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Link: Precarious work: Europe?s new reserve army ? Investigate Europe

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The misery of bad jobs has many faces. It can take the form of work contracts without health or social insurance; it can be part-time jobs, which don’t pay enough to live on. Or those affected are kept dangling from one temporary contract to the next, or they have to eke out a living as bogus self-employed and contract workers (see examples). The methods vary from one country’s national legislation to that of another, but the outcome is always the same: millions of EU citizens have to get by with insecure and badly paid jobs, offering them no perspective – and this is a growing tendency.[...]

But why has job insecurity reached such levels? And what has to happen to halt the trend? The team from Investigate Europe has looked into these issues, and the findings are sobering indeed. In their regulation of labour markets:

– European governments and the EU Commission have been following assumptions and theories for years, which have been shown to be wrong and unrealistic;

– Commissioners and finance ministers of the euro group have systematically dismantled or weakened collective bargaining agreements, fought against trade unions and, by doing so, promoted inequality and job insecurity;

– EU countries are now caught up in a race to the bottom with regard to wages and employees’ rights, making national solutions more difficult.