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EUROPEAN REVIEW
ISSUE 39 - Page 5
Has labour law rethink thrown out security?
After
consulting all sides on labour law reform (see issue 37), and amid much
talk of preserving the ‘European Social Model’ the European Commission
has produced a communication on ‘flexicurity’ which has not pleased
unions and some groups in the European Parliament. We examine their
criticisms and ways to improve the proposal.
BEING CONSULTED DOES NOT ALWAYS mean you have the final say. This might
be self-evident to experienced negotiators, particularly in trade
unions, but its truth was underlined again when the European Commission
published its conclusions on ‘flexicurity’. After a Green Paper on
labour law reform emphasised this approach based on protecting workers
rather than jobs and using life-long learning and enhanced social
security to encourage mobility, unions and other interested parties
contributed their views. They argued for a balance ‘between the needs
of adaptable enterprises /workplaces and a long-term objective of
human, social and sustainable development’ with the over-riding aim
being more and better jobs. Workers trapped in dead-end rôles
where their potential is never realised and their working time is set
in stone would welcome more flexibility, according to the European
Trade Union Confederation (ETUC). But hand in hand with such change
must go employment protection laws and early warning of redundancies so
that employees have the confidence to embrace it. Even then the ETUC
believes that flexicurity will not create one extra job on its own
without government economic policies which stimulate growth. This
happened in Denmark before the adoption of much-lauded flexible labour
market policies in that country. Lastly the ETUC praised social
dialogue as the means by which flexibility and security is actually
balanced in the workplace. Good relations between employers and unions
can reduce staff turnover by conflict resolution and set ground rules
for all companies so that they have to compete on productivity rather
than by constantly lowering wages.
Loosening the law
Well, the Commission received this well-researched and clearly
thought-out advice and came up with a document that was much less to
the taste of the union side. The ETUC detected an emphasis on loosening
the law on dismissals in the communication ‘Towards Common Principles
of Flexicurity: More and better jobs through flexibility and security’.
While the Commission seems to accept many of the union arguments, for
instance for more training throughout working life and earlier warning
of possible job losses, it appears to believe that, in return,
‘dismissal procedures can be made considerably lighter, less costly and
less time consuming’. Strict Employment Protection Legislation (EPL) is
seen as discriminatory towards groups like women and young people as it
encourages employers to give them only temporary contracts so that they
can be dismissed when necessary. However the Commission agrees with
unions that EPL promotes training investment in long-term employees who
are more likely to be loyal and to show high productivity.
The ETUC, in response, rejected the notion that reforms in fields such
as training or social security should lead to the replacement of job
protection with transition to new posts. ‘We are worried about the
current expansion of precarious jobs in Europe. Giving companies more
freedom to dismiss, which appears to be the core idea of the
Communication, will only make matters worse’, said General Secretary
John Monks.
There was a similar reaction to a report on the same subject in the
European Parliament. An MEP from the centre-right EPP group produced
the document as a response to the Commission’s consultation but
Socialist representatives called it ‘a caricature of neo-liberal
doctrine’ and indicated that its approach was ‘contrary to the proven
one of “flexicurity”, with its balance between security and labour
flexibility’. Socialist rapporteur Ole Christensen proposed a new
report which could serve as a basis for negotiation.
It seems that this is only the start of a long road to getting an
acceptable, modernised labour law in the EU which does not throw out
the ‘curity’ in favour of the ‘flexi’
