreign workers have access to justice and 

redress to local courts like any other worker, the practice is rather patchy (…) In practice, workers 

are often unable to exercise these rights due to the inadequacy of existing means of redress 

in mass claim situations and to a lack of cross-border cooperation. On top of that, the costs of 

legal proceedings are sometimes higher than the compensation they can receive. Redress is the 

result of an uncertain path by the route of individual lawsuits that can take years in an unknown 

constituency and jurisdiction’. 

In this issue of the Journal Jan Cremers (AIAS) describes the latest developments in the EU 

related to the cross-border enforcement of workers’ rights. The notion of collective redress is 

introduced with a short explanation of the position of the trade unions. The article ends with an 

overview of challenges and questions that ask for further research. Martin Bulla (guest at AIAS) 

has investigated whether collective redress can provide a possible way of improvement of judicial 

enforcement of posted workers’ rights vested in the Posting of Workers Directive (Directive 

96/71/EC). He describes the most signifi cant problems posted workers are facing, followed by 

an overview of basic types of redress procedures as well as differences in approaches to legal 

regulation in countries. The contribution of Jean-Luc Deshayes is dedicated to another aspect of 

transnational mobility. Based on examples from the trans-boundary basin of Longwy, his contribution 

is dedicated to the status of the frontier worker. Janna Besamusca and Jan Cremers (both 

AIAS) also contribute with a book review. 

CLR-News C 2-2012 

Aging, A pensions and the crisis 

‘This ‘T issue is in fact an introductory and a showcase of the current pension 

debate d (…) you will fi nd in this issue some excerpts from the EFBWW-study 

oon 

pensions in the construction industry and the EFBWW conclusions based 

oon 

the study. But, before that, we have three contributions that deal with the 

EC’s White Paper. First of all, Josef Wöss from the Austrian Labour Chamber who has criticized 

in the past the assumptions applied by the EC. In the following short contribution I introduce 

the most important notions formulated in the White Paper together with the criticism of the 

ETUC. And, in the third contribution, the authors of the EFBWW-study, Ernst-Ludwig Laux 

and Joachim Reus, have resumed their comments on the EC proposal. Although it is an extended 

book review we have included Jörn Janssen’s contribution in the Discussion section. The radical 

ideas formulated by Friot gear directly in the pension debate’. With contributions from Jan Cremers 

(AIAS) and Lisa Berntsen (guest at AIAS).

PUBLICATIONS 

ACADEMIC 

Book 

Economy 

and Society 

in Europe, a 

relationship 

in Crisis 

Edited by a.o. Maarten Keune 

The book shows that while an 

economy is always ‘embedded’ in 

society, the relationship between the 

two is undergoing profound changes 

in Europe, resulting in widespread 

instability as made clear by the 

current crisis. 

The book analyses these 

changes, and in particular 

pressures of intensifying 

international competition, 

globalization and fi nance 

within Europe. Combining 

the perspectives of 

economic sociology, political economy and 

political science, the expert contributors offer 

an in-depth, multidisciplinary insight to 

the functioning of a number of institutional 

arenas around which European economies 

and societies are organized. Areas explored 

include the state and public policy at European 

national and regional level, the welfare 

state, industrial relations systems, education 

systems and the family. 

Publisher Edward Elger 

www.e-elger.com 

Pages 256 

ISBN 978-1-84980 -365-6 

Price ₤ 58.50 

Publications on scientifi c research for an academic audience 

Book 

A skill mismatch for migrant 

workers? Evidence from 

WageIndicator survey data 

Kea Tijdens and Maarten van Klaveren 

Kea Tijdens and Maarten van Klaveren contributed a chapter “A skill 

mismatch for migrant workers? Evidence from WageIndicator survey data” to 

the book “EU Labour Migration in Troubled Times — Skills Mismatch, Return 

and Poilcy Research”, edited by Bela Galgóczi, Janine Leschke and Andrew 

Watt (all at ETUI, European Trade Union Institute) and just published by 

Ashgate Publishing (www.ashgate.com). 

Overeducation occurs more often for migrants compared to domestic workers, 

and it occurs more often in the EU15 compared to the EU12. Thus, the 

characteristics of both migrants and national labour markets infl uence the 

incidence of overeducation. Using data for European countries from the 

global WageIndicator web-survey on work and wages, theoretically based 

assumptions were tested for explanations why migrants are more prone to 

be overqualifi ed. A lack of transparency of credentials – here defi ned arriving 

in the host country at an adult age – increases the incidence of overeducation. Employer 

discrimination is assumed to increase the incidence of overeducation. Indeed, fi rst and second 

generation migrants and ethnic minorities are prone to labour market discrimination 

and this in turn increases the likelihood of overqualifi cation. Finally, it is hypothesized that 

migrant workers with poorer language abilities – here defi ned as migrant workers born in 

a country with a native language or a lingua franca that does not match that of the host 

country – are more likely to report overeducation. This assumption is not supported by our 

results. 

Publisher Ashgate www.ashgate.com 

Published September 2012 

Pages 308 

ISBN 978-1-4094-3450-4 

Price ₤ 60 

27

28 

PUBLICATIONS 

Journal Structural Change and Economic Dynamics (Elsevier) 

Job Creation in Business Services 

Francesco Bogliacino, Matteo Lucchese and Mario Pianta 

The patterns and mechanisms of 

job creation in business services 

are investigated in this article by 

considering the role of innovation, 

demand, wages and the composition 

of employment by professional groups. 

Presentation 

on free 

movement 

published 

Jan Cremers 

A presentation Free movement of 

workers and rights that can be derived 

that was prepared by Jan Cremers 

for the 2011 annual meeting of the 

Network on Free Movement of Workers 

coordinated by the Centre for Migration 

Law of the Radboud University 

Nijmegen has been published in 

FMW4-2012, the Online Journal on 

free movement of workers within the 

European Union. 

According to the editorial ‘Cremers takes a 

careful look at the issue of which social benefi 

ts should accrue to which EU workers when 

they are exercising mobility rights outside their 

home Member State. In times of fi nancial instability 

in some Member States, this issue is 

central to guaranteeing security for EU workers 

and ensuring that they are in fact being treated 

equally as regards social and tax advantages with 

workers who are nationals of the host Member 

State’. http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.js 

p?catId=737&langId=en&pubId=6884 

A model is developed and an empirical test 

is carried out with parallel analyses on a 

group of selected business services, on other 

services and on manufacturing sectors, 

considering six major European countries 

over the period 1996-2007. 

Within technological activities a distinction 

is made between those supporting either 

technological competitiveness or cost competitiveness 

strategies. Demand variables 

allow identifying the special role of intermediate 

demand. Job creation in business 

services appears to be driven by efforts to 

expand technological competitiveness and 

by the fast growing intermediate demand 

coming from other industries; conversely, 

process innovation leads to job losses and 

wage growth has a negative effect that is 

lower than in other industries. Business 

services show an increasingly polarized employment 

structure. 

Go to the website for the article: 

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0954349X12000471#FCANote 

Journal of European Social Policy 

Welfare regimes and 

higher education systems 

Paul de Beer and Nienke Willemse 

Three educational worlds of welfare? A comparative study of higher 

education systems across welfare states. 

In the article ‘Three educational worlds of welfare? A comparative study of higher education 

systems across welfare states’ in the Journal of European Social Policy AIAS researcher Paul 

de Beer and former UvA student Nienke Willemse analyse to what extent higher education 

policies fi t into the well-known welfare regime typology of Esping-Andersen. The article applies 

the central concepts of welfare state analysis of decommodifi cation and stratifi cation, 

as proposed by Esping-Andersen, to the fi eld of higher education. Next, it tests whether 

there are systematic differences in higher education policies across 19 developed western 

countries that are usually categorized in a social democratic, a liberal or a conservative welfare 

regime. 

The countries studied cluster in three groups that correspond roughly with the classical categorization. 

The countries in these clusters do not, however, meet all expectations regarding 

the level of decommodifi cation and stratifi cation. We conclude that including higher education 

in comparative welfare states analysis might result in a less clear-cut categorization of 

welfare regimes than when the analysis is restricted to social protection and labour market 

policies.

PUBLICATIONS 

European Journal of Training and Development 

Measuring work activities 

and skill requirements of 

occupations 

Kea Tijdens, Judith De Ruijter and Esther De Ruijter 

The purpose of this article is to evaluate a method for measuring work 

activities and skill requirements of 160 occupations in eight countries, used in 

EurOccupations, an EU-FP6 project. Additionally, it aims to explore how the 

internet can be used for measuring work activities and skill requirements. 

This paper aims to evaluate the measurement of work activities and skill requirements of 

occupations for international comparisons. Recent discussions have explored the potential 

for an International Standard Classifi cation of Skills and Competences (Markowitsch and 

Plaimauer, 2009), have detailed the various conceptions of competence in the EQF and the 

national systems of competence framework (Brockmann et al., 2009), and have investigated 

if there is suffi cient common ground for a shared European approach to underpin the European 

Qualifi cations Framework (Winterton, 2009). Whereas these articles approached the 

skills and competences concepts predominantly from the angle of education and training, 

this paper approaches the same topic from the angle of work and training. 

Please visit the website www.emeraldinsight.com for the article. 

Hoofdstuk 

Duitsland en de medezeggenschap in de 

(kleine) onderneming 

Jan Cremers 

Jan Cremers schreef een hoofdstuk getiteld Duitsland en de medezeggenschap in de (kleine) onderneming in het boek 

Medezeggenschap in kleine ondernemingen. 

In dit hoofdstuk wordt stilgestaan bij de 

ontwikeling van de medezeggenschap in 

Duitsland. In tegenstelling tot wat vaak 

gedacht wordt, is in Duitsland, net als in 

Nederland, de oprichting van een ondernemingsraad 

niet zo maar af te dwingen; 

zonder initiatief van werknemerszijde komt 

geen ondernemingsraad tot stand. Wel is het 

zo dat in een overgrote meerderheid van het 

Duitse grootbedrijf de medezeggenschap 

stevig verankerd is. Zodra gekeken wordt 

naar de categorie kleinere bedrijven neemt 

de naleving in Duitsland snel af. Dat is ech- 

ter in Nederland niet veel anders. Een van 

de centrale doelstellingen van de hervorming 

in 2001 van de medezeggenschapswetgeving 

(het Betriebsverfassungsgesetz) was 

het stimuleren van een betere verspreiding 

van de medezeggenschap in bepaalde segmenten 

van de arbeidsmarkt met een lage 

naleving (bouw, handel, diensten) en in zogenaamde 

‘medezeggenschapsvrije zones’ 

waarbij in het bijzonder gedoeld werd op 

het MKB. De Duitse wetgever achtte het 

zowel vanuit politiek, als vanuit economisch 

opzicht noodzakelijk hier iets aan te doen. 

De wetgever ging er daarbij van uit dat medezeggenschap 

zeer tot voordeel strekt, dat 

de kosten ruim tegen de baten opwegen en 

dat het goed organiseren van de medezeggenschap 

(dus) profi jtelijk is voor het bedrijfsleven. 

In: Medezeggenschap in kleine ondernemingen 

(red. G. Bruinsma), uit de serie ORstrategie 

en beleid, thema 17, Vakmedianet, 

Alphen aan de Rijn, pagina 101-117. 

29

30 

PUBLICATIONS 

Book review 

Employers’ organizations and the effects 

of ‘voluntary’ abstention from collectively 

negotiated agreements 

Review by Jan Cremers, published in Transfer 18(3), August 2012, p. 364-365 

‘Why do workers leave unions?’ was the title of an article in Transfer 17(4) in 2011. In it, the authors explored the 

reasons for workers leaving trade unions or staying on as trade union members. 

In the book ‘The paradox of employers’ 

federations’, Martin Behrens of the Hans 

Böckler Foundation discusses a similar case 

applying to employers. His in-depth analysis 

of German employer organizations reveals 

a range of reasons for employers belonging 

to such organizations, while at the same 

time exposing the myth that employers act 

in conformity. Employer organizations have 

always been seen as an important building 

block of the regulatory frame anchoring 

the ‘Rhineland model’. In the long term an 

increase in ‘opt-out clauses’ and in companies 

making use thereof will undermine the 

principal function of employer organizations. 

Though their role will not disappear, 

the conclusion after reading this book is 

that there is a qualitative change, with new 

ways of adding value needing to be developed 

to maintain attractiveness. 

Martin Behrens. Das Paradox der Arbeitgeberverbände 

– Von der Schwierigkeit, durchsetzungsstarke 

Unternehmensinteressen kollektiv 

zu vertreten [The paradox of employers’ 

Article 

Men care revisited 

By Marianne Grunell, published in Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies, no 15, 2012, p 

51-56 

I discuss the thesis of my Phd on 

men’s changing contribution to 

everyday care and the new social 

appeal made to them (2002). 

A decade later my conclusions 

on a major historical 

change are sceptical. 

The urgency of 

the matter has diminished 

at the authorities 

and in social organisations. 

Men themselves 

– in particular the focusgroup of fathers 

of young children – remain ambivalent. 

Although they say that they want to work 

less to care more, only a few work part-time. 

This small group of highly educated men, 

working in the social sector or at the authorities 

remains a priviledged group, with paid 

care arrangements and a pro-care culture. 

Much more widespread are full-time working 

fathers, who changed their careing attituede 

in their free time. Their choice fi ts well 

in the Dutch one-and-a-half-earning model, 

in which mothers work part-time and men 

full-time. The interests of both are served 

well in this model that will also dominate 

the coming years. 

federations – the diffi culty of collectively 

representing assertive company interests], 

Research series of the German Hans-Böckler-Foundation, 

Bd. 130, Edition Sigma: 

Berlin, 2011; 238 pp. 

In: Transfer 18(3), August 2012, p. 364-365, 

http://trs.sagepub.com/content/current

PUBLICATIONS 

PROFESSIONAL 

Book 

New edition 

‘De juridische 

organisatie 

van de onderneming’ 

A.F.M. Dorresteijn and R.H. van het 

Kaar 

On 9 September Kluwer published 

a new edition of ‘De Juridische 

organisatie van de onderneming’, 

a comprehensive book on Dutch 

company law, written by A.F.M. 

Dorresteijn en R.H. van het Kaar. 

After several years of 

standstill in Dutch company 

law, in 2012 major 

changes are about to take 

place. The book gives an 

up to date account of 

these recent changes. In 

several chapters the interaction 

between labour and company law is 

covered. Examples include the works council, 

employee board level representatives, 

the right of inquiry and restructuring. 

Publisher Uitgeverij Kluwer BV 

www.kluwer.nl 

Edition 11 

Pages 288 

ISBN 978-9-01310-291-8 

Price € 49 

Chapter 

Publications on applied research for a professional audience 

The Value of Workers in 

International CSR Policies 

Maarten Keune 

Maarten Keune contributed a chapter to a publication of the FNV titled 

The Value of Workers in International CSR Policies. His chapter is titled 

Globalization, Labour Relations and Transnational Agreements. 

It sketches a number of negative social consequences of globalization, 

including growing inequalities and insecurities, the loss of democratic 

control over the economy, and the growing power of capital at the expense 

of labour. These consequences have become more visible and are 

aggravating the present economic and fi nancial crisis. As part of this 

process, workers are confronted with production chains that are constantly 

subject to restructuring and that are more and more organized 

across borders, and with the increasing fi nancialization of the global 

economy. One of the responses of unions to these developments is 

that they negotiate a variety of agreements at the level of multinational companies or supply 

chains with employers interested in strengthening their (image of) corporate social responsibility. 

Such agreements can potentially play an important role in regulating transnational 

economic activities, improve labour relations in multinationals, as well as complement existing 

national legal frameworks that are not adjusted to the internationalization of economic 

activities. At the same time they suffer from a number of weaknesses, related to their voluntarist 

character and their limited scope and diffusion. 

To overcome these limitations, balance the power of global corporations and foster more 

socially responsible behaviour by multinationals, it is argued that changes are required to the 

governance of multinational companies, including a change from shareholder to stakeholder 

models, an increased sense of responsibility from company managers, socially responsible 

investing, limits on the political power of fi rms, strengthening the enforcement of labour 

law, the further inclusion of social and labour standards in trade agreements, and the further 

internationalization of the trade union movement. Government policy can play an important 

role in this respect and may codify voluntarist agreements. If transnational agreements 

are to become more general instruments to regulate the global economy, changes in these 

directions would be required. It is up to unions, governments and socially responsible companies 

to promote such changes. 

31

32 

Essay 

European Integration 

and labour relations: 

consequences for the 

Dutch model? 

Maarten Keune contributed an essay to the Dutch-language AWVN 

publication “Designers in Labour Relations”. His essay is titled “European 

Integration and labour relations: consequences for the Dutch model?” 

The T essay discusses the effects that European integration has had 

and may have in the future on Dutch labour relations. It is argued, 

among other things, that the Dutch social partners, used to have a 

strong infl uence in socio-economic matters at national level, have 

little leverage over EU policies, even though these policies limit 

their policy options. What is more, the growing role of the EU 

may well affect the traditional Dutch corporatist model in the long 

run. Also, it puts pressure on the encompassing Dutch system of 

sector collective agreements. Indeed, continuity of the Dutch model is by no means given 

and less so with the present direction of European integration. 

Article 

Re-employment servicing 

can be done better, by 

learning’ in “Social Issues 

Els Sol, Trudie Knijn and Monique Frings-Dresen 

Els Sol, programme leader of an interuniversity research programme on 

re-employment servicing (2007-2012) presents together with Trudie Knijn 

(Utrecht University) and Monique Frings-Dresen (AMC) main fi ndings of the 

programme in the article ‘Re-employment servicing can be done better, by 

learning’ in “Social Issues” (scientists and thinkers debate on social issues). 

The article shows that the re-employment into paid work can be better organized and that 

research can be a helper. In the domain of reemployment servicing there is a general lack 

amongst all actors involved of theoretical knowledge. Knowledge exists mainly in the head of 

the performers and is not laid down in theory. As a result the system does not learn quickly. In 

the research programme theory has been developed, which can help to better evaluate interventions. 

The researchers suggest that the reemployment services sector should be a learning 

sector, fueled by scientifi c research. 

PUBLICATIONS

PUBLICATIONS 

Zeggenschap 

January - August 2012 

Van de zijde van AIAS wordt regelmatig meegewerkt aan het kwartaalblad 

Zeggenschap over arbeidsverhoudingen. We vatten de bijdragen van AIASmedewerkers 

in de eerste helft van 2012 kort samen. 

Zeggenschap - Maart 2012 - 23e jaargang nummer 1 

Het eerste nummer van 2012 bevat, zoals gebruikelijk, een column van 

Paul de Beer, in dit nummer over de Nieuwe Vakbeweging met als titel 

‘Acht miljoen vakorganisaties’, en de Loonwijzer-rubriek van Kea Tijdens 

en Maarten van Klaveren, in deze uitgave gewijd aan ‘De lonen van 

schoonmakers’. Frank Tros schreef ‘Ontslagvergoedingen niet simpel te 

verruilen met scholing’ (zie de AIAS-Nieuwsbrief van voorjaar 2012). 

In een bijdrage van Els Sol, getiteld ‘Zwakke punten in Wet werken naar vermogen’, 

wordt op basis van nieuw onderzoek uiteengezet wat de leidende 

ideeën zijn achter re-integratie en voor wie en in welke situaties re-integratie 

een geëigende strategie kan zijn. Hieraan is behoefte aangezien vanuit de 

economische wetenschap en in media veel kritiek is op ‘de ineffectiviteit’ van 

re-integratieondersteuning, overigens zonder dat daar overtuigend bewijs 

tegenover staat. Desondanks zou op basis van die kritiek in het inmiddels 

ingetrokken wetsvoorstel ‘Wet werken naar vermogen’(Wwnv) fl ink gekort 

worden in het budget voor re-integratie. Uit het onderzoek ‘Fit or Unfi t; 

naar expliciete re-integratie theorieën’ is bekend wat de werkzame mechanismen 

zijn van re-integratiedienstverlening. Nadruk ligt op het bewerkstelligen 

van gedragsveranderingen bij het individu, die kunnen variëren van 

een oppervlakkige gedragsverandering onder druk van omstandigheden tot 

een meer diepgaande in de zin van de manier waarop iemand in het leven 

staat. Zowel de uitkeringsgerechtigde als de maatschappij zijn er bij gebaat 

wanneer een dergelijke duurzame verbetering daadwerkelijk tot stand wordt 

gebracht. Dit brengt de zwakke punten van de Wwnw aan het licht; de wet 

zet in op instrumentele, fi nanciële prikkels als loondispensatie en individuele 

loonwaardebepalingen en verwaarloost de re-integratieondersteuning die is 

gericht op gedragsverandering. Het is effi ciënter voorafgaand aan een loonwaardebepaling 

door middel van re-integratiedienstverlening arbeidsvaardigheden 

aan te laten leren en gedragsverandering te bewerkstelligen en op 

die manier eerst de loonwaarde te verhogen. Het kabinet hanteert met de 

Wwnw een riskante strategie. 

In de rubriek het Internationaal Signalement bespreekt Marc van der 

Meer het boek van Jan Cremers ‘In search of cheap labour in Europe, 

working and living conditions of posted workers’. Volgens van der Meer 

voorziet het boek ‘in empirische bijdragen die de kloof tussen juridische 

bescherming en empirische uitwerking overbruggen. Van bijzondere 

kwaliteit zijn de twaalf landenstudies over België, Duitsland, Engeland, 

Frankrijk, Ierland, Italië, Nederland, Noorwegen, Roemenië, Spanje, 

Zweden en Zwitserland, die met minimale middelen in opdracht van de 

Europese Commissie zijn geschreven’. 

www.zeggenschap.info/ 

Zeggenschap - Juni 2012 - 23e jaargang nummer 2 

In het tweede nummer van 2012 andermaal een column van Paul de 

Beer (‘De grote uitruil’ over het lenteakkoord en de pensioenproblematiek) 

en een Loonwijzer ‘Invloed crisis op mobiliteit’. 

Daarnaast een bijdrage van Lisa Berntsen (vanaf zomer 2012 gastonderzoeker 

AIAS) over de tewerkstelling van buitenlandse arbeidskrachten 

in de Eemshaven. Zij constateert dat de arbeidsrelaties bij 

grote bouwprojecten zoals in de Eemshaven zeer fl exibel zijn door 

de forse concurrentieslag die gevoerd wordt tussen binnen- en buitenlandse 

bedrijven over de hoofden van buitenlandse vakkrachten 

heen. Vakbonden en opdrachtgevers boven aan de keten hebben 

vaak weinig zicht en grip op de arbeidsomstandigheden vanwege de 

tijdelijke contracten. Hoewel Europa arbeidsmobiliteit bevordert en 

deze mensen de kans geeft een beter bestaan op te bouwen, biedt 

dezelfde wetgeving uit Europa tegelijkertijd weinig handvatten voor 

naleving en controle zodat dit ook op een eerlijke manier gebeurt. 

Jan Cremers rapporteert in een artikel over onderzoek naar de betekenis 

van de Olympische Spelen voor werknemers. Met collega’s 

van het European Institute for Construction Labour Research 

(CLR) heeft hij de ervaringen met de laatste zes Olympische Spelen 

(sinds Barcelona 1992) opgetekend. Gekeken is naar de betekenis 

van de OS vanuit sociaaleconomisch oogpunt, werkgelegenheid en 

langetermijnperspectief. In de analyse is aandacht besteed aan de 

feitelijke tewerkstelling, de mogelijkheid werklozen te scholen en 

stadsdelen die aan een opknapbeurt toe zijn te reanimeren. Tevens 

is gerapporteerd over de vakbondssamenwerking bij dergelijke grote 

projecten, die per defi nitie worden gekenmerkt door een aanwezigheid 

van grote aantallen buitenlandse werknemers. Zijn antwoord 

op de vraag wat nodig is bij dergelijke megaprojecten luidt: ‘Een 

strakke regie, een selectie van betrouwbare ondernemingen in de 

aanbesteding, degelijke afspraken vooraf tussen alle betrokken partijen 

die worden nageleefd en een goed pakket met arbeidsvoorwaarden 

lijken garant te staan voor degelijk werk en tijdige levering. 

Op die manier wordt het risico van vertragingen het meest beperkt. 

Dat leidt tot lagere supervisiekosten en minder arbeidsconfl icten 

met verlies aan productietijd. En in de voorbeelden die we hier hebben 

besproken uiteindelijk tot minder overschrijdingen en lagere 

totale bouwkosten’. 

33

34 

Interview with Maarten Berg 

FOCUS ON... 

RESEARCH 

A solidarity experiment in the Dapperbuurt 

Laboratory experiments are becoming increasingly popular among social scientists. By letting subjects play a game 

in an environment that is fully under control – the lab – it is possible to fi ne tune the conditions under which people 

interact. Thus, one can draw inferences about the causal relationship between these conditions and their behaviour. 

Students are the obvious group to select the participants for these experiments from. However, one may question 

whether the behaviour of university students really refl ects the behaviour of the population at large, especially if these 

students are used to participate in laboratory experiments. It is therefore of great interest to compare the behaviour 

of students with the behaviour of ‘ordinary’ people in the same experimental design. This was put to practice in the 

experiments that AIAS researcher Maarten Berg performed as part of the research programme ‘Solidarity in the 21st 

Century’. 

What kind of experiment did you perform? 

In the basic experiment, four participants 

had to answer individually ten multiple 

choice questions. The two participants who 

performed the best on this quiz were declared 

to be the winners. They were each 

rewarded with 20 euro’s that they were allowed 

to distribute over the four group 

members (including themselves). They were 

free to choose any possible distribution, e.g. 

keep all 20 euro’s to themselves, to distribute 

the sum equally (5-5-5-5), or to do something 

else. Because the participants actually 

earned real money with this ‘solidarity game’ 

(and lost real money by sharing), sharing behaviour 

in this experiment is strong proof 

of the potential for solidarity. A problem 

of standard survey research (“How much 

would you be willing to share....?”) is that 

is very vulnerable to socially desirable statements. 

However, the main research focus 

was not the degree of solidarity, but rather 

the differences in solidarity between slightly 

different experimental conditions. 

Why did you choose the visitors of the 

Dapper market, a daily street market 

in Amsterdam, to participate in the experiments? 

The starting point of our project, ‘Solidarity 

in the 21st century’, was that solidarity in 

Dutch society might be endangered by societal 

developments, such as the aging population 

(creating a potential confl ict between 

generations) and increasing cultural diversity. 

The Dappermarket is a very diverse 

area of Amsterdam, and therefore very well 

suited to study some of our hypotheses. An 

additional benefi t was that Laurens Buijs, a 

sociologist from our team, did qualitative research 

in the Dappermarket area. This enabled 

us to compare and integrate our fi ndings, 

using very different methodologies. 

How did you convince people on the 

market to participate? 

Actually, this was very hard. We had to approach 

at least ten persons (and sometimes 

many more) to convince one person to 

participate. An additional complication was 

that we needed groups of exact four participants. 

This meant that occasionally we lost 

a potential participant, who was no longer 

willing to wait for the other participants to 

show up. With the great help of Laurens, 

Casper and others, we managed to do it after 

all. 

I think that a big problem was that people 

are so used to being approached (by people 

who want their money) that they did not 

realize that they would actually earn money 

with this experiment. After the experiment, 

participants were often grateful for receiving 

so much money for so little effort. 

What were the largest problems/obstacles 

that you were confronted with 

in performing the experiment in the 

Dapperbuurt? 

Besides having to approach the potential 

participants on the market, we had to create 

a lab in a community centre (‘buurthuis’) 

nearby. As the participants communicated 

with one another through computers, 

Casper had to create a network. We ran into 

all kinds of practical challenges, especially 

when participants did not fully understand 

the instructions or were far from fl uent in 

the Dutch language. Fortunately, for most 

participants this was not the case. 

Can you tell us the most remarkable 

differences between the outcomes of 

the experiment with the students and 

with the visitors of the Dapperbuurt? 

In the Dapperbuurt experiment we were especially 

interested in the characteristics of 

the participants (e.g. in terms of sex, age, 

cultural background, etc.) and the social 

distance between them. When we used students 

they were anonymous to one another 

(player 1, player 2, etc.). Our results showed 

that native participants share less money 

with Turkish or Moroccan people than with 

fellow natives. 

Another difference between the two studies 

was that the participants from the Dap-

FOCUS ON... 

permarket showed more solidarity than the 

students, who were more experienced with 

such experiments and might even be trained 

in the ‘homo economicus perspective’. 

What lessons do you think we can draw 

from this fi eld experiment for future 

experimental studies? 

The main problem of experimental research 

is its low ‘external validity’. The results cannot 

necessarily be generalized to the entire 

population. By conducting a fi eld experiment, 

the strengths of two methods are 

combined. This kind of research requires 

an additional effort, but it can be done and 

it is worth the trouble. 

Solidarity in the 21st Research project 

Century 

The research programme ‘Solidarity in the 21 st Century’ focuses on the effects 

of changes in the composition of the population; such as immigration and 

ageing. The research programme aims to analyze the effects of these changes 

on solidarity, both informal and formal. It examines what kind of motives, 

conditions and circumstances are benefi cial for the sustainment of solidarity 

between different groups in society. The apparent discrepancies between 

immigrants and natives on the one hand, and the elderly and the young on 

the other hand, seem to have a serious impact on the Dutch tolerance and 

solidarity. Members of the different groups are unable to relate to each other, 

and fear that one group will benefi t unequally from the other prevails. This 

is problematic because the tensions between the different groups in Dutch 

society are likely to grow. 

By a combination of different research methods - qualitative case-studies, statistical data 

analysis, economic experiments, media analysis - this research project will investigate the 

different conditions of and motives for solidarity. The focus of this research is on solidarity 

between immigrant and natives, and between the elderly and the young, simultaneously. The 

qualitative case-study research focuses on the micro level of the neighborhood; what kind of 

conditions (socioeconomic composition, public institutions, etc.) infl uence informal solidarity? 

The statistical data research (or survey research) tries to establish which circumstances on 

the macro level (such as ethnic diversity and age differentiation) affects both formal solidarity, 

in terms of support for the welfare state, and informal solidarity. The economic experiments 

will analyze which external factors determine the willingness to support others by controlling 

different conditions. The media analysis focuses on the infl uence of media imaging 

on the ways the different groups perceive each other. The aim of the research programme is 

to connect the different parts of research, which eventually will lead to a fi nal research paper 

on solidarity, next to the separate research papers based on the different research methods. 

The research is led by prof. dr. Paul de Beer and is subsidized by Foundation Institute Gak. 

For more information about the research programme or access to publications and proposals, 

see www.solidariteit.info or contact Merle Zwiers: m.d.zwiers@uva.nl. 

35

36 

Data section at AIAS website 

• Annual Social Reports Database 

In the Archives, the social annual reports from 1988 to the present are collected. 

Unfortunately, most series is not complete. Yet it is possible to build 

upon the reports collected a good picture of developments around staff and 

personnel in the organizations. The sample survey was complemented with 

other organizations over the years. 

• CLA partners 

In the Netherlands, about a thousand collective agreements cover about 80 

percent of the employed population. CLA’s are agreed between one or several 

employers or employers’ organizations and one or several other unions. 

In 2005 Kilian Schreuder has inventoried the signatory parties of all 

CLA’s which are entered in the DUCADAM dataset (N=3752) and 

collected them in a spreadsheet. This fi le is unique in the Netherlands 

• Collective Bargaining Newsletter 

See earlier in this newsletter. 

• DUCADAM database 

Database of Collective Agreements in the Netherlands. The database is 

based on the ‘FNV CAO-Database’ and contains detailed information 

on collective labour agreements concluded in the Netherlands. 

• Flex Work Research Centre 

(FWRC) is a joint initiative launched by ABU and the University of 

Amsterdam. AIAS and the Hugo Sinzheimer Institute manage 

this international website and provides information on research reports 

and articles relating to temporary employment in the broadest sense in fi ve 

languages (English, Dutch, French, German and Spanish). 

• ICTWSS database 

The ICTWSS database covers four key elements of modern political 

economies in advanced capitalist societies: trade unionism, wage setting, 

state intervention and social pacts. The database contains annual data for 

34 countries. It runs from 1960 till 2010. 

• Intermediair 'Best Employers' Dataset 

The Intermediair ‘Best Employers’ survey is an annual survey of Dutch 

employers concerning their HR policies, used for the Best Employers list in 

the Intermediair weekly. AIAS acts as an advisor for the questionnaire. 

DATA 

AIAS has a major collection of academic socio-economic data in the fi eld of labour relations, labour organizations, 

employment and working conditions in the Netherlands and abroad. 

The DATA section of the AIAS website has recently been updated. It presents information about 13 data collections of AIAS, namely: 

• IT use of employees in the Netherlands 

The dataset is based on a surveys of secretaries in the Netherlands about 

their job content, and working conditions in 1993, 2000, and 2004. 

• Job content of secretaries in the Netherlands 

The dataset is based on comparable surveys of secretaries in the Netherlands 

about their job content, and working conditions in 1993, 2000, and 

2004. 

• Study Group Quality of Labour 

The reports and administration of this study group provides a portrait of 

an age of social scientifi c research and the debate in the fi eld of the quality 

of labour over a period of 20 years. The archive consists of eight document 

fi les. Among them reports of the study group meetings during the entire 

period of 1979-2002; information about 11 international seminars and 

the programme fi les of the study group including a Trend report Quality 

of Labour and the design-focussed research. The archive also contains some 

publications that have been supervised by the study group and some publications 

that are hard to obtain elsewhere. 

• Trade organisations 

The Trade organisations database consists of names, years of establishment, 

historical development, NACE industry-codes and other data of 

more than 1400 trade and employers organisations. For the years 1980, 

1991, 2001 and 2005,the mergers, separations and removals of these 

organisations have been investigated. 

• WageIndicator database 

The WageIndicator Survey is a continuous, multilingual, multi-country 

web-survey, conducted more than 60 countries since 2000. The web-survey 

generates cross sectional and longitudinal data which might provide data 

especially about wages, benefi ts, working hours, working conditions and 

industrial relations. 

• World Database of Occupations-WISC 

The EurOccupations micro data of the task frequency web-survey in eight 

EU countries; WISCO database with more than 1,700 occupational titles 

for 60 countries. 

For more information please see our website www.uva-aias.net/data or contact: prof. dr. Kea Tijdens (k.g.tijdens@uva.nl).

RESEARCH 

Research on new forms of 

transnational labour agreements 

With the on-going internationalization 

of the economy and the ever-growing 

importance of multinationals, more 

and more transnational labour norms 

are set through different types of 

transnational labour agreements. 

Such agreements include collective 

agreements, framework agreements, 

codes of conduct, and other joint 

texts produced by management, 

workers’ representatives and possible 

third parties like NGOs. 

Transnational labour agreements are 

made between private actors without 

direct involvement of public actors 

and aim to regulate and guide the 

behaviour of the parties involved, in 

particular where labour relations and 

working conditions are concerned. 

However, there is hardly any legal 

framework for such agreements that 

largely operate in a legal vacuum and 

have a mainly voluntary character. As 

a consequence, there is little clarity as 

to their legal status, their relationship 

to national and international law, and 

the possibilities for their enforcement. 

Also, their effective impact on labour 

relations and working conditions 

remains largely unclear. 

Although there already exists an extensive 

body of research with respect to the above 

mentioned issues, this research is focused on 

single and in scope limited elements of these 

issues. They include for instance theoretical 

considerations on how to deal with the lack 

of a legal framework and empirical research 

on the implementation of these agreements 

on (national) plant level. Consequently, this 

body of research leaves us with a shattered 

understanding of transnational agreements. 

In order to get a more overall understanding 

of transnational labour agreements, this 

research will examine them against the background 

of all three perspectives and builds 

on three basic ideas involved with transnational 

relations. The fi rst of these is the idea 

of global value chain governance which deals 

with the issue of authority and power that 

determine how fi nancial, material and human 

resources are allocated and fl ow within 

chains of fi rms. Secondly, we’ll take into 

account the idea of multi-level governance 

which refers to the increased interdependence 

between governance mechanisms at 

different levels on the one hand and to the 

growing interdependence between governmental 

and non-governmental (private) actors 

on the other hand. The third idea is that 

of hybrid structures which deals with the interaction 

between the outcomes of traditional 

authority as well as that of mechanisms of 

new governance. These outcomes include 

SOLIDAR-project fi nalized 

varies forms of hard law as well as soft law. 

More particularly, the fi rst idea (global value 

chains) focuses on the motives and reasons 

for actors to engage transnational industrial 

relations, it will also provide initial information 

about what might be expected from the 

concluded transnational agreement in terms 

of effectiveness. The second and third ideas 

(multi-level governance and hybrid structures 

respectively) than will provide complementary 

information in terms of autonomy and 

dependence of the actors involved and possible 

interactions of the varies forms of law 

involved with the regulation of specifi c rights 

within a chain of companies that are both of 

infl uence of the effectiveness of the transnational 

labour agreements in the sense that 

they either can play to each other’s strengths 

when they are complementary or down play 

each other when they strive for dominance. 

Together these three ideas provide a comprehensive 

insight in transnational agreements 

that helps us to further understand what the 

strengths and weaknesses are of transnational 

labour agreements, in particular with 

respect to their effectiveness in governing 

labour strategies end ensuring labour rights. 

The research will be conducted by Beryl ter 

Haar (post-doc at AIAS) and is supervised by 

Maarten Keune (AIAS) and Evert Verhulp 

(UvA). First results will be expected in 2013. 

For more information you can contact Beryl 

ter Haar B.P.terHaar@uva.nl. 

Early June 2012 a SOLIDAR-project was fi nalized that aims to intensify the cooperation and mutual learning of relevant actors 

– employers, unions, NGOs, think thank and workers – with the ultimate aim to combat precarious employment and to realise 

decent working conditions for all. 

The advisory committee chaired by Jan Cremers 

from AIAS and with representatives from 

the ILO, the Bertelsmann Foundation, the 

Dublin Foundation and the ETUI underlined 

the importance of the conclusions and recommendations 

of the fi nal report ‘Reframing 

industrial relations’ that can be downloaded 

here. AIAS-researcher Janna Besamusca. 

produced one of the pilot studies. See for 

the conclusion the fi nal report at: www. 

uva-aias.net/uploaded_files/regular/ 

Booklet_DWIR_II_web.pdf 

37

38 

RESEARCH 

Project Title / Topic Commissioner 

Sorted by project name 

Activating States 

Fundamental shifts in the governance and content of 

unemployment insurance 

SIG Fund 

BARSORI Bargaining for social rights: reducing precariousness 

and labour market segmentation through collective 

bargaining and social dialogue 

EU DG Social dialogue 

CAWIE Collectively agreed wages in Europe European Commission 

Collective Bargaining newsletter This newsletter presents up-to-date information on 

collective bargaining developments across Europe 

since February 2008 

Decisions for life Aims to promote formal employment and equal opportunities 

at the labour market 

DUCADAM Dutch Collective Labour Agreements Database and 

Monitor 

ETUI-REHS 

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, joint 

with ITUC 

EU-DG ESA 

Earnings of self-employed Ministry of Social Affairs 

EIRO Coördination Dutch contribution in the European 

Industrial Relations Observatory (EIRO) 

Eurofound 

Employment in the Netherlands XpertHR 

Equalsoc Network of Excellence Economic change, social inequality and social cohesion 

in the knowledge economy 

EU FP6 

EurOccupations Building a publicly available occupations database in 8 

European countries 

EU FP6 

European Restructuring Monitor EUROFOUND 

Flexwork Research Center ABU 

Fitness check information and consultation 

directives: the Netherlands 

Commissioned to Deloitte by the EU. EU 

Formula Free movement and labour law - confl icts and impacts Research Council of Norway 

Free choice of pensions A broader choice of pensions can lead to a more effi 

cient execution. 

SIG Fund 

GINI Growing Inequalities’ Impacts EU FP7 

GUSTO Analysing, Comparing and evaluating the various societal 

models in a medium-to-long-term perspective 

EU FP7 

HEALTH at WORK Improving health and safety at work EU FP7 

HRM Chronically Ill II HRM policies for chronically ill workers SIG Fund 

The information and consultation directive 

in practice 

Commissioned to Warwick by Eurofound EU 

The impact of the ‘Great Recession’ on 

European Industrial Relations 

International reform monitor, 

Dutch correspondent 

This project studies the reactions of the industrial 

relations systems of three countries (Germany, Finland 

and Ireland) to the pressures emerging from the 

present economic crisis 

Website database on Social policies, labour market 

policies, industrial relations 

Bertelsmann Stiftung

PROJECTS 

AIAS researchers Links Period 

Dr. Els Sol a.o. www.activatingstates.org/5 2006 - 2012 

Prof. Maarten Keune a.o. 2010 - 2011 

Maarten van Klaveren, Prof. Kea Tijdens, 

Prof. Maarten Keune 

2011 - 2012 

Jan Cremers, Janna Besamusca www.uva-aias.net/102#collective_barg 2008 - continued 

Prof. Kea Tijdens, Maarten van Klaveren a.o. www.wageindicator.org/main/projects/decisionsfor-life/decisions-for-life-2013-kick-off-meetingdecember-8-9 

2009 - 2011 

Prof. Kea Tijdens www1.fee.uva.nl/aias/ducadam/ 2000 - 2010*) 

Prof. Kea Tijdens 

Dr. Robbert van het Kaar and Dr. Marianne 

Grunell 

www.eiro.eurofound.ie/ 2005 - continued*) 

Dr. Robbert van het Kaar 2009 - continued 

Prof. Herman van de Werfhorst, Prof. Wiemer 

Salverda a.o. 

www.equalsoc.org 2005 - 2010*) 

Prof. Kea Tijdens www.euroccupations.org/main/ 2006 - 2009 

Dr. Robbert van het Kaar 2003 - continued 

Dr Marloes de Graaf-Zijl 2011 - 2011 

Dr. Robbert van het Kaar 2011 - 2011 

Prof. Jelle Visser www.jus.uio.no/ifp/english/research/projects/freemov/ 


Prof Wiemer Salverda, Prof. Paul de Beer, David 

Hollanders 

2011 - 2014 

Prof. Wiemer Salverda, Dr Marloes de Graaf-Zijl, 

Dr Virginia Maestri, Dr Francesco Bogliacino, Dr 

Bram Lancee 

www.gini-research.org 2010 - 2013 

Dr. Els Sol, Dr Maarten Keune http://ec.europa.eu/research/social-sciences/projects/398_en.html 


Dr. Joke Haafkens www.abdn.ac.uk/haw/index.html 2008 - 2011 

Dr. Joke Haafkens 2007 - 2011 

Dr. Robbert van het Kaar 2011 - 2012 

Prof. Maarten Keune, Aidan Regan 2011 - 2012 

Prof. Wiemer Salverda a.o. www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/cps/rde/xchg/bst_ 

engl/hs.xsl/prj_54224.htm 

2000 - 2010 

*) extended with own funding 

39

40 

Project Title / Topic Commissioner 

Sorted by project name 

Labour rights for women The project departs from the understanding that 

women’s labour rights are to a large extent insuffi - 

ciently protected in the national legislation of the 15 

target countries in the project 

Loonwijzer See Wageindicator 

Pathways to work research programme 

(RVO) 

This research programme aims to strengthen academic 

research into reintegration services in direct interaction 

with the reintegration fi eld 

Posting Free movement and the posting of workers in the EU 

/ Social Progress Clause 

SEEurope (Cremers) Coordination of research on workers participation in 

companies with a European Company Statute 

Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs 

SIG Fund 

European Trade Union Confederation 

(ETUC) 

ETUI 

SEEurope (vh Kaar) Member of SEEurope-netwerk ETUI 

SOLIDAR Making Industrial Relations Work for Decent Work - 

pilot studies 

Solidarity in the 21st century Solidarity in the 21st century: aging, immigration and 

solidarity 

EU DG Social dialogue/SOLI- 

DAR/WBS Europafonds 

SIG Fund 

Temp work research monitor Website database of publications on temp work ABU, joint with HSI 

WageIndicator Share and compare wage information. Contribute to a 

transparent labour market. Provide free, accurate wage 

data through salary checks on national websites. Collect 

wage data through web surveys 

WEBDATANET Web-based data-collection – methodological challenges, 

solutions and implementations 

WEB-Surveys Improving Web Survey Methodology for Social and 

Cultural Sciences 

WISUTIL Wageindicator support for bargaining in the utilities 

sector 

Woliweb The socio-economic determinants of citizens’ work 

life attitudes, preferences and perceptions, using data 

from the continuous web-based European WageIndicator 

Survey 

RESEARCH 

Ministry of Social Affairs, Foreign 

Affairs, commercial parties 

European Science Foundation 

ERASMUS Studio EUR 

EU DG Social dialogue 

EU FP

PROJECTS 

AIAS researchers Links Period 

Prof. Kea Tijdens, Janna Besamusca and Maarten 

van Klaveren 

2012 - 2016 

Dr. Els Sol and Dr. Marloes de Graaf-Zijl www.verbeteronderzoek.nl 2008 - 2012 

Jan Cremers a.o. 2010 - 2012 

Jan Cremers www.worker-participation.eu/European-Company 2009 - 2012 

Dr. Robbert van het Kaar www.worker-participation.eu/ continued 

Jan Cremers and Janna Besamusca www.solidar.org/Page_Generale. 

asp?DocID=28025&la=1&langue=EN 


Prof. Paul de Beer, Dr Dorota Lepianka, Dr 

Maarten Berg, Drs. Laurens Buijs, Merle Zwiers 

www.solidariteit.info 2009 - 2013 

Dr. Els Sol and Dr. Marloes de Graaf-Zijl a.o. www.fl exworkresearch.org 2005 - continued 

Prof. Kea Tijdens, Maarten van Klaveren, Stephanie 

Steinmetz. Prof. Maarten Keune, Prof. Paul 

de Beer (Chairs foundation) 

www.wageindicator.org 2000 - continued 

Prof. Kea Tijdens and Dr. Stephanie Steinmetz www.cost.esf.org/domains_actions/isch/Actions/ 

IS1004 

2011 - 2015 

Prof. Kea Tijdens and Dr. Stephanie Steinmetz 2010 - 2013 

Prof. Kea Tijdens, Maarten van Klaveren a.o. www.wageindicator.org/main/projects/wisutil 2010 - 2011 

Prof. Kea Tijdens www.wageindicator.org/main/projects/WOLIWEB 2004 - 2007 

*) extended with own funding 

41

42 

New to AIAS 

Maarten Keune 

LEERGANGEN 

AIAS leergangencyclus 

Arbeidsvraagstukken en Beleid 

Zeven dinsdagmiddagen 

Elke leergang bestaat uit zeven wekelijkse bijeenkomsten 

op dinsdagmiddag van 13.30 tot 17.00 

uur. De eerste zes bijeenkomsten zijn achtereenvolgend 

en de laatste bijeenkomst met een week 

ertussen. 

Voor wie 

De leergangen zijn bedoeld voor academici en 

HBO-ers die hun kennis over arbeidsvraagstukken 

en het beleid willen opfrissen, actualiseren en 

verdiepen. De leergang wil een kader scheppen 

voor mensen die de dagelijkse gebeurtenissen 

rond arbeid en beleid beter willen begrijpen. 

Alle leergangen in de cyclus 

A. HRM in Beeld (januari 2013) 

B. Arbeidsmarkt in Ontwikkeling 

(april 2013) 

C. Ongelijkheid en de Verzorgingsstaat 

(september 2013) 

D. Trends in Arbeidsverhoudingen 

(januari 2014) 

Inschrijving 

Per leergang kunnen maximaal vijfentwintig personen 

deelnemen. Bij meer dan vijfentwintig aanmeldingen 

zal deelname worden toegekend op 

volgorde van aanmelding. 

Leergang A. HRM in Beeld 

Programma 

Bijeenkomst 1 Introductie op het Thema HRM in Beeld 

(15/1/’13) 

Dr. Martha Meerman & Dr. Corine Boon 

Bijeenkomst 2 Werving, Selectie, Ontslag (22/1/’13) 

Prof dr. Annelies van Vianen & Prof. Dr. Evert Verhulp 

Bijeenkomst 3 Functioneren, Prestatie en Belonen (29 /1/’13) 

Dr. Kilian Wawoe & Dr. Joop Zinsmeister 

Bijeenkomst 4 Leren en Ontwikkelen (5/2/’13) 

Prof. Dr. Lideweij van der Sluis & Dr. Marianne van Woerkom 

Kosten 

De kosten voor de afzonderlijke leergangen bedragen 

€ 2290,- (BTW-vrij). Dit is inclusief consumpties, 

literatuur, afsluitende netwerkborrel. De 

leergang kan worden afgesloten met een certifi - 

caat, mits aan de opdracht van het schrijven van 

een notitie en de aanwezigheidsplicht is voldaan 

(zes van de zeven bijeenkomsten aanwezig). 

Bij inschrijving voor een tweede of derde leergang 

(door dezelfde persoon binnen één cyclus) ontvangt 

u 5% korting op de cursusprijs. Bij inschrijving 

van de vierde leergang (door dezelfde persoon), 

zodat de hele leergangencyclus gevolgd 

wordt, ontvangt u op de laatste leergang 10% 

korting. 

Cursusleider: dr Martha Meerman 

Bent U van mening dat het werk al voor de helft is uitgevoerd als de juiste man op de juiste plaats beschikbaar is? 

Bent u op zoek naar antwoorden op de meer omvattende vraagstukken die schuil gaan achter veel problemen die 

zich op de werkvloer voordoen? Wist U dat HRM meer is dan alleen het inzetten van HRM instrumenten? Wilt U 

wel weer eens bijgespijkerd worden om de nieuwe ontwikkelingen die zich in het HRM vak voordoen, te begrijpen? 

Dan raden wij u de leergang HRM in Beeld aan. 

Tijdens de leergang behandelen we de verschillende onderdelen van de zogeheten HRM cyclus: de werving en selectie van personeel, de beoordeling en het 

functioneren van werknemers, de vormgeving van een baan tot een loopbaan, de participatie en betrokkenheid van werknemers bij de organisatie en dat alles om 

de organisatie van het werk zo optimaal mogelijk te laten verlopen. 

Bijeenkomst 5 Balans tussen Arbeid en Privé (12/2/’13) 

Prof. Dr. Yvonne Benschop & Dr. Joke Haafkens 

Bijeenkomst 6 HR in de arbeidsorganisatie (19/2/’13) 

Prof. Dr. Aukje Nauta & Dr. Martha Meerman 

Bijeenkomst 7 Afsluitende bijeenkomst met netwerkborrel en 

certifi caatuitreiking (5/3/’13) 

Zie voor meer informatie en registratie 

www.uva-aias.net/leergangen

LEERGANGEN 

InCompany leergang 

Basiscursus trainer medezeggenschap 

AIAS organiseert en verzorgt voor 

de Stichting Kwaliteitsregister 

Opleiders Medezeggenschap en 

de daarin vertegenwoordigde 

partijen, de beroepsvereniging 

(BVMP) en de branchevereniging 

(BVMZ), een leergang voor startende 

trainers mezeggenschap en overige 

geïnteresseerden. 

De basiscursus zal bestaan uit zesentwintig dagdelen 

opleiding. Daaronder valt: 

2-daagse bijeenkomsten 

Drie inhoudelijke kernconcepten: 

1. Strategie 

2. Sociaal beleid van de onderneming 

3. Organisatie van de achterban 

Cases 

De passieve, erkende en pro-actieve OR met een 

diversiteit aan leden 

1-daagse bijeenkomsten 

Onmisbare onderwerpen: 

1. Context en ontwikkelingen van de medezeggenschap 

2.Ontwikkelingen in arbeidsorganisaties en maatschappij 

3. Oude en nieuwe wet- en regelgeving 

Eindtermen 

● Inhoudelijk te refl ecteren op eigen vakgebied 

en de eigen rol daarin 

● Kennis op het vakgebied te verwerken en 

over te dragen 

● Gezamenlijke OR en de individuele leden van 

elk bijzonder OR toe te rusten om zijn (complexe) 

taak naar behoren te vervullen 

Inschrijving 

Per leergang zullen er circa tien personen deelnemen. 

Inschrijven is mogelijk via de AIAS website. 

Kosten 

De kosten voor de leergang bedragen € 5000,- 

(BTW-vrij). Dit is inclusief locatie, consumpties, 

en literatuur. 

Zie voor meer informatie en registratie 

www.uva-aias.net/341 

43

44 

Dr Robbert van het Kaar 

Independent member 

committee ‘improvement 

worker involvement’ 

On 1 June 2012, Dr. R.H. van het Kaar was appointed independed member of 

the newly established committee for the improvement of worker involvement 

(Commissie Bevordering Medzeggenschap, CBM). 

The CBM established by the Social and Economic Council (SER) and consists of representatives 

of employer and union federations and independent members. 

Beryl ter Haar 

Defence thesis on the Open 

Method of Coordination 

Our post-doc researcher Beryl ter 

Haar will defend her thesis Open 

Method of Coordination. An analysis 

of its meaning for the development of 

a social Europe. 

Since its introduction in 2000 as a general 

instrument to foster European integration 

the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) 

became one of the most important instruments 

for the integration of social policy 

issues. Being labelled as soft law, it has triggered 

a vivid debate about its effectiveness. 

In this thesis that is comprised by a collection 

of (mostly published) articles, Ter Haar 

contributes to this debate by providing an 

analysis of the legal nature of the OMC, the 

legal integration dynamics that are involved 

with the OMC, a quantitative analysis on 

the effectiveness of the normative guidance 

of the OMC and an analysis of how the 

OMC interacts with other EU integration 

instruments. The overall conclusion of the 

thesis is that from a mainly legal point of 

view the OMC can be more effective than 

is currently the situation due to political integration 

dynamics that do not fully use the 

integration magnitude that is created by the 

legal nature of the OMC, its dynamics and 

interaction capacity. 

Date 8 November 2012 

Time 16:15 hours 

Location Academiegebouw 

Rapenburg 67-73 

Leiden 

http://bezoekers.leidenuniv.nl/locaties/academiegebouw.html 

Books are available upon request with the 

writer (b.p.terhaar@uva.nl). 

AIAS

PEOPLE AT AIAS 

Name Position Email 

Ballafkih, H.A. (Hafi d) PhD A.H.Ballafkih@hva.nl 

Beentjes, M. (Marieke) PhD M.R.Beentjes@uva.nl 

Beer, de P.T. (Paul) Professor by Special Appointment of industrial 

relations at Henri Polak Chair 

P.T.deBeer@uva.nl 

Berg, M.C. (Maarten) Postdoc M.C.Berg@uva.nl 

Benda, L. (Luc) Jr. researcher L.Benda@uva.nl 

Besamusca, J. (Janna) PhD J.Besamusca@uva.nl 

Bogliacino, F. (Francesco) Postdoc F.Bogliacino@uva.nl 

Braak, J.T. (Jacqueline) Project leader teaching J.T.Braak@uva.nl 

Buijs, L.J. (Laurens) PhD L.J.Buijs@uva.nl 

Cremers, J. (Jan) Guest researcher/Project manager J.Cremers@uva.nl 

Eshuis, W. (Wim) Researcher W.A.Eshuis@uva.nl 

Gielen, A.H.M. (Ad) Financial project leader A.H.M.Gielen@uva.nl 

Graaf-Zijl, de M. (Marloes) Researcher M.deGraaf-Zijl@uva.nl 

Griffi th-Rozenblad, A.D.E. (Anüska) Management assistant A.D.E.Griffi th@uva.nl 

Grunell, M. (Marianne) Researcher M.Grunell@uva.nl 

Haafkens, J.A. (Joke) Researcher J.A.Haafkens@uva.nl 

Haar, ter B.P. (Beryl) Researcher B.P.terHaar@uva.nl 

Haas, C.G. (Christina) Jr. Researcher C.G.Haas@uva.nl 

Heuvel, van den N.A. (Nick) Coordinator TLM network N.A.vandenHeuvel@uva.nl 

Hogenhout, C. (Claire) Jr. researcher C.Hogenhout@uva.nl 

Hollanders, D.A. (David) Postdoc D.A.Hollanders@uva.nl 

Kaandorp, C.S. (Casper) Programmer C.S.Kaandorp@uva.nl 

Kaar, van het R.H. (Robbert) Researcher R.H.vanhetKaar@uva.nl 

Keune, M.J. (Maarten) Professor of Social Security & Labour 

Relations 

M.J.Keune@uva.nl 

Klaveren, van M. (Maarten) Researcher M.vanKlaveren@uva.nl 

Koster, F. (Ferry) Researcher F.Koster@uva.nl 

Kuiper, S.H. (Sijbren) Researcher S.H.Kuiper@uva.nl 

Lancee, B. (Bram) Postdoc B.Lancee@uva.nl 

Lepianka, D.A. (Dorota) Postdoc D.A.Lepianka@uva.nl 

Lieberton, A. (Angelique) Offi ce manager A.Lieberton@uva.nl 

Maestri, V. (Virginia) Postdoc V.Maestri@uva.nl 

Meerman, M.G.M. (Martha) Lecturer/Coordinator AIAS courses M.G.M.Meerman@hva.nl 

Ooms, T.C. (Tahnee) Student assistant T.C.Ooms@uva.nl 

Paskov, M. (Marii) PhD M.Paskov@uva.nl 

Peters, J. (John) Guest Researcher jpeters@laurentian.ca 

Ramos Martin, N.E. (Nuria) Researcher/Lecturer N.E.RamosMartin@uva.nl 

Ruitenberg, J.F. (Justine) PhD jruitenberg@iwiweb.nl 

Salverda, W. (Wiemer) Director/Professor by Special Appointment in 

Labour Markets and Inequality 

W.Salverda@uva.nl 

Sol, C.C.A.M. (Els) Researcher C.C.A.M.Sol@uva.nl 

Steinmetz, S. (Stephanie) Researcher S.Steinmetz@uva.nl 

Swagerman, A.M.M. (Anna) Student assistant A.M.M.Swagerman@uva.nl 

Tijdens, K.G. (Kea) Research coordinator K.G.Tijdens@uva.nl 

Trappenburg, M.J. (Margo) Professor by Special Appointment Socio-Political 

Aspects of the Welfare State at Drees Chair 

M.J.Trappenburg@uva.nl 

Tros, F.H. (Frank) Researcher F.H.Tros@uva.nl 

Visser, J. (Jelle) Professor of Sociology Jelle.Visser@uva.nl 

Vries, de D.H. (Danny) Postdoc D.H..deVries@uva.nl 

Werfhorst, van de H.G. (Herman) Professor of Sociology H.G..vandeWerfhorst@uva.nl 

Zwan, van der N.A.J. (Natascha) Postdoc N.A.J.vanderZwan@uva.nl 

Zwiers (Merle) Student assistant M.D.Zwiers@uva.nl 

New 

Wim Eshuis 

Researcher 

Christina Haas 

Jr. Researcher 

Sijbren Kuiper 

Researcher 

Left AIAS 

Daniëlla Brals 

Student Assistant GINI 

Antonio Firinu 

Guest researcher 

Jorn van der Horst 

Student Assistant 

Natalja Lux 

Intern 

Natascha Notten 

Researcher 

Aidan Regan 

Researcher 

Alex Schram 


Haya Stier 

Guest Researcher 

Timo van der Veen 


Matthijs Visser 

Coordinator Master HRM 

45

46 

CALL FOR PAPERS 

10 th European Conference 

of the International Labour and 

Employment Relations Association 

Amsterdam, The Netherlands 

20 - 22 June 2013 

Imagining new employment relations and new solidarities 

Over the last two decades employment and labour 

relations in Europe have undergone important 

changes. Manufacturing employment is decreasing 

and various types of service employment are 

rising, together with female participation levels. 

The standard employment relationship is losing its 

dominant position with the growing use of flexible 

and part-time contracts, temporary agency work 

and (dependent) self-employment. Segmentation 

between stronger and weaker groups is increasing. 

Social solidarity is under pressure in many 

countries as a consequence of the increasing 

diversity of populations and of the labour force. 

Collective bargaining is decentralizing but there 

are also attempts to transnationalise bargaining 

within multinationals or within certain sectors. 

Trade unions are slowly losing membership and 

power but worker involvement in social innovation 

is wanted more than ever. The role of the EU 

is getting more important and new forms of governance 

are being experimented with. Change is 

accelerating as a result of the crisis and austerity 

is leading to profound restructuring of the public 

sector, affecting employment conditions and service 

provision. 

Within this context, we want to foster a reflection 

and debate on the future of employment relations 

and new forms of solidarity. Such question include: 

What can or should employment relations 

look like in the future? What is the future of the 

public sector? Can or should growing segmentation 

and polarization be countered? What new 

types of governance support collaborative efforts 

to tackle today’s collective problems? What new 

types of solidarity can we foresee between group 

of workers or workers in different countries? What 

new types of cooperation or conflict can we foresee 

between workers and employers? 

www.ilera-europe2013.eu 

Abstract submission 

The organizing committee invites you to submit abstracts 

for the 10 th European ILERA Conference. Abstracts 

must be 350-500 words in length and can be 

submitted on the conference website as of 1 May 2012. 

Papers presented at the Conference will be organised 

around five broad tracks (for more detailed descriptions, 

see conference website): 

Track 1: Industrial relations actors in changing labour 

market 

Track 2: Europeanisation of social and employment 

policies 

Track 3: Public sector restructuring: consequences 

for employment relations and public services 

Track 4: New forms of regulation and governance 

Track 5: HRM and Social Innovation 

Abstract submission deadline: 31 December 2012 

Acceptance decisions will be communicated by: 

1 February 2013 

Apart from regular sessions with paper presentations 

there will be interactive sessions with short presentations. 

Symposia 

We welcome proposals for special symposia. Symposia 

are self-contained sessions of one and a half hour. 

They can be on the general theme of the conference or 

on one of the track themes. See for details.the Conference 

website as of 1 May 2013. 

Conference Venue 

The conference will be held at the historic Oudemanhuispoort 

building of the University of Amsterdam, 

located in the city centre. 

Organising Committee 

The Conference is organized by a consortium of universities 

in the Netherlands in collaboration with the 

Dutch Labour and Employment Relations Association 

(DLERA).

CALL FOR PAPERS 

Conference on Regulating for Equitable 

and Job-Rich Growth 

Geneva, 3-5 July 2013 

The University of Amsterdam/AIAS, Kea Tijdens is collaborating with the International Labour Offi ce (ILO) for the Third 

Regulating Decent Work (RDW) Conference, on the theme of Regulating for Equitable and Job-Rich Growth, to be held 

at the International Labour Offi ce, Geneva, Switzerland on 3-5 July 2013. 

The Conference is organized by the International Labour Offi ce in collaboration with AIAS, the University of Melbourne 

Centre for Employment and Labour Relations Law (CELRL), the University of Manchester Fairness at Work Research 

Centre (FaWRC) Research Group and the University of Duisburg-Essen Institut Arbeit und Qualifi kation (IAQ). 

Network participants and interested researchers are encouraged to submit an abstract by the closing date of 31 

January 2013. Limited RDW Fellowships are available to assist researchers in developing countries to participate in the 

Conference. The deadline for Fellowship applications is 31 December 2012. 

The global fi nancial crisis continues to generate 

spiralling unemployment, precarious 

work, inequality, and pressure on collective 

bargaining, threatening economic and social 

stability in many parts of the world. Unease 

about the austerity agenda is accompanied 

by a growing recognition that the post-crisis 

world should not return to “business as 

usual.” Rather, more effective and balanced 

models should be adopted, which would integrate 

employment creation in growth policies 

and meet equally important objectives: 

equity, security, job quality. While emerging 

and developing economies have escaped the 

brunt of the recession, the debate continues 

on how to extend labour market institutions 

into the informal economy, with a focus on 

particularly vulnerable groups, such as domestic 

workers. The infl uence of multinational 

enterprises in these countries, meanwhile, 

sustains an ongoing refl ection on the 

role of non-state actors in regulating labour 

markets. At the global level, a striking feature 

of recent policy discourses is the use of 

legal indices to evaluate and compare labour 

law regimes. These indices are increasingly 

relied on both to underpin policy guidance 

and to justify legal reform. The 2013 RDW 

Conference will centre on the role of labour 

market regulation when job creation is the 

paramount objective. Papers are invited 

to address labour market regulation’s ideal 

post-crisis form, with a special focus on 

four thematic issues: 

a. comparing and evaluating labour regulation 

systems; 

b. regulating informal work; 

c. industrial and employment relations for 

inclusive growth; 

d. new patterns of segmentation and new 

challenges for promoting inclusive labour 

markets. 

For whom 

Researchers from all regions are welcome. 

In past years, the Conference has attracted 

researchers from a range of fi elds that include 

law, economics, industrial relations, 

development studies and geography. 

Conference tracks 

Track 1: Comparing and evaluating labour regulation 

systems: theory, methodology and new evidence 

Coordinators: Sandrine Cazes, Sangheon 

Lee, Deirdre McCann 

Track 2: Regulating informal work 

Coordinators: Colin Fenwick, John Howe 

Track 3: Industrial and employment relations for 

inclusive growth 

Coordinators: Kea Tijdens, Susan Hayter, 

Chang-Hee Lee 

Track 4: New patterns of segmentation and new 

challenges for promoting inclusive labour markets 

Coordinators : Gerhard Bosch, Jill Rubery 

Submission of abstracts 

The organizing committee invites you to 

submit abstracts for the 2013 RDW 

Conference: 

• Abstracts should be in English. 

• Abstracts must have a maximum of 400 

words including references and appendices. 

• Abstracts can be submitted on the conference 

website, http://rdw.law.unimelb.edu.au/ 

• The author(s) should indicate their preferred 

Conference track. 

• Deadline for abstract submission (general): 

31 January 2013. 

• Deadline for abstract submission (RDW 

fellowship applicants): 31 Dec. 2012 

The abstracts will be subject to a competitive 

review process. Guidelines for fi nal papers 

will be communicated to the authors 

of selected abstracts. It is expected that 

an edited volume will be produced, drawn 

from selected conference papers. 

See for all the information http://rdw.law. 

unimelb.edu.au 

47


AIAS lunch 

seminars 

AIAS organises fortnightly seminars on various 

subjects. Abstracts of the presentations will be put 

online and send to you, one week in advance. 

Day: Thursday, every fortnight 

Time: 12.15 – 13.15 hrs. 

Location: AIAS, 3rd fl oor, Plantage Muidergracht 12 

Amsterdam, the Netherlands 

Enrol: Please send an email to aias@uva.nl. A sandwich 

will then be provided. 

Please send us an email (aias@uva.nl) if you want to be put on the 

mailing list for the lunch/reading seminars. You will then receive an 

email about one week before the lunch seminar with all the information 

and the abstract. 

18 October 

Maarten van Klaveren and Kea Tijdens (AIAS) 

Multinational enterprises through the crisis: employment patterns in Europe 

1 November 

Maria Fleischmann (Erasmus University Rotterdam) 

tba 

15 November 

Luc Benda and Kea Tijdens (AIAS) 

tba 

29 November 

Antonio García-Muñoz Alhambra (Guest at AIAS) 

The European sectoral social dialogue 

13 December 

Beryl ter Haar (AIAS) 

The meaning of the open method of coordination for the development of 

a social Europe 

Please go to the website www.uva-aias.net /calendar for all 

the latest information on these lunch seminars. 

Amsterdam Institute 

for Advanced labour Studies 

UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM 

ANNOUNCEMENTS 

RESQ & 

Flexworkresearch 

Conference 

RESQ Conference (www.resqresearch.org) at the University of 

Amsterdam with amongst other topics an exchange of information 

on the state of the art in (reforms of) re-employment services 

in the members’ countries during lunch to lunch Wednesday 23 th 

– Thursday 24 th October 2013. More info and call for papers to 

follow later this year. 

Followed by 

Flexworkresearch (www.fl exworkresearch.org) Conference 

hosted by University of Amsterdam, Erasmus University and 

EuroCiett ‘Labour Market Policies in Europe: public – private cooperation 

2.0’, Thursday 24 th – Friday 25 th October 2013, to be 

held in Amsterdam, Vakbondsmuseum, The Netherlands. More 

info and call for papers to follow later this year. 

ILERA Europe 2013 

On 20 - 22 June 2013, the European Conference of the International 

Labour and Employment Relations Association takes place in 

Amsterdam at the Faculty of Law of the University of Amsterdam. 

See for the Call for Papers page 46 of this newsletter or 

www.ilera-europe2013.eu. 

Regulating Decent 

Work Conference 

AIAS is collaborating with the International Labour Offi ce for the 

3 rd Regulating Decent Work Conference, on the theme of Regulating 

for Equitable and Job-Rich Growth, to be held at the International 

Labour Offi ce, Geneva, Switzerland on 3-5 July 2013. 

See for the Call for Papers page 47 of this newsletter or 

http://rdw.law.unimelb.edu.au. 

UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM

AIAS newsletter Autumn 2012 TW.indd

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