The ETUC published a report on trade unions strategies for new forms of employment that focusses specifically on the growth of forms of work that fall outside the protection of labour laws and social security. Making use of data from Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Germany and the UK the report identifies similarities and differences between the countries covered by the survey. The report furthermore focusses of the collective labour rights of self-employed workers in the above mentioned countries as well as legal obstacles to collective bargaining due to restrictive interpretation of antitrust law. Findings of the report show that the self-employed category is increasingly populated by a heterogeneous group of workers with a weak position in the labour market which prevents them from having a strong organisational autonomy or independence in the marketplace.
Read on: in English ... The report: in English ...
For more information, please contact Sanne van der Gaag or Sjaak van der Velden, De Burcht (Scientific Bureau for the Dutch Trade Union Movement) sannevandergaag@deburcht.org or the Head of communications at the ETUI, Steve Coulter scoulter@etui.org. For previous full issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit www.etui.org/E-Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter or consult the archive with all articles in our database at www.cbnarchive.eu. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org.