Crisis corporatism 2.0? The role of social dialogue in the pandemic crisis in Europe

Europe has been faced with multiple challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, including the problem of how to secure jobs and earnings. In our comparative analysis, we explore to what degree European welfare states were capable of responding to this crisis by stabilising employment and workers’ incomes. While short-time work was a policy tool already partly used in the 2008/2009 Great Recession, job retention policies were further expanded or newly introduced across Europe in 2020 in the wake of the pandemic. However, cross-national variations persist in the way in which these schemes were designed and implemented across European welfare states, aiming more or less to hoard labour and thereby avoid mass dismissals throughout the employment crisis. We distinguish between business support and labour support logics in explaining the variation in job retention policies across Europe. Our finding is that Continental, Mediterranean and liberal welfare states did more to foster labour hoarding using short-time work than Nordic or Central and Eastern European countries.

Section: Job Retention Policies During the 2020 Pandemicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cui bono – business or labour? Job retention policies during the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe

Ebbinghaus

Lehner

2022

“…As for its origin, while many of the crises of the 20th century originated from wars or economic downturns, this one is the result of a global health emergency that threatens to affect everyone, everywhere. 3 A second peculiarity of the pandemic concerns symmetry: on the one hand, the crisis has simultaneously affected both the supply and the demand sides of the economy; on the other, the pandemic has spread across countries all over the world (Ladi and Tsarouhas, 2020; Meardi and Tassinari, 2022). Thirdly, the magnitude of the crisis is striking.…”

Section: Major Crises and Their Role In Policy Changementioning

confidence: 99%

COVID-19 and the opportunity to change the neoliberal agenda: evidence from socio-employment policy responses across Europe

Natali

2022

Much of the recent literature on the COVID-19 pandemic agrees on the uniqueness of this crisis. Assessments of the subsequent policy response in Europe diverge, however: while some see signs of policy change, others consider the empirical evidence to be inconclusive or, worse, consistent with a reinforcement of neoliberalism. The present article aims to contribute to that debate by providing a preliminary assessment of policy measures in the areas of health care, employment protection and pensions. Recent measures are viewed in terms of the neoliberal paradigm, which is used as a benchmark to identify any sign of innovation. While it is too early to talk about a true paradigmatic transformation, the evidence collected from international datasets and official documents confirms that ideas and policy measures show signs of change. The article also suggests that the study of ideas is a promising field of enquiry with which to improve our understanding of the pandemic and its effects.

“…Compared with Spain, the state of social dialogue in Italy has been weak and declining since the 1990s, when social pacts were signed and tripartite agreements had become the norm (see also Meardi and Tassinari, 2022). At the same time, there is more fragmentation among Italian trade unions: the three main ones – CGIL (Italian General Labour Confederation), CISL (Italian Confederation of Trade Unions), and UIL (Italian Labour Union) – have more heterogeneous cultural and ideological backgrounds than their Spanish counterparts and have not always followed unity of action in the past two decades.…”

Section: Trade Unions and Reconciliation Policies During The Pandemic...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconciliation policies in COVID times: what role for trade unions in Spain and Italy?

Pavolini

Balbona

Guillén

2022

This article aims to interpret trade unions’ role in reconciliation policies during the current pandemic in Italy and Spain. Questions to be answered include whether and to what degree unions have been present in the public debate, have participated in the policy-making process, have acted as policy reform protagonists or have consented to it, and to what extent they have been able to influence the direction of reform. The study proposes a three-level analytical framework of general applicability, signalling the variables that may affect the role played by unions at the micro-, meso- and macro-levels, together with the indicators that could be used. Research results for the Italian and Spanish cases indicate that the most relevant level to explain the role played by unions is the macro one. Unions tended to acquiesce to government policies in both countries, although that does not preclude action or involvement. The article also argues that a better and more nuanced categorisation of union roles should be developed.