Part Of Labor Market Research Articles

Changes of Employment through the Segmentation of Labour Market in the Baltic States

Analysing the situation in the labour market and solving the employment and growing unemployment problems the estimation of the labour market often appears as a problem itself. Labour market is characterized by a complex morphological structure, where the components of different markets interlace with each other. The functioning of labour market is determined by the interaction of different market segments and sectors, which differ in different regions as well as in demographical, social, professional, qualification and other features. It is pointed out that labour market influenced by economic, social and political forces is resolved into separate segments (parts of labour market), which differently operate and react to the changes of environment. Estimating labour market through the regional aspect it can be resolved into particular territorial units, with their regional similarities and differences. The objects of segmentation can become employers as well as the unemployed groups. The segments of labour market can be formed according to the performance sector, work specialization, qualifying skills, etc.

Work Organization and `the Scandinavian Model'

Comparative studies of work organization indicate that learning-oriented forms are more widely applied in the Scandinavian countries than is generally the case in Europe. This is often ascribed to the cooperation between the labour market parties and the national political authorities, and the corresponding modification of market forces through welfare and employment policies. It can be argued that this interpretation is too general. An issue like work organization is not affected by the macro-political order of society alone, but also by what more specific initiatives are taken to promote organization development at the workplace level. In this article a number of bi- and tripartite efforts to promote learning-oriented forms of work organization are presented and discussed from the perspective of the question: Is there a Scandinavian model for workplace development and what are its characteristics? It is seen that while the various efforts differ widely in terms of strategy they have some elements in common, in particular the function of building trust between management and workers on the local level.

Subsidizing versus Experience Rating of Unemployment Insurance in Unionized Labor Markets

Alternative ways to organize government subsidies to unemployment insurance (UI) are analyzed in a right-to-manage model where industry-level unions run UI funds of their own. It is shown that equilibrium unemployment is decreasing in the share of UI financed by the employed union members. A reduction in the proportional subsidies matched by an increase in the lump-sum grant is shown to bring about wage moderation and improve employment. If labor-market parties can influence the level of benefits, a subsidy scheme with fixed assistance per unemployed is preferable to one covering a fixed share of the total UI costs.

Discourse democracy at work

This article presents an empirically based argument for what I have labeled ‘discourse democracy at work’. The idea of discourse democracy at work is launched to supplement the various representative models of democracy we find in European working life. Starting with a brief elaboration of the concept of public sphere, the article presents a number of reasons why all parties in working life can benefit from applying some kind of internal public spheres within private enterprises. The experiences gained over 20 years with an agreement between the labor market parties in Norway, on enterprise development based on broad participation from the employees, forms the basis for a more detailed presentation of how discourse democracy at work may be put into practice. The concluding section presents some principal arguments as to why a strategy for discourse democracy is particularly apt today — in a working life characterized by trends like increasing knowledge industries, individualism on the personal level and globalization on the societal level.

Towards social partnership

The article presents the most recent workplace development program in Norway, called Value Creation 2010. With the notion of broad employee participation on enterprise level at its core, the program aims at creating and sustaining learning networks between enterprises and at strengthening regional and branch-based coalitions between private and public actors. The program is a joint creation of research, a public development fund and the labor market parties and reflects the idea of social partnership.

Collective bargaining and state intervention in the Scandinavian countries

The role of the state in collective bargaining in the three Scandinavian countries is strongly rooted in compromises and traditions shaped long ago. While the state has always played a significant role in Denmark and Norway, a doctrine of freedom of the labour market from state intervention has dominated in Sweden. With different changes both in the bargaining structures and among the main labour market parties since the 1970s, the ability to solve coordination problems embedded in centralised collective bargaining now varies considerably. Procedural rules and routines, together with compulsory mediation and different forms of state intervention, have helped to maintain or restore a stable situation in Norway and Denmark. The Swedish development represents the deviant case, where a weak mediation institution, inter-union rivalry, and the withdrawal of the employer's association from bargaining, have led to a fragmented situation. Le rôle de l'Etat dans les négociations collectives menées dans les trois pays scandinaves est profondément ancré dans des compromis et des traditions façonnées depuis longtemps. Alors que l'Etat a toujours joué un rôle significatif au Danemark et en Norvège, la doctrine de la liberté du marché du travail par rapport à l'intervention de l'Etat a prédominé en Suède. Après des changements différents tant au niveau des structures de négociation qu'entre les principaux acteurs du marché du travail depuis les années soixante-dix, la capacité de résoudre des problèmes de coordination incrustés dans les négociations collectives varie actuellement de manière considérable. Les règles et les routines en matière de procédures, de même que la médiation obligatoire et les différentes formes d'intervention de l'Etat, ont contribué à maintenir ou rétablir une situation stable en Norvège et au Danemark. L'évolution suédoise représente le cas déviant où une institution de médiation faible, une rivalité intersyndicale et le retrait de la confédération patronale de la négociation ont conduit à une situation fragmentée. Die Rolle des Staates in den Tarifverhandlungen der drei skandinawischen Länder ist tief verwurzelt in Kompromisshaltungen und Traditionen, die sich schon vor langer Zeit herausbildeten. Während in Dänemark und Norwegen der Staat schon immer eine wichtige Rolle spielte, wurde die Situation in Schweden von einem Ansatz geprägt, der mehr auf Freiheit im Zusammenhang mit den industriellen Beziehungen setzte. Nach 1970 änderte sich allerdings hier die Situation sowohl, was die Tarifverhandlungsstrukturen als auch die Tarifpartner betraf. Dies hatte Auswirkungen auf die Fähigkeit, Koordinierungsprobleme im Rahmen von Tarifverhandlungen zu lösen. Verfahrensregeln und eine entsprechende Routine haben zusammen mit der Pflicht zu einem Vermittlungsverfahren und verschiedenen Formen der Staatsintervention dazu geführt, dass in Norwegen und Dänemark die Situation stabil blieb. In Schweden zeigt sich indessen der umgekehrte Fall, wo schwache Schiedsstrukturen, die Rivalität zwischen den Gewerkschaften und der Rückzug der Arbeitgeber aus den Tarifverhandlungen zu einer fragmentierten Situation geführt haben.

Women in Western Europe: Socioeconomic Restructuring and Crisis in Gender Contracts

Women γν Western Europe.· Socioeconomic Restructuring and Crisis in Gender Contracts Liisa Rantalaiho and Raija Julkunen Western Europe in the Eighties: Restructuring and Long Term Change The 1980s in Western Europe were a period of restructuring with the aim of economic and social modernization. Restructuring attempted to cope with three major challenges: deepening globalization of economic relations and increasing international competition; the impact of new information technologies in all areas of economic life; and the political attacks on and fiscal problems of the welfare state. This transformation, however, took place in a social landscape which has also been changing in a slow but radical way; the social relationship between women and men is being restructured in people's daily lives. As a result of these social changes, populations are aging, the institution of the family is eroding and transforming, individualization is increasing, and women are entering the labor market on a massive scale. Restructuring or structural change has sometimes seemed like an economic force of nature—disseminating new technologies, creating new products and markets, deindustrializing, wreaking large-scale unemployment . But it has also been the major focus of political and economic measures for individual governments, labor market parties, and international organizations. The most prominent program for increasing European competitiveness is the Single-Market program of the European Community (EC), which dominated political discussions in the late 1980s. Our interest here is on the position of women. Western Europe is not one and the same; there are great differences in the economic, social, and cultural conditions of the various countries and these differences will not be eliminated by ongoing integration. The common factor among them is women's secondary position in society. Women's position, however, is part of certain national socioeconomic and cultural models or patterns, which cluster together in more general types. Even if long-term changes have been surprisingly similar across the countries, they may still result in different consequences in different contexts. Gender Contracts Societies have to guarantee their continuity. People produce goods and services for their daily bread and children who will replace their © 1994 Journal of Women-s History, Vol. 5 No. 3 (Winter) 12 Journal of Women's History Winter parents in time. Women and men together have the task of keeping life and society going; they reproduce not only human life, but also social and cultural structures, including the societal structure of gender. There has to be some kind of implicit "gender contract" or gender order that is organized and operates on several levels simultaneously: how institutions are organized, how people interact with each other, how symbols and cultural meanings are used, and how individual identities are formed. The concept of gender in this understanding is not something "natural" or given, but a process of producing and reproducing institutions , meanings, and identities. It is on the move, historical and changeable, but it has a systemic character with a certain basic logic. The Swedish historian Yvonne Hirdman writes that the gender system has two principles ^—hierarchy and difference. Difference means that woman, female, or feminine should be clearly discernible in ideas and practices from man, male, or masculine. The hierarchic principle rules that in every instance man, male, or masculine should take precedence and be the primary norm.1 In Western industrial societies the gender order revolves around labor market structures. Afamiliar solution historically established was to divide the responsibilities in separate spheres for men and women, men in production and women in reproduction of human life. That was often more an ideology than reality and constructed with clearly class-specific solutions . Other types of gender contracts have functioned for some time already. The prevailing gender order in the Nordic countries—Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden—entails the individual right of women to paid work and a certain amount of personal economic and social independence in exchange for women's continuing responsibility for human care, both within public services and in the family, and women's acceptance of a subordinate position within the processes of power.2 The social contradiction remains where both production and reproduction are institutionally separated, although they must be combined in individuáis' lives. But there are strong and basic gender...

The nonunion grievance procedure: a viable system of due process?

This article reviews and critiques the literature covering the functions, structure, and viability of the nonunion grievance procedure. The authors give several arguments in support of their position that the benefits outweigh the costs of such a procedure for unorganized staff whether viewed in terms of society, the employee, or the labor market parties. Next the article briefly summarizes the empirical literature reporting on the operation of nonunion grievance procedures in a number of private-sector firms. These results are linked to the two conceptual models of an effective grievance procedure advanced by Yenney and Epstein. The authors, based on their assessment of organizational practice, identify several potential and real problems with the presently operating nonunion grievance systems in most American firms. Finally, the article concludes with a set of research propositions that systematically address both the current criticisms of the viability of such a procedure and whether most grievance procedures covering unorganized employees meet the standards of due process and organizational justice generally found in union grievance systems.