Documents Piasna, Agnieszka 67 results

"This guide maps the discussion on working time reduction by examining the recent trends, the different reasons for implementing such a reduction, and the ways in which it can be organised. Illustrated with numerous real-life examples and insights from research, this guide is a valuable resource for anybody wishing to know more about the working time reduction debate.
The guide shows that there is no ‘one best way' of reducing working time. The design of the experiment should be adapted according to the purpose of the reduction. At the same time, it is clear that there is a great need for large-scale experimentation with organised working time reduction, as the current reduction through the proliferation of part-time work does not guarantee an equal redistribution of work nor does it promote gender equality."

"This guide maps the discussion on working time reduction by examining the recent trends, the different reasons for implementing such a reduction, and the ways in which it can be organised. Illustrated with numerous real-life examples and insights from research, this guide is a valuable resource for anybody wishing to know more about the working time reduction debate.
The guide shows that there is no ‘one best way' of reducing working time. The design of the experiment should be adapted according to the purpose of the reduction. At the same time, it is clear that there is a great need for large-scale experimentation with organised working time reduction, as the current reduction through the proliferation of part-time work does not guarantee an equal redistribution of work nor does it promote gender equality."

"This working paper presents the results of the ETUI Internet and Platform Work Survey conducted in Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Poland and Slovakia in 2018-2019. The objective is to map the extent of digital labour in central and eastern Europe (CEE) based on the analysis of two types of online sources for generating income: internet work; and its subset, platform work. The researchers did not find evidence that internet and platform work is creating a qualitatively new labour market that encroaches on traditional age and gender segmentation. Neither is it a market of ‘student jobs'. Moreover, the labour market situation of internet and platform workers was somewhat more precarious than that for employed people generally, with a higher incidence of non-standard and fragmented employment."

"This paper presents some of the key insights from the second wave of the ETUI Internet and Platform Work Survey (ETUI IPWS) conducted in 14 member states of the European Union (EU) in Spring 2021. The use of standard probability sampling allows us to estimate the proportion of internet and platform workers, and to identify their characteristics, in a way that is generalisable to the working age population. We found the prevalence of internet and platform work to be relatively similar in the analysed countries, suggesting a uniform evolution of this type of work across the EU. In particular, 17 per cent of the working age population did some internet work in the past year, 4.3 per cent did platform work and 1.1 per cent can be classified as ‘main platform workers'; that is, working 20 hours or more per week or earning more than 50 per cent of their income through platforms. Internet and platform workers differ from the offline workforce in several ways. They tend to be somewhat younger but are far from constituting a student workforce. They are better educated than those who have never done internet work and this is particularly the case for higher skill professional work. Internet work seems mainly to complement offline precarious work and serves as an extra source of income for those on less stable contracts."

"Online labour platforms are redefining the world of work, but little is known even now about the drivers of worker engagement in this type of activity. Earlier studies focused on individual preferences and job characteristics such as flexibility or low entry barriers, but the relative role of such pull factors is limited given widespread worker discontent and generally precarious and unstable conditions, in many respects similar to the low-wage and informal sector. This working paper expands current frameworks by considering the role of the local economic and employment context in explaining the prevalence of internet and platform work.

Our analysis uses the ETUI Internet and Platform Work Survey carried out in Spring and Autumn 2021 with representative cross-national data covering 14 European countries. The results show a higher likelihood of engaging in online work in regions with worse offline opportunities – that is, fewer jobs and of lower quality overall. As internet work is often a secondary source of income, this is likely to reflect a greater juggling of offline and online jobs, driven by increasing economic and job insecurity."

"The central questions and main contextual background explored by this year's issue of Benchmarking are, at their core, fairly straightforward. Europe is at a crossroads, painfully navigating four transitions at once: a (perhaps less than obvious) economic policy transition best exemplified by the debates surrounding the EU economic governance framework (COM(2022) 583 final); a geopolitical transition, increasingly shaped by the ‘open strategic autonomy' debate (Akgüç 2021) and, of course, by the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine; and the two more readily acknowledged green and digital transitions. It is, however, becoming increasingly clear, as explored in greater detail in the following chapters, that these four transitions imply important trade-offs and have significant ramifications for the social dimension of the European project and for the livelihoods of European workers. These consequences are currently being ignored by the principal institutional actors that are shaping them and that, at times, have conflicting priorities.

The current inability on the part of governments and policy-makers, at a national and supranational level, to resolve the tensions inherent to these transitions is a major factor in determining what the following pages of this issue refer to as a ‘polycrisis'. We understand the current conjuncture as a ‘polycrisis' due to the presence of a series of multiple, separate crises happening simultaneously (e.g. a climate crisis, a cost-of-living crisis, a geopolitical crisis, etc.), due to the way in which these separate crises interact with each other (for instance the energy crisis and the climate crisis), and due to the extent to which they thus amplify each other's effects, in particular social and economic effects (the extent to which strained supply chains and externally driven inflationary pressures tend to magnify the shortcomings of current fiscal policies, for instance, as noted in the opening chapter). There is also a growing perception that resolving any of these crises in isolation may be a particularly arduous task and that cumulative responses must be identified.

This polycrisis is intimately linked to the inability of the ruling class to engage with what we identify here as the missing transition: the social transition. This issue of Benchmarking Working Europe engages critically with these four transitions and their effects and posits that only a transformative and ambitious social transition can break the current cycle of crisis after crisis and instead institutionalise what the issue refers to as ‘sustainable resilience'.

The four transitions – and the missing one
We are arguably witnessing four major discernible and disruptive transition processes that are shaking the kaleidoscope of the European project as it is currently still enshrined in the (fragile) constitutional consensus embodied by the Lisbon Treaty. The rather more obvious (but no less challenging) processes are the green and technological transitions. Yet, it is arguable that, most visibly since the suspension of parts of the Stability and Growth Pact, we have also been experiencing an economic policy (including a monetary policy) transition and – in connection with the supply chain shortages caused by Covid‑19 and its aftermath, and more markedly since the Russian invasion of Ukraine – a geopolitical transition linked to the developing concept of ‘open strategic autonomy'"

"Debates on the future of work have taken a more fundamental turn in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Early in 2020, when large sections of the workforce were prevented from coming to their usual places of work, remote work became the only way for many to continue to perform their professions. What had been a piecemeal, at times truly sluggish, evolution towards a multilocation approach to work suddenly turned into an abrupt, radical and universal shift. It quickly became clear that the consequences of this shift were far more significant and far-reaching than simply changing the workplace's address. They involved a series of rapid, blockbuster transformations that were going to outlast the ‘mandatory lockdown' phase of the pandemic. The 12 chapters collected in this volume provide a multidisciplinary perspective on the impact and the future trajectories of remote work. They raise, discuss and explore fundamental questions emerging around remote work: from the nexus between the location from where work is performed and how it is performed to how remote locations may affect the way work is managed and organised, as well as the applicability of existing legislation. Additional questions concern remote work's environmental and social impact and the rapidly changing nature of the relationship between work and life. The contributions in this edited volume develop along several complementary axes, ranging from the discussion of global and societal dynamics to the implications for the contractual relationship between employers and workers. The transformation of the spatial component of work is considered both as a potential paradigm shift for the world of work and as a challenge for the implementation of specific regulatory regimes. An important insight that emerges from the multidimensional approach of this volume is that the establishment of a worker centred future of (remote) work requires the exploration and development of constructive pathways at different levels and in different directions involving the role of regulators, courts, trade unions, researchers, businesses and workers themselves."

"This paper presents the latest results of the European Job Quality Index, updated with 2021 data, and compares the relative performance of EU countries on the Index over time. The study makes both a conceptual and an empirical contribution, by proposing an approach to measuring job quality suitable for comparative cross-national research, as well as for guiding policy by clearly indicating the desired direction for change.

Moreover, the study reviews evidence in support of the synergy between job quantity and quality, and also reveals the positive relationship between collective interest representation and several other dimensions of job quality. Finally, it illustrates the unequal distribution of job quality across different groups of the European workforce."

"Digital labour platforms transform work and employment relations in many ways. Crucially, they renounce the role of the employer, leading to a redefinition of traditional categories of actors and their roles in social policy and dialogue. Using the example of the EU proposal for a directive on improving working conditions in platform work, this article examines how this redefinition is materialising in practice among social partners in order to understand its implications for the future of social dialogue and legislation. While previous research focused on the status of workers, this study takes a complementary view by considering the employer side as a key counterpart in a functioning employment relationship. The actor-approach is used to analyse the views and positions of EU social partners and how their prerogatives are affected by the blurring of the role of the employer and the redefinition of traditional categories of actors in social policy."