etui.podcast

An anniversary can be a good occasion for reflection.

20 years ago, in 2004, eight central and eastern European countries joined the European Union. Followed by the accession of Bulgaria and Romania in 2007 and Croatia in 2013, these successive enlargements nearly doubled the number of EU Member States. And they came with many hopes for economic and social cohesion, as well as for strengthened industrial relations in the region.

So to what extent have these hopes been met?  

Discussion with Vera Scépanović, lecturer in International Relations and European Studies at Leiden University and co-editor of Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, the ETUI’s quarterly journal published by Sage Publishing.

This conversation is based on the issue of Transfer, ‘20 years after: perspectives on industrial relations in Central and Eastern Europe 20 years after the EU enlargement’.

This year, after a long and embattled process, the EU adopted new rules to improve working conditions on digital labour platforms, particularly regarding employment status and the use of algorithmic management.  

The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) has called the 2024 Platform Work Directive ‘a policy milestone’ and ‘a testament to the resilience of collective efforts’.  

Discussion with Tea Jarc, ETUC Confederal Secretary, and Silvia Rainone, ETUI Senior Researcher, about what exactly is in the Directive, what it took to get it passed, and what it means for the millions of people working through digital platforms today. 

Further reading  

⁠The EU Platform Work Directive | etui⁠  

⁠Inevitable, vulnerable, unprofitable: an inquiry into food delivery platforms in Europe | etui⁠  

⁠Digital labour platforms and migrant workers | etui⁠  

⁠Exercising workers' rights in algorithmic management systems | etui⁠  

⁠Juggling online gigs with offline jobs | etui⁠  

⁠Collective bargaining in the platform economy | etui⁠  

⁠The platform economy in Europe | etui⁠  

⁠Platform Economy | ETUC⁠ 

The term ‘burnout’ has become a common one in recent times. But are we clear on what it really means and, even more importantly, exactly what causes it? The World Health Organization recently recognised it as an ‘occupational phenomenon’. So what should organisations be doing to prevent burnout or, at the very least, to address it when it does occur amongst their employees? 

Discussion with Evangelia Demerouti, Professor of Work and Organizational Psychology at the Eindhoven University of Technology and co-author (with Niels Adaloudis) of the recent ETUI report ‘Addressing burnout in organisations’. 

Further reading

Addressing burnout in organisations | etui 

The fractions and burden of cardiovascular diseases and depression attributable to psychosocial work exposures in the European Union | etui 

Psychosocial risks: a mounting crisis | etui  

Psychosocial risks in the healthcare and long-term care sectors | etui 

Recent years have arguably seen a ‘social turn’ in EU policymaking, with initiatives on minimum wages, pay transparency, platform work, corporate due diligence, and health and safety coming to fruition, amongst many others.

But in this moment of political change and uncertainty, can this 'social paradigm shift' be sustained?

Guests Bart Vanhercke, ETUI Research Director, and Sotiria Theodoropoulou, Head of Unit for 'European economic, employment and social policies', discuss the current state of play.

Further reading:

Benchmarking Working Europe 2024 | etui

Social policy in the European Union: state of play 2023 | etui

Industrial policy for quality jobs and a just transition | etui

Is the European Green Deal really leaving no-one behind? | etui

Dawn of a new era? | etui

The resurgence of the social dimension of the EU raises a number of questions: in what way and to what extent has the EU social dimension indeed been strengthened since the adoption of the EPSR? To what extent are newly adopted social policies actually likely to contribute to improving people’s lives, and in particular the lives of those who face precarious working or living conditions? What explains the broad political support of the centre-left and centre-right for this social turn? 

Find out more in Transfer's latest issue on Social Europe

AI is now widely used to automate business processes and replace labour-intensive tasks while changing the skill demands for those that remain. How are AI-based tools deployed to monitor worker conduct and to automate HR management processes? Through the dual lens of comparative labour law and employment relations research, our guest investigate the role of collective bargaining and government policy in shaping strategies to deploy new digital and AI-based technologies at work.

More about the special issue: https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/trsa/29/1

There are almost 2.6 million domestic workers in Europe working in private homes or others. Though representing a huge and vital workforce, their economic and social contribution has often been denied and they are longing for recognition. Although domestic workers are finally enjoying more social rights, trade unions have a key role to play to achieve improved working conditions for domestic workers within and across borders.

How can the European Union steer a course towards long-term social and ecological well-being in the context of incessant emergencies? Two decades of perpetual crisis management have greatly eroded Europe’s capacity to pursue a sustainable future, as considerations of short-term expediency continue to hamper the four necessary transitions – green, digital, geopolitical and socio-economic.

Find out more in Benchmarking Working Europe 2023

Until recently, the discussion of social welfare systems in Europe was disconnected from ecological concerns and policies. The relevant objectives, instruments and actors were largely different. Environmental and climate science, on the one hand, and the analysis and theoretical foundations of welfare systems, on the other, emerged and developed in disparate silos. While the welfare state was designed to reduce social risks and ensure (relative) stability of income and societies, it was also created as an institution that favours economic growth and the maintenance of income and consumption. Its aim was not to change behaviour but to maintain it, with a focus on redistribution. With environmental inequalities increasingly embedded in social ones, environmental policies are becoming social policies, and vice-versa.

Find out more in the recent Transfer Issue

Advanced capitalist societies seem to limp from one existential crisis to the next, becoming ever more fragile and unstable. Yet the dominant theoretical frameworks in political economy view capitalism as fundamentally stable or, at most, subject to incremental change. Baccaro, Blyth and Pontusson emphasise the diversity of capitalist trajectories or, rather, growth models. 

How should we think about modern capitalism? A growth models approach - Transfer article -  Lucio Baccaro, Mark Blyth, and Jonas Pontusson

The book: Diminishing Returns, The New Politics of Growth and Stagnation - Mark Blyth, Jonas Pontusson, and Lucio Baccaro