Documents Lithuania 124 results

"In diesem Buch werden in einer komparativen Perspektive die unterschiedlichen Typen industrieller Beziehungen in Europa und die Entwicklung von neun nationalen Gewerkschaftsbewegungen im Kontext der Eurokrise analysiert: Großbritannien, Frankreich, Spanien, Italien, Slowenien, Polen, Litauen, Schweden und Österreich.

Diese Länderanalysen sind eingerahmt von vergleichenden Beiträgen zur Veränderung von Machtressourcen und -perspektiven der Gewerkschaften sowie exemplarischen Initiativen transnationaler Kooperation. Beleuchtet werden damit Voraussetzungen, die für eine solidarische Politik der Gewerkschaften im Kampf gegen das internationale Kapital im Kontext der Krise erfüllt werden müssen."

"Portraits of Labor Market Exclusion presents “profiles” or “portraits” of individuals who have limited labor-market attachment. It is widely accepted that those with limited attachment to the labor market are a highly heterogeneous group (including, for instance, recent job losers, long-term unemployed, school leavers with no labor-market experience, those close to retirement age, or people with caring responsibilities), and that understanding their circumstances and potential barriers is an essential prerequisite for designing and implementing a tailored and effective mix of policy support and incentives. The report takes a comprehensive view, focusing on both the labor market attachment of a country's out-of-work population and the social assistance package and poverty profile of the same segment of the population. In essence, the report looks at individuals through the lenses of both poverty/welfare status and labor market indicators, and, in doing so, the portraits helps move the dialogue from a purely labor market-centric view to a broader dialogue that includes social policy as a whole. This is an important shift; for instance, social protection programs, such as family benefits and maternity benefits, and broader social policy issues such as retirement ages, often have a great impact on who remains inactive. Specifically, the report presents portraits of the out-of-work population of six countries (Bulgaria, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania and Romania) in terms of distance from the labor market, human capital, and labor supply conditions, as well as demographic conditions. The analysis relies on the European Union Statistics of Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) surveys for the years 2007 to 2011. Latent class analysis methodology allows multidimensional profiling of the out-of-work population, and identifies classes or groups of out-of-work individuals that are as homogeneous as possible within each class according to a set of observable characteristics, and as distant as possible between classes."

"Growing interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) has focused attention on the relationship between businesses and key stakeholders, such as NGOs and local communities. Curiously, however, commentators on CSR rarely discuss the role of trade unions, while commentators on employment relations seldom engage with CSR. This situation is all the more remarkable since unions are a critically important social actor and have traditionally played a prominent role in defending the interests of one key stakeholder in the company, the employee.

Written by dedicated experts in their field, this book addresses a key gap in the literature on both CSR and employment relations, namely trade union policies towards CSR, as well as union engagement with particular CSR initiatives and the challenges they face in doing so. The research covers eleven European countries which, when taken together, constitute a representative sample of industrial relations structures across the continent.

This book will be essential reading for scholars, students and practitioners of international business, employment relations, public policy and CSR. Its foreword is written by Philippe Pochet and Maria Jepsen, Directors of the European Trade Union Institute in Brussels."

"Background The late-2000s financial crisis had a severe impact on the national economies on a global scale. In Europe, the Baltic countries were among those most affected with more than a 20% decrease in per capita gross domestic product in 2008–2009. In this study, we explored the effects of economic recession on self-rated health in Estonia and Lithuania using Finland, a neighbouring Nordic welfare state, as a point of reference.Methods Nationally representative cross-sectional data for Estonia (n=10?966), Lithuania (n=7249) and Finland (n=11?602) for 2004–2010 were analysed for changes in age-standardised prevalence rates of less-than-good self-rated health and changes in health inequalities using logistic regression analysis.Results The prevalence of less-than-good self-rated health increased slightly (albeit not statistically significantly) in all countries during 2008–2010. This was in sharp contrast to the statistically significant decline in the prevalence of less-than-good health in 2004–2008 in Estonia and Lithuania. Health disparities were larger in Estonia and Lithuania when compared to Finland, but decreased in 2008–2010 (in men only). In Finland, both the prevalence of less-than-good health and health disparities remained fairly stable throughout the period.Conclusions Despite the rapid economic downturn, the short-term health effects in Estonia and Lithuania did not differ from those in Finland, although the recession years marked the end of the previous positive trend in self-rated health. The reduction in health disparities during the recession indicates that different socioeconomic groups were affected disproportionately; however, the reasons for this require further research."

"Constitutional changes implemented when Lithuania re-established its independence in 1990 went beyond the resetting of its relations with the rest of the former Soviet Union. Political and constitutional changes were paralleled by changes of the economic regime, i.e. a transition from a centrally planned to a market economy. This type of systemic change implied radical reforms of property rights, of transactions between economic agents, and of economic regulation. This article focuses on two issues which are important for any newly (re)established polity. The first is the quality of governance associated with the constitutional changes which will influence the behaviour and expectations of economic agents. The second is the management of economic interdependencies with the state from which the new state has seceded, and the establishment of a stable environment for bilateral economic relations."

"The works council, as a participatory means of regulating the employer/employee relation, is long established in Western European countries, but has failed to take significant root in other parts of the world where it has been tried. This is particularly the case where transition from socialist state control to a particularly free-wheeling form of capitalism and massive privatization has wreaked havoc on the employer/employee relation. This book is the first in-depth exploration of the legal, political, and cultural forces that complicate this transposition. Focusing on Eastern and Central Europe, where the works council system has been most extensively applied and where the evident reasons for its lack of purchase are most telling, the contributors examine the relevant experience, both negative and positive, in twelve countries, with a particular focus on non-union representation of workers.

Many important issues pertinent to workers' representation in general in a globalized world are covered, including the following:
cooperation and confrontation between trade unions and works councils;
insufficient division of competences between the two representative bodies;
legal norms concerning both trade union and works councils independence from employers' interference;
need for serious and dissuasive sanctions against creation of employer-controlled ("yellow") unions;
need for extension to non-union workers of protection from anti-union discrimination;
real vs. formal implementation of EU norms in Eastern European Member States;
unnecessarily complicated regulation of institutions of representation; ;
lack of protection against dismissal of non-union representatives;
responsibility for breach of employers' obligation to consult and inform; and
employers' lack of legitimacy in the eyes of workers.

There is general agreement among these authors that, as long as human beings spend a serious part of their lives at the workplace, they must be allowed not merely to express opinions about the job but have a real influence on it. Fully aware of the sensitivity of these issues in market economies, the authors' careful research and call for public discussion open the path to real changes in the existing system, clearly in Eastern Europe but to be much desired elsewhere also. For labour law scholars, practitioners, and policymakers who know that such changes are needed, this book offers directions that, though debatable, are sure to be welcomed."