Documents Voskeritsian, Horen 6 results

"Since the eruption of the European sovereign debt crisis, the bailout conditions imposed on Greece have gradually shifted their emphasis from ‘‘tidying up” public finances towards ‘‘improving the competitiveness” of the economy. In the process, collective bargaining has been targeted as one of the priority areas for reform, which resulted in a gradual dismantling of the system. The main aim of this article is to analyse the changes in the institutional framework of employment regulation, using insights from the varieties of capitalism literature. It is argued that the on-going injection of liberal market elements into the Greek employment system is likely to transform Greece into a dysfunctional Liberal Market Economy.The changes in the collective regulation of employment ignore the specificities and idiosyncrasies of the Mediterranean model of capitalism and, thus, are likely to leave the country with the ‘‘worst of both worlds”: suboptimal economic performance and diluted social cohesion. The article is structured as follows. First, the debate on varieties of capitalism is considered in light of the Global Crisis. Second, the basic features of the Greek employment relations' model are discussed. Third, the transformation of employment regulation after the bailout is examined. Fourth, the evolution towards a dysfunctional Liberal Market Economy is analysed. The final section concludes."

"This policy brief examines the effectiveness of policies which aim to dismiss labour market institutions, in the name of competitiveness, across the European Union (EU). It also assesses the evidence which supports a positive relationship between deregulation and decentralization and productivity.

The new publication also explores the negative consequences of deregulation, especially regarding the redistribution of power among the social actors, quality of work, and wage and income inequality, which cast doubt on the desirability of these policies as tools for the achievement of smart, inclusive and sustainable growth with ‘more and better jobs' in the labour market. The policy implications, which suggest that if companies want to improve their productivity, then they should focus amongst other things on upgrading the human capital of their employees, reshaping job design towards more teamwork-oriented work organisation, and incentivise employees through group-based performance-related pay systems, is also examined within this new policy brief."

"The recent Eurozone crisis has reinvigorated neoliberal policies and brought to the fore an academic and policy debate over the deregulation of employment relations' institutions ‘in the name of competitiveness'. In the context of this debate, we ask the following question: have firms with employment relations institutions been less able to improve productivity during the crisis? We consider this question by examining data from the European Company Survey. We also look into different models of capitalism to gauge whether there are context-specific institutional effects that may mediate firm-level outcomes. Contrary to the dominant neoliberal discourse, we do not find any strong evidence that employment relations institutions are negatively associated with productivity increases. Instead, we find that certain high performance work practices are positively and significantly associated with productivity increases across EU-15 and in particular institutional contexts. Taken together these results challenge the neoliberal ‘low road' policies that are focused on dismantling employment relations institutions and suggest shifting the attention towards context-sensitive ‘high road' policies and practices. "

"The article considers the strategies of trade unions towards the representation of call centre workers. Using a comparative case study, it examines the divergent union responses to the growth of contingent labour by looking at the telecommunications industries in Italy and Greece. Although the trade unions in Italy pursued inclusive strategies embracing the call centre workers and negotiating the restructuring of the whole sector, the unions in Greece followed a policy of exclusion leaving call centre workers outside representation and negotiating their internal restructuring. The article argues that the different union identities, and the diverse power resources and internal organizational politics help explain the variation in the trade unions' strategic responses. "