AIAS newsletter Autumn 2012 TW.indd

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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
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AIAS newsletter Autumn 2012 TW.indd

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