Documents New Deal 31 results

"L'Europe sociale n'est pas qu'un programme. Elle est aujourd'hui une réalité méconnue, regroupant notamment un ensemble de directives, du contrat de travail aux comités d'entreprise européens. Partant d'archives européennes, cet ouvrage entend restituer de manière inédite la place non-négligeable que le social occupe dans les institutions communautaires dès le Traité de Rome. Des premières réunions de Val Duchesse en 1985, au protocole sur la politique sociale du Traité de Maastricht en 1992, les initiatives de Jacques Delors ont joué un rôle décisif pour associer les partenaires sociaux aux avancées de la construction européenne. Cette période ouvre la voie au grand travail législatif de la décennie suivante, qui dessine aujourd'hui les contours d'un droit du travail communautaire. Ce livre pose d'abord la question des limites d'une activité syndicale centrée sur la coordination de politiques nationales dans une dynamique qui conduit à l'émergence d'une réalité économique et sociale de l'Europe : le marché intérieur. L'ouvrage s'attache également à analyser dans toutes ses dimensions le processus qui transforme les entretiens de Val Duchesse en un dialogue social capable de prendre part aux propositions législatives européennes. Les enjeux, ici parfaitement mis en lumière, ce sont les ambitions institutionnelles qui animent ces entretiens et leur rôle structurant pour l'organisation même des syndicats européens."

"In co-operation with our partner the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and the Hans Böckler Stiftung, we explore the issue of ‘just transition'. This idea has evolved, in a sense, as a sub-set of the Green New Deal. Making the ecological transition to a sustainable future is essential.
From a social democratic perspective, just transition needs to be implemented in a way that does not further increase social inequality. Otherwise it will have negative social side-effects, particularly in terms of lost jobs in fossil-fuel industries and fuel poverty for the socially excluded.
This dossier elaborates what ‘just transition' means—from the concept itself to its outworking on the ground. It includes contributions from the Spanish deputy prime minister and minister for the ecological transition, from leading figures in the trade union movement in Europe and internationally and from the director of the European consumer organisation.
A common thread is the need to engage widely those affected and to draw on their knowledge to develop plans for re-employment and retraining which offer a positive perspective. What emerges more generally from the collated material is that ‘just transition' is now a robust and well-developed idea supported by many examples of good practice. It falls to the European Union to will the means, in terms of the scale of the Just Transition Fund it has established."

"This book tells the story behind President Franklin D. Roosevelt's use of the phrase "living wage" in a variety of speeches, letters, and statements, and examines the degree to which programs of the New Deal reflected the ideas of a living wage movement that existed in the US for almost three decades before Roosevelt was elected president. Far from being a side issue, the previously unexplored living wage debate sheds light on the New Deal philosophy of social justice by identifying the value judgments behind its policies. Moving chronologically through history, this book's highlights include the revelation of a living wage agenda under the War Industry Board (WIB)'s National War Labor Board (NWLB) during World War I, the unearthing of long-forgotten literature from the 1920s and 30s that formed the foundation of Roosevelt's statements on a living wage, and the examination of contemporary studies that used a simple living wage formula combining collective bargaining, social insurance, and minimum wage as a standard for social justice used to measure the impact of New Deal polices."

"There is a large body of literature analyzing the onset of the Great Depression or the factors influencing economic recovery in the 1930s, especially the New Deal. The role of income inequality before and during the Great Depression, however, has almost never been discussed thoroughly. This paper attempts to answer two questions. Firstly, was inequality perceived as a problem by the Roosevelt administration? Secondly, did the New Deal incorporate these concerns such that economic policy design did take seriously the problem of inequality? Using official documents such as transcripts of Roosevelt's inaugural speeches, fireside chats and press conferences, this paper finds that top-end inequality was not recognized as a major political topic. Restoring the purchasing power of workers and farmers, however, appears to have been a political goal of the administration. The impact of New Deal policies on top-end income inequality or the wage share, however, can only be considered as modest. Only World War II and the long-term legislation of the New Deal may be considered successful in reducing top income and wealth shares and raising the wage share."

"Der "New Deal", mit dem Roosevelt die Wirtschaft der USA aus der Depression 1929/1933 führte, unterscheidet sich markant von der EU-Politik seit 2009. Zunächst konzentrierte er sich auf die Bekämpfung von Mutlosigkeit und Verzweiflung, auf die Regulierung des Finanzsektors und auf die Belebung der Realwirtschaft. Danach folgten Strukturreformen wie der Ausbau des Sozialstaates und seine Finanzierung durch einen progressiveren Steuertarif. In den USA stieg das reale BIP zwischen 1933 und 1937 um 43%, primär als Folge des Booms der privaten Investitionen (+140%). Die Staatsnachfrage wuchs lediglich um 28%, das Defizit wurde nicht erhöht. Roosevelt nahm somit jene Botschaften von Keynes' "General Theory" (1936) vorweg, die später verdrängt wurden: die Bedeutung von Unsicherheit und Vertrauen sowie die Notwendigkeit, Finanzspekulation radikal einzuschränken. Die einflussreiche These von Friedman – Schwartz (1963), wonach die Depression primär durch die Geldpolitik – also durch den Staat – verursacht wurde, erweist sich als Ideologieproduktion. Dies gilt noch mehr für These von Cole – Ohanian (1999) sowie von Prescott (1999), wonach der New Deal die Depression verlängert hätte. Eine Orientierung der europäischen Politik an den Leitlinien von Roosevelt und damit ein den gegenwärtigen Ausgangsbedingungen angepasster "New Deal für Europa" könnte die Wirtschaft aus der hartnäckigen Krise führen."

"A growing number of economists blame the length and severity of the Great Depression on factors that rigidified wage rates, raised production costs, and interfered with the market allocation of labor. The target of their critique is President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal labor program, which they portray as creating a series of large negative supply shocks through encouragement of unions, minimum wages, unemployment insurance, and other anticompetitive industrial relations practices. The author uses a combination of institutional and Keynesian theory to present the other side of the story. Drawing principally from the works of J. R. Commons and J. M. Keynes, he develops both a spending and productivity rationale for stable wages during the Great Depression and demonstrates that the New Deal's interventionist labor program was on balance necessary and beneficial. He also highlights the neglected macroeconomic dimension of industrial relations theory and policy."

"En Angleterre, au début des années 2000, près de deux millions d'hommes touchent une prestation d'adulte handicapé (contre moins d'un million de femmes). Relevant du dispositif d'Incapacity Benefit, promu au début des années 1980, ils sont administrativement et principalement perçus comme des adultes handicapés, jusqu'à ce que soit lancé, en 2001, un programme de retour à l'emploi, intitulé New Deal For Disabled People. À l'intérieur de l'Agence nationale d'emploi (Jobcentre Plus), des centres de recherche d'emploi (Job Broking Services) leur sont spécifiquement dédiés. À partir d'une enquête réalisée en 2004 dans le nord de l'Angleterre, l'article interroge les questions de réassignation identitaire de ces hommes "malades", très souvent à la suite de ruptures d'emploi, en s'intéressant aux interactions entre des bénéficiaires de l'Incapacity benefit, incités à reprendre un emploi, et des conseillers emplois censés les aider dans cette démarche. Comment une injonction administrative joue-t-elle dans la constitution ou l'aménagement d'une identité sociale ? Les conseillers, en invitant les allocataires à penser à un travail "dans l'idéal" tout en étant "réalistes", édictent l'injonction paradoxale propre au dispositif qui débouche souvent sur des emplois médiocres, voire bénévoles. Les réactions des participants à cette structure révèlent des négociations identitaires variables selon le genre, l'âge et le profil professionnel, mais aussi selon le degré de handicap."

"This essay argues that the American trade union movement constitutes a social democratic bloc within the U.S. body politic, episodically successful in broadening the welfare state, expanding citizenship rights, and defending the standard of living of working class Americans, including those unlikely to be found on the union membership roll. But such political influence, which has also helped make organized labour a backbone of Democratic Party electoral mobilization, has rarely been of usefulness when the unions sought to enhance their own institutional vibrancy, their own capacity to organize new members. When demands of this sort are put forward, Republican presidents and politicians denounce them outright, while most Democrats, including virtually every postwar president from that party, see such legislation as but the product of an unpopular interest group and thus safely devalued and ignored.American unions have almost always failed to win legislation advancing their institutional strength and political legitimacy. To understand why, this essay explores the three distinct regimes which have governed trade union “bargaining,” with employers, with the Democrats, and with the state, during the era since the New Deal. They are the era of the New Deal itself (1933-1947) during which a corporatist politicialization of all wage, price and production issues achieved some purchase; the years of classic industrial pluralism and collective bargaining (1947-1980), in which industrial relations was reprivatized to a large extent; and finally, our current moment (1980s forward) in which the labour movement exists and holds the possibility of growth largely in government and the service sector. A highly politicized form of tripartite bargaining, between companies, unions, and government (mainly state and local), has provided the chief avenue for raising the social wage and building nodes of trade union influence in key government-dependent sectors of the economy. With the arrival of the Obama era, this third system is becoming the only game in town, although this appears to be falling far short of labourite expectations."