*** MARJORIE JOUEN: European Action to Promote Local Employment. Notre Europe (44 rue Notre-Dame des Victoires, F-75002 Paris. Tel.: (33-1) 53009440 - fax: 53009444 - E-mail: notreeurope@notre-europe.asso.fr - Internet: http: //http://www.notre-europe.asso.fr ). Collection "European Issues", n° 6. 2000, 46 p..
Also available in French and Spanish (and present on the study group site of Notre Europe, founded by Jacques Delors in 1996), this study concerns a relatively recent phenomenon which, although indisputably bears its fruit in the form of the creation of tens of thousands of jobs, was not so obvious only yesterday. Jacques Delors himself recalls in his foreword: when in 1993, in the "White Paper" on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment, and in 1994, at the Essen Summit, "the European Commission considered services responding to the new needs of the population and local development as paths to combat unemployment, the bet could have appeared hazardous". But since then, he adds, the results secured have proved it to be right and "national governments like local authorities have accompanied this movement that came from the grassroots by launching programmes to exploit the new pools of employment and at time adapting the financing and legal structures".
Marjorie Jouen sets about tracing this experiment undertaken since 1994 and drawing some enlightening lessons. As it happens, the author is an expert in the matter: did she not, from 1994 to 1998, coordinate the inter-services group on "local development and employment initiatives" as member of the European commission's Forward Planning Cell? Whence her outlook is that of the expert who, on the basis of an intellectual experience always considered to be capable of raising enthusiasm, intends making it bear fruit on the ground and prepare the latter to that effect. Such is the sense of this enlightening overview that leads one to envisage the future of this employment policy on the basis of the of recognition that was hers through the priorities selected for Community structural actions for the years 2000-2006. All of which leads Marjorie Jouen to launch an appeal for "substantial reforms", the truth being, she explains, that, if the EU "intends continuing to exploit this path that fortunately allies the social., economic and territorial dimensions of the European project, the European Commission has a new role of monitoring and forward-thinking". For her, the Commission can no longer simply content itself with drawing up sophisticated regulations and control their implementation in member states: its power of initiative should force it, in this field, to "place itself in a position of precursor vis-a-vis member states". A sentence, you will have understood, that goes beyond the social.
Michel Theys
*** GABRIEL GUERY: Restructuration d'entreprises en Europe. Dimension sociale. De Boeck & Larcier (for details, see below). Collection "Bibliothèque de droit social". 1999, 330 p., BEF 1.780, FF 290. ISBN 2-8041-2645-5.
Who doesn't remember Vilvoorde, this municipality of greater Brussels which, not so long ago, housed a Renault plant now lying in a state of industrial waste? Today, no Member State is immune to such a social disaster, and that is why this book comes at the right time. Which is something Sean Van Raepenbusch, public auditor at the Court of Justice, summarises perfectly in his preface: "In this period of company restructuring in Europe, marked by the use of social distortion as factor for increasing competition (recent relocations decided by some American or European firms (…) have demonstrated that this risk is far from being theoretical on the Community territory), this work by Mr. Guery provides a valuable analysis of social provisions drawn up at European level, intended to guarantee a minimum protection for workers in the framework of their working relations" Professor at the School of Management E.M. Lyon and lawyer, in this work, clear in both its structure and what it has to say, Gabriel Guery proceeds with an updated overview of the social dimension - so often forgotten, except when a crisis breaks out - of company restructuring. Following a general introduction in which he turns to the sources of Community social legislation, the substance of the directives, failing responsibility of the State and implementation of internal law by national judges, the author meticulously analyses the three provisions the Community provided itself with, in the 70s, to take account of the concerns of employees of restructured companies and attempt best to safeguard their interests. The first of these instruments is the 1975 directive (the text of which he highlights, while taking account of the changes made to it in 1992 and 1998) relating to the protection of workers faced with collective redundancies for economic reasons. Methodically and in turn, he analyses the field of application of this protection (intervention by workers' representatives through information and consultation, intervention by the administrative authorties, notification of the redundancies to the workers concerned, sanctions and the revealing case of Vilvoorde) and, finally, French legislation governing social planning. He then studies the 1977 Directive relating to the protection of workers faced with company transfers, following an identical methodology: geographical and material field of application of the directive, working population concerned (identity of the beneficiaries and inventory of the non-beneficiaries), intervention by workers' representatives (their compulsory appointment and their form of intervention) and maintenance of workers' rights (the situation of the transferees and those of the assignors, in turn). He ends this part with an assessment of the appropriateness, for the transferees, of the 1981 directive on worker information on their working conditions, which leads him to devote several pages to the European Works Councils. The last directive that Gabriel Guery turns his ever-didactic analytic scalpel to is that of 1980 on worker protection faced with the insolvency of the employer, which leads him to present the conditions for the insolvency-assurance, how the system works and the social protection of workers. A demonstration that highlights all the importance of Court action.
(MT)
*** JUAN CARMONA-SCHNEIDER, RENATO DI RUZZA, SERGE LE ROUX, MARC VANDERCAMMEN: Le travail à distance. Analyses syndicales et enjeux européens. De Boeck & Larcier (Distribution: Accès+, 4 Fond Jean-Pâques, B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve. Tel.: (32) 010482500 - 010482519 - E-mail: acces+@deboeck.be). 1999, 252 p., BEF 1.160, FF 190. ISBN 2-8041-3341-9.
This book is both interesting and instructive in that it provides a trade union vision - disparate and convergent - of the post-industrial society in which we are now engaged, and of which the European Council of Lisbon only took note. Disparate in that the three institutes involved in this research into this distancing of work through new information and communication technologies are attached to three different trade union patches (Germany, France and Belgium); convergent in that the different sensitivities stemming from them converge on the same goal: building a future to emerge from a variety of today's forms. As Anita Rozenholc explains in the preface, tele-work has now become - and will increasingly be so - something of a "normal method of production", so much so that "networking, backed by the use of distribution services, the internet and intranet, will, in the very near future, become the most appropriate method, be it through employer demand or demands of public service". But, faced with this ®evolution, one needs to understand the rules and stakes of the information society. The whole book is designed to that end, aimed at having employees participate in the change, making of distance work an effective and productive method of production, but also as liberator of repetitive and fastidious tasks. A combative book which, all in all, is intended to be forward-looking. For the authors, whereas the combat systems are in crisis (including the "single" way of thinking, they say not without relevance), the "fundamental plinth of society lives on and (…) the capital-paid labour ralationship is perpetuated as operational relationship". Change of paradigm or not, the fight must go on and, as Anita Rozenholc writes, "create new regulatory structures and structures of social opposition forces". A book that is healthy in its approach and motivations, but that also has lessons to teach us on the intellectual and conceptual wrenching within the trade union world itself that is still often trying to come to terms with our new information society with glasses that were suited to the …industrial society.
(MT)
*** Forum. Five Years of Social Policy. European Commission ("Information and publications" unit of the DG "Employment, industrial relations and social affairs", 200 rue de la Loi, B-1049 Brussels. Tel.: (32) 022954988 - fax: 2962393). Collection "Employment & Social Affairs". 1999, 60 p..
This special edition of the "Forum" looks at actions the Commission has developed over the past five years and is, in a way, the legacy of the former Commissioner on the subject Pádraig Flynn.
(MT)
*** Le Comité d'entreprise européen en pratique. Pedagogic material for members of the European Works Council. European Trade Union Academy (5 bld du Roi Albert II, bte 7, B-1210 Brussels. Tel.: 32.2/022240530 - Fax: 022240533 - e-mail: etuco@etuc.org - Internet: http: //http://www.etuc.org.etuco ). 1999, 59 pages.
Compiled with the support of the European Commission, this manual has been conceived as a training instrument for workers who have already had experience of a European Works Council, for instructors and for those who perform duties of coordination within these bodies. Its aim is to provide information on working methods and to give practical examples of achievements in this field, mainly in the light of experience gained to date within the German chemicals group Beiersdorf, the French airline company Air France and the Swedish paper group SCA. One chapter of the manual gives an analysis of the various enterprise strategies.
(GVH)
*** PAUL FIESCHI-VIVET, CHRISTIAN PHILIP (edited by): L'égalité entre les hommes et les femmes et le droit social communautaire. European Studies Centre, Université Jean Moulin, Faculté de Droit (15 Quai Claude Bernard, BP 0638, 69239 Lyon Cedex 2. Tel.: (33.4) 72724442 - Fax: 72724466). In the series "Les Cahiers du Centre d'Etudes européennes", No2. 1999, 125 pages.
Christian Philip, Rector of the Université Jean Moulin, and Professor Paul Fieschi-Vivet devote this study to an important and highly topical subject. Since the origin of the European Community, professional equality is one of the rules imposed on Member States, as Paul Fieschi-Vivet recalls in his introduction. He makes it clear that the field of professional equality was limited from the outset to equal pay and that concerns were essentially of an economic kind. It was not until later that this was enlarged to the other aspects of provessional life (equality of training, hiring, employment, social protection, etc.). Professor Fieschi-Vivet notes the existence not only of a "broad Community range of rules for professional equality between men and women but also of a very inegalitarian situation between them". Thus, he explains, women are not as well paid as men and are discriminated against, mainly when it comes to finding jobs, they are under-represented in management and hold over 80% of part time jobs. Given this situation, he concludes that "practices and mentalities must change", and explains: "social policies geared towards equality may favour such change. Laws can also help. Making equality a fundamental principle, making reality take primacy over a semblance of reality (condemning indirect discrimination), encouraging positive action to reduce de facto inequality, facilitate proof of such inequality, this is what Community social legislation wants to bring into general practice".
The second study, in which lecturers, professors and assistants at the Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3 took part, as well as lawyers, include: equality, from the Treaty of Rome to the Treaty of Amsterdam; equality and human rights; professional discrimination because of gender; the directive of 15 December 1997 and the burden of proof of gender discrimination in private law; equality in social protection; everyday equality internal law).
(GVH)
*** Access. How to promote the inclusion of the disabled in international youth activities. Youth Forum Jeunesse (120 rue Joseph II, B-1000 Brussels. Tel.: (32) 022306490 - Fax: 022302123 - E-mail: youthforum@youthforum.org - Internet: http: //http://www.forumjeunesse.org ) and Mobility International (18 bld Baudouin, B-1000 Brussels. Tel.: (32) 022015608 - Fax: 022015763 - E-mail: mobint@arcadis.be - Internet: http: //http://www.mobility-international.org ). 2000, 40 pages.
The Youth Forum, which is a platform for one hundred youth organisations, defends the interests of young people vis-à-vis the EU institutions, the Council of Europe and the United Nations. It is allied with Mobility International with the support of the European Commission to draw up this guide which aims to contribute to the insertion of disabled persons into society. It provides practical help to those organising meetings and other demonstrations (conference, etc.), and provides instruments of a kind that give the disabled perfect accessibility to premises. The manual also explains the importance of concepts such as the medical model, the social model, accessibility, and independence … A list of useful addresses as well as training ideas completes this very useful brochure, which also comes in an English version.
*** Liaisons Sociales Europe. Paris. Subscription: Tel.: (33.1) 41299991. No1, 8 pages. This new publication, which comes out every fortnight, is devoted to current social issues and Community and Member State labour law. This first issue mainly relates the fight against discrimination and complementary retirement schemes.
.*** EURYDICE: Lifelong Learning: the contribution of education systems in the Member States of the European Union. Eurydice's European Unit (15 rue d'Arlon, B-1050 Brussels - Tel.: (32-) 022383011 - fax: 022306562 - E-mail: info@eurydice.org - Internet: http: //http://www.eurydice.org ). "Eurydice Surveys" series, n° 2, 176 p.. ISBN 2-87116-295-6.
This survey, conducted between October 1999 and March 2000, looks at measures and policies actually put into practice by the governments of the fifteen Member States to ensure that each individual, young and not so young, has the opportunity of lifelong learning. Having reviewed the concept's development and definition as a whole, the survey analyses initiatives taken at all levels of the educational system: pre-school education, obligatory, higher secondary, adult education. The results demonstrate that all Member States use lifelong learning to provide the necessary impetus to the reforms they are now putting in place, making this their ultimate aim. The way in which they tackle this objective nevertheless varies, largely depending on the specific nature of their own systems.
*** Pension schemes in the EU Member States. Similarities and differences. Published by Eurolinkage (1268 London Road, UK-London SW16 4ER - Tel.: (44-20) 87657715; address in Belgium: 111 rue Froissart B-1040 Brussels - Tel.: (32-2) 2801470; Internet: http: //http://www.eurolinkage.org/euro ). 2000, 31 p..
This guide provides a general description of the main characteristics of pension schemes in the fifteen Member States of the EU. It points out that, although the general principles of social protection are enshrined in all the systems of the Member States, the means the latter use to achieve their goals in the field of pensions are different. At the end, the guide comprises a list of sources of information used for compiling the survey..
*** EUROPEAN COMMISSION: Guide to Territorial Employment Pacts. 2000-2006.Published by the Commission et distributed by the sales network of the EC Office for Official Publications (Luxembourg). 1999, 20 p.. ISBN 92-828-8555-0.
The aim of this guide is to provide information, on the one hand, on the implications stemming from implementation of the "Employment" chapter of the Amsterdam Treaty for national officials in their relations with regional and local players, and, on the other, on the new provisions of the regulations of the Structural Funds that could support local approaches to development and employment, notably through the possibilities of the support offered to the Territorial Employment Pacts.
Social Reviews. In brief.
*** B&W. Bildung und Wissenschaft. Inter Nationes (Bonn). Contents of n° 4/99 (28 p.): Pre-school education. The articles relate to the way small children are cared for in kindergartens and play groups, organisations responsible for kindergartens, the most adapted learning techniques for the very young. *** Les chiffres de la retraite. Observatoire des retraites (Paris). N°2, 48 p.. This second edition brings together demographic, economic and financial statistics on the pension situation in France and in the world so as to provide the reader with an overview of sources of statistical information available on the subject. *** Le Monde syndical. Confédération internationale des syndicats libres (Brussels). Contents of n° 3 (March 2000, 26 p.): the point of view of Bill Jordan, General Secretary of CISL, on a world moving towards economic globalisation, political regionalisation and social stagnation, the Cisl Congress of Durban on "globalising social justice", an interview with Karl Heinz Nachtnebel, responsible for the international department of the Austrian Trade Union Federation, on the participation of the far right in the new government, an article on the Polynesian economy. *** IPSE Folio. Paris. Contents of n° 23 (March/April 2000, 20 p.): the XXIInd Ipse meeting (Institut de la protection sociale européenne) in Lisbon on 9, 10 and 11 April 2000, discussion on social Europe (universal scope or a protectionist ploy?), the 21st meeting of Ipse in Brussels at which the reality and consequences of competition in social protection were raised. *** The Magazine. Education and Culture in Europe. European Commission. DG Education and Culture (Brussels). Contents of No. 12/99 (36 p.): the new European programes on vocational training, a conference organised by Xunta of Galicia, with the backing of the Commission on school partnerships in the framework of the Socrates Programme, educational systems in several Member states, Europe-Canada cooperation to respond to common needs in different sectors, youth mobility through Leonardo da Vinci I, how to move from the professional sector to general education.