Measuring Employment Security in Europe Using Surveys of Employers

Using results from surveys in which employers were questioned about their freedom to shed staff, we develop a measure of employment security in Europe. We seek to identify which institutional factors are correlated with the responses of employers and find that they appear to reflect the strength of legal restrictions and trade unions and the prevalence of atypical employment. Our results are used to compile an index of employment security that has both a temporal and a cross‐country dimension.     

Towards a sustainable fashion retail supply chain in Europe: Organisation and performance

Sustainability issues are particularly sensitive to the fashion supply chain, given current fierce competition, intensive resource use, and the exposure of penurious labour conditions in some regions.In this paper, we discuss how the sustainability movement is impacting the fashion retail supply chain organisation and its performance. We carried out a study with stakeholders of the fashion industry and we report on their views. We elaborate on the challenges and conflicts of the different dimensions of sustainability, and we discuss how to leverage both the internal and external organisations in the European supply chain.     

The Wormking Time Debate in Western Europe

High unemployment levels in western Europe have stimulated calls for reorganizing working time. Some reductions in working time as well as more explicit work-sharing initiatives have occurred; results from these initiatives have been disappointing. Obstacles include attitudes of the different parties involved and little indication of work-sharing following simulated or actual hours reductions. A greater work-sharing effect can be anticipated where hours reductions are greater, when they occur in nonrecessionary periods, and where job-retention as well as job-creation effects are evaluated.     

Sharing Risks of Labour Market Transitions: Towards a System of Employment Insurance

The increasing polarization of the labour market is closely related to the spread of non‐standard employment relationships that largely results from poor risk management of critical transitions over the life course. The question, therefore, arises whether labour market regulation, in particular unemployment insurance, is still properly designed for the new world of work. This article argues for an extension of unemployment insurance towards a system of employment insurance by summarizing the concept of transitional labour markets, indicating the risks that challenge current and future labour markets, laying the theoretical groundwork, and discussing the main features of an employment insurance system.     

Raising the Standard? The Regulation of Employment,and Public Sector Employment Policy

This article describes developments in employment regulation in 2005 and assesses how far these measures fulfilled the Government’s pledges to the union movement made in the Warwick Agreement. It also examines the Government’s behaviour as an employer, and the interplay between public and private sector employment practice. It concludes that there was limited evidence of Government commitment to the traditional conception of the good employer. There was also little sign of the public sector being used to promote a coherent model of employment practice to private sector employers in 2005. Direct regulation of the employment relationship was more in evidence.     

Varieties of Multinationals: Adapting Employment Practices in Central Eastern Europe

"Home-country effects" on multinational companies' practices abroad are assessed by comparing twelve German- and U.S.-owned plants within the same sector in the "institutionally permissive" Poland, Hungary, and Slovenia. Differences are detected on functional flexibility, corporate culture and working time, but not on participation. Work organization seems more integral to national productive models than industrial relations. Moreover, considerable intramodel variation reflects product- and labor-market contingencies. The results support the interpretation of national models as internally heterogeneous and dynamic.     

Towards better nutrition in Europe: Evaluating progress and defining future directions

This paper provides a snapshot of the implementation of the WHO European Food and Nutrition Action Plan 2015–2020 among Member States in the WHO European Region. The focus is on the level and degree of implementation of selected policies recommended in this regional framework to promote healthy nutrition and prevent diet related noncommunicable diseases including obesity. Data was gathered through online and off-line versions of the Global Nutrition Policy Review questionnaire in 2017, through appointed focal points from the ministries of health. Almost all (94%) countries in the European region responded to the questionnaire, although not all responses were equally detailed. Significant progress has been made in some areas of public health nutrition, such as within school food policies, product reformulation, and implementation of trans fat regulations. However, if countries are to achieve global NCD targets, more ambitious policies with appropriate breadth and depth are needed. This is mainly the case for consumer-friendly front-of-package labelling, restrictions on marketing of foods to children as well as policies to protect, promote and support exclusive breastfeeding and appropriate complementary feeding practices. Lastly, it is crucial to prioritize robust monitoring, surveillance and evaluation systems in order to understand the effect of these actions and to guide timely and appropriate adjustment of policies.     

Models of the Company and the Employment Relationship

How the company is conceptualized has important implications for employees. Divergent theoretical approaches towards the company are synthesized below to form three models: the ownership, nexus of contracts, and social institution models. The first two endorse current UK corporate governance practice, in which companies are run for the ultimate benefit of their shareholders, who have the exclusive right to appoint the board. The third model questions this arrangement and, more generally, the characterization of the company as a wholly private association. The conclusion examines the implications of the third model for reform of company law and governance in the UK.     

Towards a pre-service technology teacher education resource for New Zealand

The Pre-service Technology Teacher Education Resource (PTTER) was developed as a cross-institutional resource to support the development of initial technology teacher education programmes in New Zealand. The PTTER was developed through collaboration involving representatives from each of the six New Zealand university teacher education providers, Massey University, University of Auckland, University of Canterbury, University of Otago, Victoria University and University of Waikato, working with the National Technology Professional Development Manager. The framework for PTTER is built on four key elements considered to be essential to the education of technology teachers. The four elements are: philosophy of technology, rationale for technology education, technology in the New Zealand curriculum, and teaching technology. The PTTER is a web-based resource aimed at assisting technology teacher educators in the development of their teacher education programmes. The framework is a statement of shared philosophy, purpose and intent and is located on the Techlink website (www.techlink.org.nz). PTTER contains a range of teaching resources and strategies located within an overall framework for initial technology teacher education programmes. This paper describes the rationale for the PTTER framework, the process through which it was developed, explanation of each of the framework’s elements, and concludes with discussion of the framework’s implementation and future development.     

Theorizing the Employment Relationship: Materialists and Institutionalists

Books reviewed: Paul Blyton and Peter Turnbull. The Dynamics of Employee Relations.
Bruce E. Kaufman, editor. Theoretical Perspectives on Work and the Employment Relationship.
Reviewed by Peter Ackers Harry C. Katz, Wonduck Lee and Joohee Lee, editors. The New Structure of Labor Relations — Tripartism and Decentralization.
Reviewed by Lorenzo Bordogna Ian Fitzgerald and John Stirling, editors. European Works Councils: Pessimism of the Intellect, Optimism of the Will?.
Reviewed by Richard Hyman John McIlroy, Alan Campbell and Keith Gildart, editors. Industrial Politics and the 1926 Mining Lockout: The Struggle for Dignity.
Keith Gildart. North Wales Miners: A Fragile Unity, 1945–1996.
Reviewed by Richard Croucher Massimo Florio. The Great Divestiture — Evaluating the Impact of the British Privatisations 1979–1997.
Reviewed by Michael G. Pollitt Elizabeth C. Dunn. Privatizing Poland — Baby Food, Big Business, and the Remaking of Labor.
Reviewed by Tatjana Thelen Jonathan Brock and David B. Lipsky, editors. Going Public: The Role of Labor‐Management Relations in Delivering Quality Government Services.
Reviewed by Rebecca Kolins Givan William J. Baumol, Alan S. Blinder and Edward N. Wolff. Downsizing in America — Reality, Causes, and Consequences.
Reviewed by John Schmitt D. Grant, C. Hardy, C. Oswick and L. Putnam, editors. The Sage Handbook of Organizational Discourse.
Reviewed by Barbara Townley     

Industrial Relations in Western Europe: An Era of Ambiguity?

In western Europe, as in the United States, the 1980s saw major challenges to established institutions of industrial relations. Managements, faced with intensified competitive pressure, have taken the initiative; union have been on the defensive. Deregulation and decentralization have been the recurrent themes of both practitioners and academic analysts. For some commentators, national distinctiveness is giving way to convergence, encouraged in part by moves toward the Single European Market. This article develops a more skeptical perspective on recent trends.     

Finance,Corporate Governance,and the Employment Relationship

This comparative paper examines the relationship between equity markets and corporate governance on one hand, and job tenure, training, and pay on the other. Two dimensions of equity markets and corporate governance are used: share trading activity and mergers and acquisitions. There is support for the posited links between these measures and job tenure, employee stock ownership plans, pay dispersion, and collective bargaining arrangements. Evidence on the relationship with training is more mixed.     

劳动合同法下用人单位败诉节点提示（一）

本文从用人单位法律适用实务操作角度出发，结合作者在司法实践中的多年经验，探寻劳动合同法框架下用人单位最容易败诉的节点并给予提示，尽量以简练的几句话进行剖析并提供解决方案，给用人单位在适用劳动合同法时提供一些有益的参考。     

The Many Meanings of Co-Operation in the Employment Relationship and Their Implications

Co-operation in the employment relationship continues to be a widely lauded goal, but academics, practitioners and policy makers rarely define the concept or analyse systematically its variants. This is problematic because a lack of clarity is a significant barrier to academic discourse and practical implementation in many organizations and countries. This article therefore carefully develops a framework that results in six key perspectives on co-operation rooted in five assumptions. In addition to fostering a deeper understanding of co-operation, these six perspectives can be used to theorize alternative employment relations paradigms when co-operation rather than conflict is viewed as the central construct. Moreover, a dynamic analysis of these six perspectives adds new insights to understanding the challenges of achieving and sustaining truly co-operative regimes, while also highlighting the need to go beyond structures and practices by incorporating the role of ideas in analyses of the success or failure of co-operative efforts.