Documents Veliziotis, Michail 11 results

"Part-time employment in Europe has continued to grow faster than overall employment during the Great Recession and its aftermath. But as part-time work becomes more prevalent, so does involuntary part-time – at least in most countries. In this paper we focus on Greece and the UK, two European labour markets characterised by different institutions, but also a common trend of rising involuntary part-time (from different levels). We attempt to detect determinants and/or correlates of involuntary part-time, and changes over time. We analyse Labour Force Survey data for 2008 and 2013. We find that the UK labour market appears to be more successful in aligning workers' preferences with employers' demand for part-time work. However, as the economic downturn has made full-time jobs scarcer, involuntary part-time work has risen. Moreover, significant gaps in pay and job quality between voluntary and involuntary part-timers persist. In the case of Greece, involuntary part-time was already very high in 2008, in spite of the fact that pay differentials were relatively small, which suggests that part-time jobs were widely viewed by workers as sub-optimal. Under the impact of the recession and the austerity, the Greek labour market has become more flexible but also more insecure. As pay differentials have risen, and non-standard work has been made more precarious, part-time jobs have become even less attractive, so involuntary part-time has grown further still. We conclude that while the structure of the economy and the business cycle explain some of the differences between the two countries and over time, institutional factors and the quality of part-time jobs on offer are of great importance in shaping workers' attitudes. We suggest that future research should focus on the interaction between shocks and institutions."

"Temporary workers in low-skilled roles often experience ‘hard' HRM practices, for example the use of the Bradford Factor to monitor absence, rather than using incentives to reward attendance. However, this peripheral workforce has become increasingly diverse in the UK since the A8 European Union expansion, which has seen over a million migrants from central and eastern Europe register to work in the UK. Importantly, there is also heterogeneity within this group of workers, for example between those who intend to migrate for a short period of time then return, and those who are more settled and wish to develop a career. By considering the particular case of absence management, this paper examines how these different groups of migrants respond to HRM practices. The key contribution of the paper is to examine how different groups of migrants experience these practices, rather than simply comparing migrant and native workers as two homogeneous groups. The paper presents data from the food manufacturing sector in the UK. In total, 88 semi-structured interviews were conducted with operations managers, HR managers, union convenors and workers on permanent, temporary and agency contracts. In addition, data from informal interviews and observation at five companies are presented."

"Work After Lockdown is a major research project funded by the Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC), as part of UK Research & Innovation's rapid response to Covid-19. The research examines how enforced working from home in the UK is changing how people want to work in the future and how organisations respond.

The project has completed the first wave of its research, relating to the period of rapid change during the lockdown of March-July 2020. This report presents insights from this first wave of data collection and summarises the learnings and implications for employers and policy-makers. The themes explored in the report relate to managing change; employee health, well-being, performance and productivity; working effectively from home; learning and development; and future demand for hybrid and flexible working.

The analysis draws upon three sources of data collected between July and December 2020:

Analysis of the national dataset Understanding Society COVID-19 Survey;
1,035 survey responses to our online worker well-being survey among employees working from home in jobs that were more office-based prior to the pandemic;
38 in-depth interviews with leaders, managers, and colleagues without management responsibilities in four case study organisations, selected to cover a range of geographical working experiences across the UK, as well as different organisational forms.
Verbatim quotes from interviews are used throughout the report."

"Over the last two decades, trade union membership in Central and Eastern Europe has been in continuous decline, and unions in the region are generally considered weak. However, little is known about the actual relevance of trade unions for individual workers in the post-socialist world. We explore the role that unions played in protecting their members from the negative effects of the global economic crisis. Using data for 21 post-socialist countries from the Life in Transition-2 survey, we find that union members were less likely than comparable non-members to lose their jobs during the crisis. This beneficial effect of union membership was particularly pronounced in countries which were hardest hit by the crisis. At the same time, union members were more likely to experience wage reductions, suggesting that unions were engaged in concession bargaining. Overall, our results challenge the common view that unions in the post-socialist countries are irrelevant."

"Over the last two decades, trade union membership in Central and Eastern Europe has been in continuous decline and there is a common perception that trade unions in the region are weak. However, little is known about the actual relevance of trade unions for individual workers in the post-socialist world. We explore the role that trade unions played in protecting their members from the negative effects of the global economic crisis. Using data for twenty one post-socialist countries from the Life in Transition-2 survey, we find that trade union members were less likely than similar non-members to lose their jobs during the crisis. This beneficial effect of trade union membership was more pronounced in countries which were hit by the crisis harder. At the same time, union members were more likely to experience a wage reduction, suggesting that unions were engaged in concession bargaining. Overall, our results challenge the common view that trade unions in the post-socialist countries are weak and irrelevant."

"In this paper we use British Household Panel Survey data to examine the relationship between unionization and unpaid overtime in Britain. The findings indicate that in the for-profit, non-caring sector of the economy, union covered employees supply fewer unpaid overtime hours than noncovered ones due to union protection and the weakening of economic incentives caused by union bargaining. On the other hand, in the non-profit, caring sector, union members offer more unpaid extra hours than covered non-members because of their specific pro-social motivations. Additional evidence is presented that confirms that union members are actually characterized by a specific pro-social ethos."

"Does union membership increase sickness absence from work and, if so, by how much? And which specific channels does this effect operate through? Using UK Labour Force Survey data for 2006-2008 we find that trade union membership is associated with a substantial increase in the probability of reporting sick and in the amount of average absence taken. This result can be largely attributed to the protection that unions offer to unionized employees. Supportive evidence is also found for a reduction in 'presenteeism' (attending work when sick) among union members. The results are robust to different modelling and estimation approaches."

"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. "

"Over the last decade, the UK has experienced unprecedented increases in migration associated with the 2004 A8 expansion of the European Union. These migrant workers have been praised by managers in the UK, who have frequently stated that they perceive these workers to have a strong ‘work ethic' when measured on aspects such as absence from work rates. This article examines this perceived migrant ‘work ethic' by analysing worker absence data from the UK Quarterly Labour Force Survey for the period 2005–2012. Regression analysis reveals that when A8 migrant workers first arrive in the UK, they record substantially lower absence than native workers, but that these migrant absence levels assimilate within two to four years. If employers use this information to make hiring decisions, this may have negative implications for native workers, but, importantly, only in the short run. "