Findings from the Policy Pillar

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Findings from the Policy Pillar
Pamela Meil

• The Changing Context of Policy Development
• The WORKS Contribution and Findings
• Conclusions and Challenges for Policy under Value
  Chain Restructuring

WORKS final international conference Rome
Italy, 8-9 October 2008
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Findings from the Policy PillarPolicy Report
Chapter Titles

• Supporting social governance in global value
  chain restructuring the role of social partners
  and participation (ATK)
• Educational systems, retraining and skilling
  practices in restructuring (UPSPS and UT)
• Equal opportunity policies and practice (UPSPS)
• Flexible work and employment practices policy
  challenges (ISF)
• Welfare regimes and future scenarios for policy
  (FFCT-UNL and UT)

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Findings from the Policy PillarThe Changing
Context of Policy /1

• There has been a shift in basic propositions
  defining the regulation landscape of Europe
• Whereas traditional wage bargaining and generous
  social benefits were regarded as public goods,
  they are now viewed as a drag on national
  efficiency (from Jacoby)
• The role of the welfare state as an institutional
  arrangement to offset the structural asymmetry
  of the employment relationship is being called
  into question (from Mares)
• The contradiction between the goals of improving
  competition and protecting the interests of
  labour seems to have widened
• Financial driven company strategies make
  traditional terrains of negotiation obsolete

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Findings from the Policy PillarThe Changing
Context of Policy /2
European Union
Firms Industrial relations institutions/employer
associations Firm based works councils Professiona
l organisations Communities of practice
Employers/Managers Collective Actors Occupational
groups Individuals
State Region Sector
Policy formulation is refracted through the
different social structural contexts in different
countries Institutional and historical contexts
shape structures, expectations, norms and
discourse (solidarity
liberalism universalism) This
shapes What is designed?, Which actors are
involved? The links between actors and
institutions The national or state context does
not produce unilateral outcomes these are
mediated by occupation and sector and the
institutions which are already in place
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Findings from the Policy PillarA Complex
Regulation Landscape
EU priniciples of social policy

• Freedom of labour mobility
• Fair employment and remuneration practices i.e.
  part-time work rights
• Freedom of association and collective bargaining
• Education and training
• Equal treatment non-discrimination
• Rights for workplace participation and
  consultation
• Workplace health and safety standards
• Protection of children, the elderly, the disabled

Controls Monitoring
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The Role of Value Chain RestructuringWORKS
Contributions and Findings
?
Challenges for policy in light of value chain
restructuring?
Deviation between laws and practice at the level
of work? Which trends in work and employment
affected by value chain restructuring require
a/which policy response?
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Findings from the Policy PillarIssues and
Contributions from WORKS Flexibility
Relevance to Policy Flexibility is one of the
main instruments used by companies to achieve
cost saving effects the forms and strategies
have a major impact on quality and content of
work as well as quality of worklife

• The value chain facilitates the bypassing of
  employment protection by using outsourcing
  strategies for numerical flexibility
• Flexibility strategies, particularly in
  corporatist institutional settings, reinforce
  core- non/core distinctions
• Core workers are nonetheless increasingly under
  pressure
• Flexibility demands are unevenly distributed
  along the value chain, creating unequal working
  conditions between units and sites
• The public sector in customer service and IT
  service provision is increasingly a target for
  flexibility strategies, leading to fragmentation
  of employment
• Uses of temporal and spatial flexibility vary by
  sector
• Varieties of models for working time flexibility
  abound, some more favourable to companies, other
  to workers

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Findings from the Policy PillarRepresentation
and Industrial Relations

• 1. Workplace representation anchored in national
  and sectoral settings
• Influences its structure, negotiated issues and
  limits role in restructuring process
• 2. Value chain restructuring intensifies power
  differences between labour and management by
  creating larger, diffuse units, complex networks
  and remote contacts
• 3. Effects of EU regulations (TUPE on transfer
  rights of part-time workers)
• Not very visible at workplace or in consciousness
  of workers for restructuring issues (EWCs
  information and consultation are minimal)
• Important tools for representation in weakly
  organised, weak institutional systems
• Sector differences in the role of representation
  are high

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Findings from the Policy PillarRepresentation
and Industrial Relations

• Prevention/resistance
• Socially responsible change
• Protection (core vs. non-core)
• No response

Response Types
country and sector effects

• Process and form of restructuring
• How it takes place
• Effects at the workplace
• Terms and conditions of employment
• Skill
• Work content and organisation
• Beyond the workplace
• Effects and conditions at outsourced and
  offshored sites
• International or transnational governance
• Effects on individual workers

Response Dimensions
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Findings from the Policy PillarConclusions and
Challenges for Policy under Value Chain
Restructuring

• Processes relevant for policy development are not
  uniform across countries or sectors the
  orientation for policy development differs
• Multilevel governance is needed
• Weakness in existing policy in implementation and
  lack of attention to distribution of
  inequalities across the value chain
• Better monitoring and enforcement
• Balancing generality and specificity in policy
  formulation.
• Issues differ in the ability to formulate policy
  and regulate them levels of subjectivity
  existing contexts and legacies, expectations and
  discourse play a role. Value chain restrucutring
  impacts greatly on issues involving precarious
  negotiation