.gif){kind=small}
BACK TO HOME
PAGE BACK TO HOME
PAGE EUROPEAN REVIEW
SACKED WORKERS who have taken their case to an industrial tribunal are having to wait for a ruling from the European Court of Justice before getting a hearing. There has been a stay on cases brought by workers who do not qualify under for unfair dismissal under the two year qualifying period, while the Court gets ready to pronounce on the ruling of it's top legal adviser that this period is unlawful. The legal opinion was offered in July by the Advocat-General and in most cases a ruling follows from the Court of Justice along the same lines.
The Advocat-General decided that the UK's two year period for unfair dismissal, soon to be replaced by one year as part of the Fairness at Work Government proposals, indirectly discriminates against women. Camden Law Centre challenged the legality of the two year qualifying period on these grounds as women were more likely than men to fall short of the two years in the same job condition. Camden's case, known as the case of Seymour-Smith, went to the House of Lords which is the highest court of appeal. Their lordships referred various legal questions to the European Court of Justice. If the Court concurs with the Advocat-General the floodgates could be opened to thousands of claims from employees who have been unfairly dismissed.
The People's Europe conference held in London in June heard conflicting solutions to the problem of European unemployment. Currently 18 million people are out of work across the EU, but Peter Coldrick, deputy head of the European TUC, said that creating jobs is 'in itself no problem'. Mr. Coldrick told the assembled audience at a conference workshop that Europe had been in recession for more than 20 years. What is needed now, he said, were policies to create demand in order to fuel growth. 'Keynesianism in one country does not work. We have EMU and the question is what are we going to do with it. A bold European-wide growth initiative is now practicable'.
However, Richard Layard of the LSE and a government adviser begged to differ. 'The problem is not how to create jobs but to do so without generating inflation', he said. 'In western Europe it is obvious that we're reaching the limit of our employment potential. There is a mismatch between what workers expect and what employers want'. The conference, held at the LSE, was organised by the People's Europe 98. The organisers may continue after the conference but have not yet decided in what capacity. Mike Power is the TUC representative on the executive committee, and the conference was jointly funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the European Commission. The event attracted 1,100 people, the biggest turn-out for any European conference in Britain. The anti-EU stance was also represented.
THE GOVERNMENT has posted its national action plan for employment (NAP) with the European Commission, after calls for member states to get tough on unemployment at last year's job summit. The UK's plan is known to everyone in this country as the New Deal, Denmark plans to foster an enterprise culture, Finland wants to reform its vocational training system, Luxembourg sees job creation in the social economy and the Netherlands wants to increase employability. Sweden is moving towards national targets on cutting long-term unemployment. The UK Government pledged to cut unemployment among the under-25 year olds by 250,000 within four years prior to last year's election. The European Commission have criticised the plans for focusing, in general, on enterprise and employability. The full list of plans is available on the internet.
UP TO 28 MILLION people work in Europe's black economy and most of them have a regular job, according to figures revealed by the Commission last month. The biggest unofficial sector is in Greece where it is estimated that up to 35 per cent of the country's gross domestic product is produced on the black market, while Finland's undeclared workers are responsible for only 2-4% of GDP.
|
Back to |
Forward to |
Up to |
