Unsocial Europe

Anne Gray

Description

How and why are European welfare systems and the labour market changing? How do they affect the daily lives of those facing unemployment or precarious work?



Anne Gray shows how the idea of unemployment benefits as a right is evolving into a regime closer to American 'workfare'. She explains how this policy forces the unemployed into low paid, temporary or part-time jobs associated with the new 'flexible' labour market. Drawing on unemployed people’s own accounts of their experiences - in the UK, Germany, France and Belgium - Gray illustrates the job market as seen from the dole queue. Exploring the changing nature of work in Europe, Gray reveals why is there a shortage of full-time permanent jobs, what is to be done, and what the future holds for labour market regulation in Europe.



Providing clear explanations about shifts in welfare policy, this book is ideal for trade unionists, activists and students, and makes an important contribution to wider debates on globalisation and the future of work.
1. Introduction

2. The Welfare State And The Unwaged: Past, Present And Future

3. Globalisation, Welfare And Labour

4. The Role Of The European Union

5. Benefits Enforcing Work

6. Flexploitation And The Unemployed

7. Labour Market Deregulation: Debates And Struggles

8. The Drift Towards Workfare In Europe

9. Conclusion: Alternatives To Workfare And Flexploitation

Glossary

Web Sites

Bibliography

Index

Sujets

• Public Policy
• POLITICAL SCIENCE
• Employabilité, métiers et formations
• Economics
• Business
• Union européenne
• Labor
• Labour
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: Pluto Press
• Date de parution: 20 octobre 2004
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781849641845
• Langue: English

Extrait

Unsocial Europe
Social Protection or Flexploitation?
Anne Gray
Pluto P Press
LONDON ANN ARBOR, MI
GGray 00 prelims iiiray 00 prelims iii 77/9/04 2:04:10 pm/9/04 2:04:10 pmFirst published 2004 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
and 839 Greene Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48106
www.plutobooks.com
Copyright © Anne Gray 2004
The right of Anne Gray to be identified as the author of this work
has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0 7453 2032 5 hardback0 7453 2031 7 paperback
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Designed and produced for Pluto Press by
Chase Publishing Services, Fortescue, Sidmouth, EX10 9QG, England
Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England
Printed and bound in the European Union by
Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne, England
GGray 00 prelims ivray 00 prelims iv 77/9/04 2:04:10 pm/9/04 2:04:10 pmContents
Tables, Boxes and Figures vi
Acknowledgements vii
Abbreviations ix
1 Introduction 1
2 The Welfare State and the Unwaged: Past, Present and
Future 16
3 Globalisation, Welfare and Labour 34
4 The Role of the European Union 54
5 Benefi ts Enforcing Work 81
6 Flexploitation and the Unemployed 112
7 Labour Market Deregulation: Debates and Struggles 136
8 The Drift Towards Workfare in Europe 160
9 Conclusion: Alternatives to Workfare and Flexploitation 189
Notes 201
Bibliography 210
Web Sites 226
Index 227
GGray 00 prelims vray 00 prelims v 77/9/04 2:04:11 pm/9/04 2:04:11 pmTables, Boxes and Figures
TABLES
2.1 Statistical portraits of seven countries 20
3.1 Trends in dependency ratios 41
4.1 A chronology of policy developments in European
integration 1951–97 57
4.2 Selected key EU labour directives 60
4.3 Key meetings of the European Council 1997–2002 70
5.1 Replacement rates, duration and coverage of
unemployment insurance benefi ts 1991–95 84
5.2 Benefi ts from all sources as a percentage of a low wage
1995–99 85
5.3 Expenditure on unemployment benefi ts per unemployed
person, as a percentage of GDP per capita 86
5.4 Changes in income maintenance benefi ts (rates and
availability) since 1990 88
6.1 Differences in job quality; those leaving
unemployment compared to others 113
8.1 Some key distinctions among active labour market
programmes 162
BOXES
5.1 What’s a reasonable wage to expect? 103
6.1 The jobs nobody wants 124
6.2 Who gets temporary jobs 125
6.3 What’s wrong with temporary work? 127
6.4 Agencies and safety 129
7.1 Some key UK disputes about casualisation 146
7.2 The employer’s right to switch to agency hiring 147
8.1 Workfare placements on the New Deal in Chesterfi eld 171
8.2 German unemployed people’s comments on workfare
assignments 179
FIGURES
7.1 Flexibilisation and the degradation of labour standards 150
vi
GGray 00 prelims viray 00 prelims vi 77/9/04 2:04:11 pm/9/04 2:04:11 pmAcknowledgements
Thanks are due, in the fi rst place, to all the research partners in
the project ‘Minima Sociaux et Condition Salariale’ on which parts
of this book are based: Cathérine Lévy (coordinator), CNRS, Paris;
Estelle Krzeslo, Université Libre de Bruxelles; Stephen Bouquin,
VUB, Brussels; Martin Gueck, University of Heidelberg. Secondly,
to the European Commission for fi nancing that project. Thirdly,
to London South Bank University for hosting the author while
doing the research. Fourthly, to the four unemployed workers’
centres who hosted focus groups and helped to contact unwaged
people to take part: The Crossing, Lowestoft; Norwich Unemployed
Workers’ Centre; Brighton and Hove Unemployed Workers’ Centre;
and Derbyshire Unemployed Workers’ Centres, Chesterfi eld, who
also organised a survey of New Deal participants. Likewise to the
Vocational Training Initiative, Waltham Forest, and to New Deal
training staff in Bradford, for helping to set up focus groups. Fifth, the
author thanks several individuals for their comments on particular
chapters: Regan Scott, Les Levidow, Pauline Bradley, Richard Chilvers
and Alec Johnson. Sixth, much appreciation to Katy Andrews for
her comments and editing support on the whole manuscript, and
for sorting out the bibliography. Any errors and omissions remain
entirely the responsibility of the author.
vii
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ALE Agence Locale d’Emploi
ALMP active labour market programme
ANPE Agence Nationale pour le promotion de l’Emploi
DWP Delors White Paper
EC European Commission
ECHP European Community Household Panel
ECSC European Coal and Steel Community
EEC European Economic Community
EIRO European Industrial Relations Observatory
EMU European Monetary Union
EPL employment protection legislation
ERT European Round Table
ETUC European Trade Union Confederation
EU European Union
GATS General Agreement on Trade and Services
GDP Gross Domestic Product
HZA Hilfe zur Arbeit
ILO International Labour Organisation
IMF International Monetary Fund
JSA Jobseeker’s Allowance
MDRC Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation
NAPs/incl National Action Plans on Inclusion
NJTS New Job Training Scheme
OECD Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development
PARE Plan d’Aide au Retour à l’Emploi
RMA Revenu Minimum d’Activité
RMI Revenu d’Insertion
SUD Solidaire, Unitaire, Démocratique
TUC Trade Union Congress
UNICE Union of Industrial and Employers’ Confederation of
Europe
WPSP White Paper on Social Policy
WTO World Trade Organization
ix
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Introduction
WELFARE, WORK AND GLOBALISATION
This book attempts to address two gaps in the literature about
international comparison of welfare systems. Firstly, the way in which
benefits systems, changing forms of work and labour regulation
interact with each other, especially in the context of globalisation
and the progress of European integration. Secondly, the testimony
of unwaged people themselves on how welfare systems and labour
market policies affect their daily lives, as they struggle with employers
and benefit rules, living on a pittance or in and out of short-term jobs.
The dry bureaucratic language of ‘active labour market measures’,
‘availability for work testing’ and ‘wage flexibility’ is transformed by
their accounts from the front line into a human reality; the 10 per
cent of Europe’s citizens whose voices are too rarely heard.
Globalisation, the merging of national economies towards one
giant playing field for large companies, is distinctively different from
the ‘internationalisation of capital’ through investment flows that
has been going on for over 150 years. Globalisation involves greater
opportunities for companies to shift production anywhere, so that
European bank customers can be served by call centres in India,
and car plants can move to cheap-labour countries. This process is
assisted by the breaking down of trade and investment barriers, and
by technological change especially in communications and transport.
Globalisation has had a profound impact on Europe’s economies and
social policies. Companies who can move or outsource production
across the world have far less interest in preserving and nurturing
a particular national labour force than the Krupps or Rowntrees of
the nineteenth century. ‘Regime shopping’ for the most
businessfriendly tax and regulatory environments becomes common. Taxing
profits to provide a ‘social wage’ whether in cash or in services is no
longer so easy. But nor is it so difficult as often maintained; widely
differing levels of business taxes persist between countries. The
tendency towards international equalisation of rates of profit, which
supplies the apparent constraint on tax policies, is expressed only in
imperfect capital markets, leaving considerable differences in rates
1
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of return and business investment horizons. Globalisation has also
impeded freedom of manoeuvre in macro-economic management,
through the greater scale and unpredictability of international capital
movements. Keynesianism in one country becomes more difficult
than ever. But Keynesianism in a large bloc, such as the European
Union, should surely have some prospects. The current policies of
the EU, with very tight limits on public spending and borrowing,
seem to be a missed opportunity. The Maastricht framework has
put an international seal of approval on the pessimism with which
many European governments had begun to regard Keynesian policy
instruments, pushing them further towards neo-liberal supply side
policies to deal with unemployment that throw the responsibility
more on to unemployed people themselves than their governments.
This is perhaps an example of a third impact of globalisation: the
emergence of a supranational level of economic policy coordination,
which is beyond democratic control and susceptible more to the
influence of the right than the left. But this supranational level goes
much further than a presumption against Keynesianism. There is a
similarity between the policy prescriptions of the OECD and those of
the European Commission that can barely be accounted for by mere
consensus among technical experts; it is the consensus of those whose
brief it is to maintain, without reference to the shifting class forces
of national politics, the foundations of the capitalist system. Hence
a profound fatalism in these institutions that the rate of profit and
the apparent ‘needs’ of employers can rarely be challenged
Since the recession of the 1980s, the quality of jobs in Europe
appears to be declining for the unskilled and most of all for those
struggling to find employment. Some ex