The creation of dynamic and flexible labour markets increasing flexibility by removing existing rigidities is widely seen as contributing to economic growth. Expectations from flexibility centre on the creation of employment and thus reducing unemployment, increasing the adaptability of enterprises, social inclusion of marginal groups on the labour market (particularly women and young first entrants), and combating undeclared work. Since the acquis communautaire includes instruments on flexible work, Turkey, while preparing itself for accession to the EU, has to take measures to increase flexibility. Moreover, flexibilisation contributes to modernisation of the Turkish labour market, as it has to increase the participation of women in work and it has to reduce the huge informal labour market. The studies and proposals underlying this book were initiated within the framework of the Matra Pre-accession Projects Programme of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. So many valuable information came to light in the course of the project that this revised and updated version of the reports is now presented to a wider audience. Its keen insights, applicable both in general and specifically to Turkey, shed light on such vital employment issues as the following: A general introduction to key actors in the Turkish labour market; models of linking security with flexibility; relation between the formal and informal labour markets; industrial relations and collective bargaining; reciprocal rights and duties of worker and employer; the application of existing labour legislation; protection of flexible workers in social security. In their analysis of the Turkish case the authors explore the role of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security and its affiliated institutions: the Social Security Institution (Sosyal G?venlik Kurumu) and Is-Kur (which has evolved from the former Public Employment Services Organisation BK); the consistency of the flexibliity clauses of the new Turkish Labour Act with the acquis; and Turkish solutions as compared with those of EU Member States. Although it focuses on Turkey and will be of particular interest to practitioners and scholars concerned with EU and Turkish law, the factual and descriptive analysis of labour flexibilisation that the study provides complete with various detailed models of flexibilisation will be of great value in assessing the state of employment law in any country experiencing the economic pressure of the current transitional period in worklife realities.

Offering the authors' analysis of the Turkish case, this work explores the role of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security and its affiliated institutions: the Social Security Institution (Sosyal Guvenlik Kurumu) and fl-Kur (which has evolved from the former Public Employment Services Organisation BK).

This book explores the new challenges for work and employment relations in the wake of globalization. It describes contemporary developments and ways in which labor relations systems are evolving around the world and in Turkey. Authors combine the latest information with in-depth insights on a variety of issues. The implications of international trade for employment, the dichotomy between competitiveness and meeting international labor standards, the multinationals’ effects on labor relations, social policy implications of American higher education, the search for the right regulatory balance between labor flexibility and job security, challenges faced in establishing temporary work agencies, the role of skills training and providing women with micro credits to overcome informal employment problems are just some of the issues analyzed in this book. Thus, the contributions from Turkish and international institutions offer a valuable overview of the ongoing discussions in the field of labor economics and employment relations.

Social models are always contested and ambiguous. This is particularly evident in the field of human resources management, where decisions that ultimately affect the patterns of social relations are made every day. This collection of in-depth essays focuses on some central human resources elements – gender, youth, ageing, educational background, training, workers’ rights – providing an up-to-date summary and analysis of how employers are dealing – and should be dealing – with workforce characteristics under current globalized forces. The emphasis is on Europe, but valuable insights come also from Chile, Canada, and the United States. Sixteen experts discuss such important issues as the following: the shift from intervention in favour of workers’ rights towards corporate neo-liberal policies; importance of transnational framework agreements in countries where a trade union; tradition is lacking; evidence that provision of childcare promotes female labour market participation; short-time working, labour hoarding, and labour underutilization; enhancing training policies for employable skills; enforcement of corporate social responsibility; alarmingly high rates of precarious employment; worldwide decline of full-time permanent positions; pension system reform; over-exposure of young people to non-standard employment; discouraged workers; regional imbalances in employment policy; and weaknesses of education programmes in connection with the world of work. Industrial relations and human resources professionals as well as employment lawyers worldwide will welcome this incisive analysis, and academics everywhere are sure to benefit from its evidence, insights, and proposals. The book presents a selection of papers from the international conference in commemoration of Marco Biagi entitled Europe 2020: Comparative Perspectives and Transnational Action, held at the Marco Biagi Foundation in Modena, Italy. 17–19 March 2011.

Large or small, old EU member or new, and even EU member state or not – political economies across Southern Europe have been increasingly but distinctively ‘Europeanised’. In political, public and scholarly debates on processes of Europeanisation, Southern Europe invariably features as the area of concern. These concerns have been all the more heightened when the current sovereign debt crisis disproportionately hit this ‘flaky fringe’. This volume systematically investigates the dynamics of Europeanisation in the ‘Southern Periphery’ by tracing the domestic constellations of ideas, interests and institutions over the course of the 2000s which came to a close with the crisis. Bringing together a multidisciplinary team of leading specialists, the volume focuses on the political economy of public policy reform in Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Spain and Turkey. In order to allow for cross-case comparisons, these original country studies follow a common template framed by what the Editors call the ‘Europeanisation as research programme’. The volume casts empirical light on the causes of the crisis in these cases as well as the past legacies conditioning their responses to the crisis. Its conclusions point to variegated patterns of Europeanisation in different policy areas across Southern Europe. This volume will be of interest to students and scholars of European integration, European political economy, European public policy and comparative politics as well as specialists of Southern Europe. This book was published as a special issue of South European Society and Politics.

In recent years there has been a substantial debate over the interconnection between labour rights and human rights. Consequently, the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) concerning substantive individual labour rights, or ‘rights at work’, is coming to greater prominence at the national level throughout the forty-seven Member States of the Council of Europe. This is the first book in English to provide a thorough analysis of the Court’s most recent case law – cases considered in the period from 1963 to 2016 – on fundamental employment rights such as the right to wages, protection from discrimination and unfair dismissal, the right to occupational safety at work, and civil liberties such as the freedom of association, the freedom of religion and expression, and the right to privacy. Drawing on close scrutiny of 347 cases since 1963, the author traces the evolutionary development of the Court’s positions on labour rights as human rights through case analyses, commentary, and general conclusions in each of several categorical groupings. Recent trends are treated in substantial detail. Among the issues and topics raised are the following: – interrelation of ECtHR case law and national labour rights protection; – benefits for employees of reference to ECtHR case law in national proceedings; – role of International Labour Organization conventions and of the European Social Charter in the Court’s reasoning; – application of balancing and proportionality test in relevant to labour law cases; – public criticism of employer, disclosure of information, and standards of whistle-blowers’ protection; and – positive obligations of the State in the ¬field of occupational safety and health. This book offers the most detailed and considered analysis available of how individual labour rights have been referred to in the human rights jurisprudence of the ECtHR. Given that the Court’s positions have already changed certain aspects of some national labour laws, this peerless volume will prove indispensable for practitioners and scholars monitoring the growing applicability of human rights law in matters of labour and employment, especially in the areas of protection of wages, unjust dismissal, and occupational safety.

The term ‘work-life balance’ refers to the relationship between paid work in all of its various forms and personal life, which includes family but is not limited to it. In addition, gender permeates every aspect of this relationship. This volume brings together a wide range of perspectives from a number of different disciplines, presenting research ndings and their implications for policy at all levels (national, sectoral, enterprise, workplace). Collectively, the contributors seek to close the gap between research and policy with the intent of building a better work-life balance regime for workers across a variety of personal circumstances, needs, and preferences. Among the issues and topics covered are the following: – differences and similarities between men and women and particularly between mothers and fathers in their work choices; – ‘third shift’ work (work at home at night or during weekends); – effect of the extent to which employers perceive management of this process to be a ‘burden’; – employers’ exploitation of the psychological interconnection between masculinity and breadwinning; – organisational culture that is more available for supervisors than for rank and le workers; – weak enforcement mechanisms and token penalties for non-compliance by employers; – trade unions as the best hope for precarious workers to improve work-life balance; – crowd-work (on-demand performance of tasks by persons selected remotely through online platforms from a large pool of potential and generic workers); – an example of how to use work-life balance insights to evaluate the law; – collective self-scheduling; – employers’ duty to accommodate; and – nancial hardship as a serious threat to work-life balance. As it has been shown clearly that work-life con ict is associated with negative health outcomes, exacerbates gender inequalities, and many other concerns, this unusually rich collection of essays will resonate particularly with concerned lawyers and legal academics who ask what work-life balance literature has to offer and how law should respond.

The formerly communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have witnessed a profound transformation of their labour laws since the 1990s and, especially, after their accession to the European Union. Today, in comparison to the other Member States, they continue to have weak trade unions and employers’ associations and an underdeveloped system of collective bargaining. Moreover, the recent economic and financial crisis highlighted the need to invest further efforts in bringing the CEE industrial relations closer to the ‘old’ Member States, in order to facilitate a more meaningful enforcement of the EU-wide economic and social policies. This is the first book to scrutinise this important matter in depth. Focusing on four current CEE labour law regimes – in Slovenia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Poland – that also have different collective bargaining trends and can be said to exemplify some of the main legal and institutional frameworks for collective bargaining that the CEE countries have developed, the author addresses the following major issues: – the transition from a centralised to an open market economy and the degree of continuing residual characteristics; – the extent to which labour laws since the 1990s have enabled an adequate institutionalisation of industrial relations to allow free and voluntary collective bargaining at the national, sectoral, and company levels; and – the effectiveness of the standard-setting role of trade unions and employers’ associations insofar as they have persisted or come into play. The analysis always keeps in focus the development of labour laws in relation to a number of such interlinked elements as market transformation, type of privatisation of state ownership, and attitudes towards welfare. It draws on both the relevant literature and on twenty-five interviews with legal and policy experts from social partners’ organisations and staff within the ministries for social affairs in the selected countries. In support of the study’s general finding that the laws in CEE countries could provide more stimulus for sectoral and cross-sectoral collective bargaining, the author offers deeply informed recommendations and insights into legal shortcomings and pinpoints how the existing legal frameworks can be enhanced. Any professional or academic in the field of industrial relations, and particularly those concerned with complex transitions such as those occurring in the CEE countries and elsewhere in the world, will find this book of great value.

This book focuses on the experience of social dialogue in Turkey, which is a European Union candidate country. It argues that social dialogue constitutes one of the fundamental pillars of European social model and therefore should be analysed not only at the supranational level but also at the national, sectoral and workplace levels. The book critically examines social dialogue processes and mechanisms in Turkey at various levels, with focus on the workplace because it is shaped by socio-cultural elements which contain many variables. The book also identifies the shortcomings and structural impediments of social dialogue, and provides an empirically grounded theoretical explanation of social dialogue in Turkey. In the process, the book explains and clarifies key concepts to help readers grasp important points relevant to social dialogue, and contains interviews with social partners to take into consideration their views and recommendations on social dialogue. These in-depth interviews also provide a rare insight into the dynamics of social dialogue on the ground. By looking at social dialogue at various levels, the book offers a balanced view of its strengths and weaknesses in Turkey. This book is a valuable tool for students, academics and researchers interested in understanding the complex dynamics of social dialogue and workplace relations in Turkey.

It is often assumed that employee representatives exert power at the company board, but it is rarely made explicit how power is exercised and to what effect. This book, the first to assess national differences between board-level employee representatives in their exercise of influence and power, examines coordination among board-level employee representatives, trade unions, representatives from other institutions of labour representation within the company, management and other board members. Drawing on a large-scale survey distributed to board-level employee representatives, eleven expert contributors analyse for seven European countries (Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Norway, Slovenia and Sweden) how such issues and topics as the following affect the participation of employee representatives at the board: – capacity of board-level employee representatives to exercise power over long-term strategic corporate decision making; – how changed circumstances impinge on the role of employee representatives; – how coordination of workers’ interests has been established and maintained, if at all; – how board-level employee representatives are selected; – influence of board-level employee representatives on corporate restructuring; – effect of corporate codes of governance; – impact of the establishment of groups of companies; and – protections against dismissal and discrimination of board-level employee representatives. Each country chapter reviews the legislation that underpins board-level employee representation, the timeliness and quality of the information provided, and the capacity of the representatives to apply information made available, with the purpose of establishing whether the legislation tends to constrain or facilitate the exercise of in uence and power. This book takes a giant step towards answering the question of how board-level employee representatives can fulfil their roles in a manner consistent with the intentions of the policymakers who framed the legislation. Moreover, it approaches the possibility of developing pan-European legislation on board-level employee representation that would accommodate national variations. For these reasons, the book will be welcomed by European policymakers concerned with industrial relations or corporate governance, as well as by practitioners and academics in a wide swath of European legal and social studies.