Industrial Relations in Europe 2012 - European Commission - Europa

Portugal
The number of low-paid workers in the public sector has increased due to
wage cuts.
Romania Low- paid workers have increased in the public sector due to a wage cut of 25
per cent in 2011.
United Kingdom Increase in low-paid workers in the public sector due to a shift of many public
sector employees from full-time to involuntary part-time working.
Gender inequality has also been fuelled by public sector adjustments, as a result of the
traditional importance of the public sector for women’s employment, access to higher
positions and more flexible time and work and family arrangements.
Job losses in the public sector have also contributed to increasing the workload and working
hours of those public sector employees who remain, while overtime rates have been reduced
or frozen in a number of countries. The simultaneous reduction in expenditure has also
reduced the human and material resources available for delivering public services, which have
generally remained at the same levels or have actually increase – as is the case in health and
education.
The absence of social dialogue in the reform process and the abolition of a number of
provisions that encouraged collective bargaining in the public sector have also contributed to
a worsening of working conditions in the public sector. The public sector could therefore be
seen as having lost its role as a model employer, offering job security, collective bargaining,
codetermination and good pay and working conditions, instead converging with private sector
practices.
These changes and the way they have been implemented have triggered a wave of
demonstrations and strikes by public sector employees – often joined by other social groups –
throughout Europe.
Future prospects for human capital and job quality in the public sector are also under threat.
Not only have deteriorating wages and working conditions in the public sector and high
unemployment led to significant emigration – especially among doctors, nurses and teachers –
but the public sector has stopped attracting the quantities of young qualified graduates which
hitherto have been its lifeblood.
All of these changes – especially when resulting in a growing mismatch between increasing
demand and falling supply – cannot be neutral for the future quality of public services. This is
already to be observed in education and health care in some countries – on indicators such as
a lower ratio of teachers to students in the classes and longer waiting lists for admission to
hospitals – but also threatens the efficiency of the public administration.
While the public sector reform process continues in Europe, it will be important to continue
such monitoring, especially as it will be possible to evaluate the effects of the current reforms
in more detail only as more data become available in the course of time.
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