Documents Leschke, Janine 71 results

"The liberalisation and privatisation of public sector activities have been the subject of heated debate since the 1970s. The chapters in this volume contribute to this debate by analysing the effects of liberalisation and privatisation on productivity and service provision, employment, wages and working conditions in a number of European countries. The focus is on the service sector, which has been the main source of employment growth in recent years."

"This report focuses on the social rights of the most flexible non-standard workers. It does so with reference to the stipulations in the new EU Directive 2019/1152 on Transparent and Predictable Working Conditions (TPWC). The Directive – which at the time of writing is not yet fully implemented in all countries – aims to ensure that workers receive information about their working conditions in writing at an early stage and benefit from minimum rights to prevent precariousness. We focus, in particular, on one of the most flexible group of non-standard workers – platform-based food delivery workers (riders). Platform work was one of the explicit targets of the Directive. While the Directive will not apply to genuinely self-employed workers, it is applicable to those in bogus self-employment – therefore including riders who hold no employee status despite the platform's employee-like control over them. It is an interesting case to scrutinise the potential benefits and limits of the TPWC Directive as working hours are highly variable and platform work is carried out on the basis of a variety of employment statuses (including solo self-employment) and contract types (employment by third party agencies, civil law contracts, mini-jobs etc.). This report draws on country case studies and uses variation across sectors. The cases – Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, Poland and Spain – are justified by their coverage of a range of industrial relations models and welfare regimes; features that are likely to impact the situation of the sector in the specific countries. These differences mean that the Directive may have differential impact on riders' working conditions in the near future once fully implemented. To account for firm-level variation in the organization of food delivery platforms, we identified the two companies with the highest market share at the time of writing for each of our country cases (Just Eat and Wolt for Denmark, Lieferando and Gorillas for Germany, Just Eat and Glovo for Spain, Uber Eats and Deliveroo for France, Pyszne.pl (Just Eat) and Uber Eats for Poland and Thuisbezorgd.nl (Just Eat) and Uber Eats for the Netherlands). The country case studies are based on desk research which included information provided to riders during the application process and where possible scrutiny of contracts, service agreements, collective agreements and relevant legislation. The information provided during application formed an essential aspect for our analysis as information discrepancies between platforms' online FAQs, job advertisements and what is then contractually agreed upon illustrates the state of predictability and transparency of working conditions well. For some countries expert interviews with trade union representatives have been conducted to verify or expand information. Analytically, the paper draws on the power resource framework of Vandenbroucke et al (2021) which distinguishes between normative, instrumental and enforcement resources (see also Ferrera et al forthcoming). This allows us to systematically analyse the situation of riders across countries and platforms in relation to the Directive's aims. Our findings show that riders often have poor work-related rights (normative resources) and inadequate information about these rights (instrumental resources) – and these problems are particularly salient for those in solo self-employment. The TPWC Directive might thus eventually – when fully implemented - improve parts of the working conditions on food delivery platforms."

"Working conditions in platform work are often, yet rarely explicitly, assessed according to criteria similar to those applied to the quality of jobs outside the gig economy. In this article the authors argue that future research would benefit from analytical schemes that enable a systematic analysis of working conditions in platform work. They discuss the advantages and challenges of applying existing job-quality frameworks to platform work and present a suggestion for modifications that consider the particularities of platform work. The use of such a novel analytical framework could help systematise evidence from qualitative research, promote the heretofore rare initiatives of quantitative representative data collection, and inspire theoretical developments at the interface of job quality and platform work."

"Current levels of youth unemployment need to be understood in the context of increased labor market flexibility, an expansion of higher education, youth migration, and family legacies of long-term unemployment. Compared with previous recessions, European-wide policies and investments have significantly increased with attempts to support national policies. By mapping these developments and debates, we illustrate the different factors shaping the future of European labor markets. We argue that understanding youth unemployment requires a holistic approach that combines an analysis of changes in the economic sphere around labor market flexibility, skills attainment, and employer demand, as well as understanding the impact of family legacies affecting increasingly polarized trajectories for young people today. The success of EU policy initiatives and investments will be shaped by the ability of national actors to implement these effectively."

"Dieser Artikel befasst sich mit der qualitativen und quantitativen Dimension der Ost-West-Arbeitskräftemobilität in der EU vor dem Hintergrund der Wirtschaftskrise. Im Zentrum unserer Analyse steht die Frage, ob die EU-Arbeitskräftemobilität zu einer besseren Allokation von Humanressourcen beiträgt, wie die Europäische Kommission wiederholt betont hat. Auf Basis der Europäischen Arbeitskräftestichprobe analysieren wir die Entwicklung der Beschäftigung von EU8- und EU2-Migranten in ausgewählten EU15-Ländern und vergleichen Arbeitslosenraten von EU10-Migranten und einheimischen Arbeitnehmern. Auf dieser Basis versuchen wir, Gewinner und Verlierer zu identifizieren. Zumindest teilweise hat kurzfristige Arbeitsmigration in den meisten Empfängerländern als Arbeitsmarktpuffer in der Krise gewirkt. Unsere Analysen zeigen jedoch in Übereinstimmung mit Befunden aus der akademischen Literatur, dass unterwertige Beschäftigung ein charakteristisches Merkmal der EU10-Migranten zu sein scheint. Die branchenspezifischen Verteilungsprofile der EU10-Migranten unterstützen diese Aussage. Das ungenutzte Humankapital weist auf eine der größten Herausforderungen hin, mit denen die EU-interne Arbeitskräftemobilität konfrontiert ist."

"Während die Instrumente der Economic Governance während der Krise erheblich gestärkt wurden, sind im Bereich der sozialen Dimension Europas keine Fortschritte zu verzeichnen. Die in erster Linie auf strikter überwachte und zentral gesteuerte Budgetpolitiken setzenden Verfahren im Europäischen Semester haben die ohnehin bestehende Nachrangigkeit sozialer Ziele in der EU weiterhin gefestigt. Dieser Beitrag zieht eine Zwischenbilanz der Europa-2020-Strategie. Der Fokus liegt auf dem Widerspruch zwischen den sozial- und beschäftigungspolitischen Zielen und den gleichzeitigen Vorgaben zur Konsolidierung der öffentlichen Finanzen im Rahmen des Europäischen Semesters. Es werden insbesondere die vielfältigen Indikatorensysteme, die im sozialen Bereich vorliegen, diskutiert. Dabei werden deren Komplexität und Uneinheitlichkeit hervorgehoben und Fragen nach ihrem Mehrwert aufgeworfen. Abschließend werden Verbesserungspotenziale der Europa-2020-Strategie diskutiert."