debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
A new instrument of international labour regulation International Framework Agreements (IFA) are important in international labour regulation. As the globalization of production and markets is increasing, an international regulation of labour is strongly needed. Existing instruments such as the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, the ILO Tripartite Declaration of Principles Concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social [...]
In return for getting access to additional financial resources from Europe and the IMF, Greece has now been forced to swallow yet another round of brutal fiscal tightening and social deregulation. One can already predict what its effects will be. The ‘spiral of death’ in which Greece is already trapped will intensify: Wage and expenditure [...]
Europe is debilitated with the effects of two years of desperate crisis management. The prescribed treatment resembles the old practice of bloodletting on ailing patients. Growing debts are paid with more loans, and new loans are made dependent on increasingly severe austerity measures. The results are a greater risk of recession, higher interest rates on [...]
In Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the world discovered by Alice was one in which every aspect of reality was inverted. Big things were small. Small things grew big. The Cheshire cat faded into a grin. One side of a mushroom made you grow. The other made you shrink. It was also a world [...]
In November 2011, the military dictatorship in Fiji jailed two of the country’s most prominent trade union leaders. Following the launch of an online campaign sponsored by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and run on the LabourStart website, some 4,000 messages of protest were sent in less than 24 hours. The government relented, the [...]
Mitt Romney is casting the 2012 campaign as “free enterprise on trial” – defining free enterprise as achieving success through “hard work and risking-taking.” Tea-Party favorite Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina says he’s supporting Romney because “we really need someone who understands how risk, taking risk … is the way we create jobs, create [...]
In a panel discussion at New York University last month, Immanuel Wallerstein, Michael Mann, Craig Calhoun and other noted speakers addressed the question, “Does Capitalism Have a Future?” There wasn’t a consensus on the panel. At one extreme, Wallerstein described a capitalist system unable to sustain itself because of underconsumption and a growing international labor [...]
When the economic crisis broke following the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 and the global banking system seized up, workers began to be laid off, families saw their houses repossessed and banks teetered on the brink of collapse. Financial panic knew no frontiers. It was clear that a coordinated global response by governments [...]
In the aftermath of the most recent European Council, there was an avalanche of public statements which, in effect, put the Council’s policy package into serious doubt. One statement in particular deserves further analysis. In an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung on the 11th of December, Bundesbank president Jens Weidmann expressed the view that the [...]
Trade unions in Britain are at a watershed. This month’s public sector strike on November 30th, involves 3 million workers from 27 different unions. It follows the largest ever trade union organised demonstration held in March and the public sector strike of three quarters of a million workers in June. This wave of strikes and [...]
Last month, Juan Somavia, the long serving Director-General of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) announced his departure in 2012. As head of the ILO, he introduced the Decent Work Agenda in 1999 to re-focus the ILO and make it relevant for the 21st century. Twelve years later, the concept of ‘Decent Work’ is firmly established [...]
As an economic model Germany has no shortage of fans. It has enjoyed sustained success and has navigated through the choppy global downturn much more smoothly than most. But is this admiration justified? For social democrats, less than in the past. Since the millennium, median real wages have stagnated and inequality soared, largely the product [...]
SocialEurope Journal: SEJ Article: A Breakthrough Opportunity for Global Health http://t.co/VYXi6Wag SocialEurope Journal: SEJ Article: When Neo-Liberals drop their Mask http://t.co/saAJbUZH SocialEurope Journal: SEJ Article: At least nine EU countries in recession: stimulus urgently needed http://t.co/oNN0v98l SocialEurope Journal: SEJ Article: European Monetary Union: Doomed to fail or just another Stepping Stone? http://t.co/pMuqDvkA SocialEurope Journal: SEJ Article: Creating Jobs in recession-hit Communities in Europe: Why Microcredit will not help http://t.co/zJb4XxJl SocialEurope Journal: SEJ Article: German State Elections send Merkel an Economic Message http://t.co/yVG4Xr5n SocialEurope Journal: SEJ Article: Two dangerous Myths about a 'Grexit' http://t.co/vOhdnVIp SocialEurope Journal: SEJ Article: Finding a Way out of the Crisis – Growth and Employment in Europe http://t.co/Q8JhRRSg 
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