Documents HIVA - KU Leuven 18 results

"This book analyses the consequences of restructuring on health and safety and quality of work life with a specific focus on psychosocial risks. Drawing on the case study research of the WORKS project, it outlines some cross national trends in the EU, focusing on the known causes of stress: demands in work; influence over work; social support; recognition and reward; predictability and meaning.
In general, the case-studies tell a story of a worsening psychosocial work environment as a result of restructuring. However, new opportunities may be deteceted as well: increased meaning and recognition; upskilling; more social support thanks to team-work. The report concludes with some recommendations: more explicit coverage of change and restructuring in both national and EU health and safety legislation; improved change management with a focus on reducing workload; worker participation in restructuring process; and a strong attention to the consequences of flexibility for health and safety."

"Traditional sustainability efforts in global supply chains have relied on social audits, voluntary reporting, and codes of conduct. However, these mechanisms have faced significant criticism for their inability to address systemic issues such as labour rights violations, environmental harm, and the marginalization of workers' voices.

Digital solutions, such as Ecovadis, Sedex, and Prewave, promise to fill some of these gaps by automating risk assessments, increasing the granularity of supply chain visibility, and facilitating supplier dialogue. These technologies are increasingly part of companies' strategies to respond to new societal demands regarding responsible supply chains. New research by HIVA-KU Leuven provides valuable insights into the potential benefits and risks of these technologies for trade unions and workers."

"Het thema jobkwaliteit is terug actueel in het publieke en politieke debat, maar kreeg in het kader van ‘langer werken' een specifieke invulling, met name het haalbaar maken van de vooropgestelde verhoging van de pensioenleeftijd. De wisselende aandacht voor jobkwaliteit komt voort uit een combinatie van een blijvende bekommernis bij een aantal vaste beleidsactoren en een veranderlijk politiek en economisch klimaat. Als gevolg van die variabele component wijzigt ook het beeld dat we hebben van een kwalitatieve job doorheen de jaren, hoewel men steeds naar hetzelfde concept verwijst.1 We grijpen de variaties op dit thema aan om in deze inleiding meer klaarheid te scheppen over de mogelijke invulling van jobkwaliteit en wat dit impliceert voor het meten en monitoren ervan. Kijken we twintig jaar terug, dan merken we aanvankelijk politieke interesse voor jobkwaliteit als doel op zich. De ‘European Employment Strategy' streeft sinds 1997 naar ‘meer én betere jobs'. Het wordt dus voorgesteld alsof er geen afruil is tussen jobgroei en jobkwaliteit. In sterk contrast daarmee staat de teneur tijdens de vroege Grote Recessie van 2009: om jobs te behouden of om de economie te herstellen moest er aan jobkwaliteit ingeleverd worden. Dat betekent harder werken, lagere lonen, meer flexibiliteit, en vaak ook minder inspraak - een expliciete agenda die ook weerklank vond in de nationale politiek. De richting en het teken van de relatie tussen jobs en jobkwaliteit werd dus omgedraaid: waar eerder meer jobs méér jobkwaliteit impliceerden, luidde de nieuwe formule dat minder jobkwaliteit meer jobs zou creëren. Ook dit beeld werd naderhand bijgesteld: jobkwaliteit vandaag draait in de eerste plaats om duurzaamheid, en moet leiden tot langere loopbanen, en dus meer job - zonder s. Tewerkstellingsgroei volgt slechts door een veronderstelde positieve economische spiraal. De agenda voor ‘werkbaar en wendbaar werk' combineert verder aandacht voor de intrinsieke jobaspecten met de werk-privé balans, voorgesteld als een win-win, waar de flexibiliteit voor de werknemer en de flexibiliteit uit het oogpunt van de werkgever overlappen.”

"Dans le contexte de l'agenda pour le « travail faisable et la flexibilité dans l'emploi », la qualité de l'emploi occupe, en 2016, le rang de priorité politique. Le travail faisable est défini comme le travail qui vous motive intrinsèquement, qui vous donne suffisamment d'occasions d'apprendre, qui ne vous mène pas au surmenage et qui vous offre un espace suffisant pour la famille, le sport et les loisirs (Peeters, 2016). Les entreprises peuvent aussi être organisées de façon à permettre de continuer à travailler en meilleure santé et plus longtemps. Ainsi, l'interdépendance entre l'organisation du travail et la qualité de l'emploi, d'une part, et le bien-être du travailleur, d'autre part, est également reconnue et placée à l'agenda politique. Dans ce rapport, nous présentons une analyse détaillée des données concernant la Belgique collectées sur la base de l'Enquête européenne sur les conditions de travail 2015 d'Eurofound. "

"Several reasons favour increased ‘temporary' intra-EU labour mobility through posting of workers rather than a more ‘permanent' kind of intra-EU labour mobility through migration of EU-workers and self-employed persons, as a prerequisite for an optimum currency area or as a stabilisation tool to support adjustment to asymmetric shocks. Moreover, other criteria to realise an optimum currency area and to stabilise asymmetric shocks, in particular through fiscal transfers and wage flexibility, could be fulfilled by the posting of workers as well. This posting mechanism, which involves workers being temporarily employed in a Member State other than their Member State of origin but still being taxed in their Member State of origin, is therefore a useful stabilisation tool in case the Member State of origin is confronted with an asymmetric shock. The impact of the stabilisation effect of posting workers will be determined by several aspects: the number of posted workers, the wage earned in the Member State of temporary employment and finally the period of posting. This stabilisation effect was calculated for Greece. If some 10% of the current unemployed population living in Greece would be posted for a period of 6 months or longer, yearly approximately € 1 billion labour tax revenues would be collected by Greece, which is equal to roughly 4% of their total labour tax revenues. We recommend on this basis that Greece could encourage the use of posting of workers as potential stabilisation tool."

"Posted workers provide on a temporary basis services for their employer outside the Member State where the employer is established. Their wages are taxed for a certain period of time at the taxation level of the sending Member State, which is also the recipient of these tax revenues. The differences in labour tax rates between the sending and the receiving Member State might lead to a tax and competitive advantage for ‘foreign' service providers and their employees posted to another Member State. Labour taxes levied to the income of the posted workers are estimated to be equal to approximately 0.7% of the total monthly labour tax revenues of the sending Member States. Sending ‘new' Member States are clearly more dependent on the labour tax revenues of posted workers as share of the total labour tax revenues compared to the sending ‘old' Member States. Also, labour tax revenues from these workers living in the sending ‘new' Member States would decrease by 77% if these workers would not be posted but employed in their sending Member State. This outcome is the result of an important flow of posted workers towards higherwage Member States. It proves that sending Member States benefit from respecting minimum wages in the Member State of employment and the collection of the proper amount of social contributions and income taxes. Otherwise, these labour tax revenues will be much lower. An alternative scenario, a tax harmonisation based on the ‘source' principle (i.e. paying taxes at the taxation level of the receiving Member State in the sending Member State) could be introduced in order to remove tax competition and to create (already ongoing) upward ‘social' convergence. This alternative scenario on average increases labour tax revenues from posted workers ‘only' by 3% compared to the current situation, in particular since labour tax rates of the ‘new' and ‘old' Member States are quite similar to each other. Where labour tax revenues from posted workers will decrease by 2% in the ‘old' sending Member States, a higher increase of revenues will be realised in the ‘new' sending Member States (+8%)."

"This thematic report focuses on changes in individual careers, trajectories on the labour market and occupational identities. It analyses the driving forces behind these changes and considers wider societal trends concerning the changing meaning of work. The conclusions highlight key trends in careers and trajectories: the widening of the spectrum of career models; the multiplication of fragmented trajectories; the plurality of models of identity formation at work; the new balance between internal and external labour markets; the individualisation of human resource management; the decline of traditional forms of collective involvement and the emergence of new forms of social bonding at work; and finally the increasing importance of the expressive dimension in the relation to work."

"Drawing on both the quantitative and qualitative research findings of the WORKS project, this report analyses the impact of global restructuring processes on the organisation of working time and also examines its contribution to the creation of work-life balance. With a special focus on gender relations, it illustrates how men and women are dealing with changing temporal demands in different sectors and occupations.

In relation to working time, the results highlight a tendency towards destandardisation and increasing differentiation of temporal models: with an increase in atypical hours, flexi-time, and shortened as well as lengthened working hours.

Besides this differentiation, the most important impact of restructuring seems to be a growing intensification of work - not necessarily as a prolongation of working time but as a speeding up of pace and workloads.

In terms of work-life balance, intensified work profiles increase demands on the combination of work and family, a field which remains strongly gendered. Here, occupational contexts are crucial for assessing change processes. A high autonomy in working time offers some women in high-skilled occupations the option of developing emancipated strategies. Women working in lower skilled occupations follow traditional gender rules and depend much more on temporal frameworks laid down by the employers.

In both fields, country differences underline the importance of institutional support in times of globalisation."