The European Trade Union Institute

‘If people are unhappy at work it’s because they’ve got problems in their personal lives.’ ‘Only people who are already fragile are affected by psychosocial risks, it’s got nothing to do with the company!’ ‘Ah, psychosocial risks, that’s about harassment right? We don’t have any of that!’ These are just a few of the deep-rooted stereotypes and misconceptions that are used as excuses not to take action against psychosocial risks. And yet these risks, which have numerous consequences for workers’ physical and mental health, are everywhere in our workplaces: social isolation, overwork, unfairness, lack of autonomy, job insecurity… The list goes on. In this special report, we aim to illustrate the scale of this issue through a range of different investigations, interviews and expert opinions.

The right to strike varies considerably across Europe, often with specific rules and restrictions imposed on public service workers. The European Trade Union Institute has produced 35 country factsheets that explain the latest legal situation. EPSU has also begun to add countries outside the European Union and candidate countries, and a total of 48 countries are now covered.

Multinational companies dominate much of the economies of the new EU member states of central and eastern Europe. They usually claim to respect trade unions at home and many have signed global agreements with international union organisations. It could be hoped that they would play a positive role, bringing better employment relations practices into countries with weaker traditions of independent trade unions and collective bargaining. This book covers the role in six countries of MNCs in the retail and automotive sectors (Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia).

Notwithstanding increasing policy and academic debate around the ‘twin’ digital and ecological transitions, there is no systematic assessment of their linkages, potential synergies and trade-offs. Most fundamentally, the full extent of challenges that their interaction poses for the prospects of a ‘just transition’ is not fully understood. This paper discusses the role and impact of digital technologies on two key objectives of a just sustainability transition, namely (1) the creation of decent-quality employment in (2) the pursuit of climate change mitigation and, more broadly, sustainability.

n recent years the world’s two largest inflation-targeting central banks – the US Federal Reserve (the Fed) and the European Central Bank (ECB) – have revised their monetary policy frameworks in a more progressive direction. Whereas the Fed decided to abandon its strategy of pre-emptive tightening whenever unemployment ran too low (implicitly acknowledging the potential benefits of ‘tight labour markets’ and a ‘hot pressure economy’ for low-income workers), the ECB became committed to better integrating climate change considerations into its monetary policy operations. In an ironic twist of fate, however, both revisions quickly became antiquated when inflation started to rise again in the wake of the pandemic. The change in macroeconomic context (from stubbornly low inflation to persistent higher inflation) led both central banks to advocate ‘policy normalisation' by raising the short-term interest rates and reducing the size of the central banks’ balance sheet. In this working paper we discuss the revisions of the Fed's and ECB's monetary policy frameworks and explain why a return to a pre-2008 normal central banking in response to the current inflationary crisis should not be the preferred way forward.

In an age of digitalised activism and global decline in trade unionism, with a resulting loss of mobilisation power, the role of social media in union renewal and organising is increasingly important.

The question is not whether or not to engage with members online, but how to do so successfully. This policy brief explores the relationship between trade unions and their grassroots in the context of the rapid expansion of social media technologies.

This report focuses on the central role played by the European regulatory framework in shaping the industrial landscape as well as its responsibility for pushing the industry towards heavier, more powerful and more expensive cars precisely at a time when the imperative of reducing CO2 emissions should have required lighter, less powerful and more affordable cars.

This report provides an analysis of the 2022 Country Specific Recommendations (CSRs) made by the Council, on a proposal by the Commission, concerning social and labour policies. Account is taken of the main new features of this Semester cycle, notably the integration of the European Semester in the NextGenerationEU strategy and the ongoing energy crisis. The social CSRs are examined from both a thematic and a country perspective.