Documents Meardi, Guglielmo 54 results

"Is the EU enlargement the success EU institutions proclaim? Based on fifteen years of fieldwork research across Central and Eastern Europe and on migrants in the UK and Germany, this book provides a less glittering answer. The EU has betrayed hopes of social cohesion: social regulations have been forgotten, multinationals use threats of relocations, and workers, left without institutional channels to voice their concerns, have reacted by leaving their countries en masse. Yet migration, for many, increases social vulnerability.

Drawing on Hirschman's concepts of ‘Exit' and ‘Voice', the book traces the origins of such failures in the management of EU enlargement as a pure economic and market-creating exercise, neglecting the inherently political nature of labour relations. The reinforcement of market mechanisms without political counterbalances has resulted in an increase in opportunistic ‘exit' behaviour by both employers and employees, and thereby in a worsening quality of democracy, at workplace, national and European levels. As a result of this process, the EU has become more similar to the North American Free Trade Agreement between USA, Canada and Mexico, where social rights are marginalized and economic integration does not translate into better development. "

"La actual crisis económica ha comportado un deterioro del mercado de trabajo en muchos países europeos, lo que ha estimulado la extensión de actitudes anti-inmigrantes entre la población. Estas actitudes anti-inmigratorias se localizan fundamentalmente en los segmentos bajos del mercado de trabajo, aquellos de baja cualificación y de bajos salarios. En este artículo exploramos las actitudes de los ciudadanos europeos hacia los trabajadores inmigrantes. En particular tratamos de analizar que papel juega la incertidumbre socioeconómica en la conformación de las actitudes. Para ello comparamos los datos de las encuestas de los años 2002, 2008 y 2010 proporcionados por la Encuesta Social Europea para 17 países. Los resultados ponen de relieve la existencia de un cierto cambio de las actitudes entre ambos periodos. Las actitudes hacia la inmigración están condicionadas por tres tipos de variables: socio-económicas, ideológico-políticas y contextuales. El análisis de regresión logística pone de relieve el fuerte papel que juega la ideología izquierda versus derecha como predictor de las actitudes. Finalmente, el análisis de correspondencias múltiples nos ha permitido clasificar a los países estudiados según sus actitudes hacia la inmigración."

"This article describes the evolution of social dialogue and collective bargaining in Poland between 2008 and 2012, arguing that the effects of the crisis have been asymmetrical in two ways. First, while Poland is the only EU country to have avoided recession in macroeconomic terms, the crisis has actually disproportionately affected labour through higher unemployment and worsening employment conditions. Secondly, in a decentralized system like the Polish one, effects of the crisis have differed by sector. Sectors exposed to international competition such as the automotive and steel sectors have suffered from job losses and major restructuring, while services and construction have withstood better. While social dialogue has been temporarily re-legitimized during the crisis, it plays only a sporadic role. "

"The article critically reviews the reasons for the decline in the engagement with the state in the sociology of work after the 1970s, and for its resurgence after the financial crisis of 2008. It assesses three separate streams of literature (sociology of work, political sociology and welfare state sociology), and argues for the benefits of their integration. Articles in this special section of Work, employment and society provide examples of the mutual utility of such integration. This introduction concludes by identifying some important avenues for future research on the state and work."

"This article addresses the questions of the extent to which, and the reasons why, western European trade unions may have privileged the protection of ‘insiders' over that of ‘outsiders'. Temporary agency workers, among whom migrant workers are over-represented, are taken as a test case of ‘outsiders'. The findings from a comparison of Belgian and German multinational plants show that collective agreements have allowed a protection gap between permanent and agency workers to emerge in Germany, but not in Belgium. However, the weaker protection in Germany depends less on an explicit union choice for insiders than on the weakening of the institutional environment for union representation and collective bargaining. The conclusion suggests that European unions are increasingly trying to defend the outsiders, but meet institutional obstacles that vary by country."

"The article compares the role of tripartism during and after democratic transitions in Spain and Poland. In both countries it emerged after a negotiated transition from dictatorship, but it was poorly institutionalised. While it fell short of ‘neocorporatist' levels of governance, it had a ‘foundational' function in stabilising both political and economic transitions, and despite its limitations, it endured for decades in the frequent, if unregular, practice of negotiating ‘social pacts'. The comparison reveals some striking similarities despite the contrasting economic systems of origin, and identifies some structural constants in the evolution of post-democratic tripartism, up to the recent crisis."

"The article addresses the meaning and relevance of the recently emerged idea of ‘global labour governance'. Increasingly influential in policy, it has been criticized for political and theoretical reasons, including the risk of normative ideological uses. The article suggests that labour studies should nonetheless engage, theoretically and empirically, with the issue and the perspective of ‘global labour governance'. This is because of its growing political importance and for the attention it brings to still understudied issues of ‘multi-level' dynamics, ‘networks' and ‘reflexivity'. Systematic analysis of governance alternatives is needed. The traditions of the sociology of work and industrial relations can contribute to this analysis through their elaboration on informality, sectoral differences and collective action, as well as by problematizing the idea of ‘effectiveness'. "