Europe's magic figures - 8%

galway | eu | opinion/analysis Friday January 02, 2004 16:18 by the ipsiphi

number one of a series on European Union statistics.

8% is the magical unemployment average in the 15 state €U. Of those states in the €urozone the average in 2003 was 8.5%

in 2000 at the Spring €U Lisbon summit the €U set 2010 as the date for full employment in 25 states.

I suggest that Lisbon was a "lie".
And that for the benefit of us all, some very serious rethinking is done of future EU integration.

And that the demands of workers and unemployed not be forgotten.

Manifestacion Bruxelles 13/12/01.

But it was and appears still to be a "popular lie".
A brief refresh you all quote from a speech made in Dublin's Alexander Hotel:

OPENING REMARKS BY DR. DON THORNHILL, HEA CHAIRMAN
AT THE MINERVA WORKSHOP
27 MARCH 2002
THE ALEXANDER HOTEL
DUBLIN


Ladies and Gentlemen:

I have great pleasure in welcoming you here this morning to this workshop on Minerva. I bid a special welcome to our guests from overseas who have joined us.

Indeed it is entirely appropriate that we should have an international audience this morning, as one of the key features of the new information age is how meaningless borders have become in the new learning environment.

Last year I had the pleasure of speaking at the The Second World Knowledge Forum in Seoul on the subject of eLearning: Issues for Policy where the issue of globalisation was very much on the agenda.

In many ways – the conference reflected much of what is intrinsic to Minerva such as

· Higher education institutions engaging in transnational partnerships
· Education at all levels addressing issues of relevance to them
· Public and private partnerships working side by side

Context

The European Union has set itself ambitious targets in this area.

The Lisbon European Council of June 2000 set the objective for the EU to become the most dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010.

This imposes a huge challenge on our education and training sectors across the EU. But daunting as they are, there is enormous potential at our disposal. 81m of the EU’s 117m people aged under 25 attend an educational institution of some kind; there are 5 million teachers in the Union in addition to several more million working in the field of training.

As well, we now have a situation where in December 2001, 90% of EU businesses have internet access as well as 38% of households (up from 18% in March 2000). This offers a unique opportunity to deliver education and training right to the workstations and/or living rooms of millions of our citizens.

How we harness these resources will have a crucial bearing on attaining the objectives set for us in Lisbon.


LISBON IS AND WAS A MYTH.



In the late nineties one our present transnational movement began to take form on the streets of Europe and North America.
And one of the most prominent new groups were those of the unemployed.
Throughout the years 96-2000 very big events brought Europe's new unemployed associations to converge on €U summit meetings with several key demands which have not altered very much:


The right to an income, allowing people to live decently. This income must be 50% GDP/head.
The right to a proper job, which means:
The refusal of the imposition of jobs which aim at forcing the unemployed into unacceptable working conditions. This is the main direction of the employment policy decided by the Lisbon Summit, implemented in all E.U. countries under different names, under the eye of the commission : turning all the unemployed into part-time or insecure workers
The massive cut of working hours, with creation of jobs; the creation of socially useful jobs; the refusal of all forms of casualisation, forced part-time insecure work or moonlighting jobs.
The leveling up of all social rights in Europe, and especially the right for insecure workers and unemployed to access the essential services.
The recognition of the unemployed and insecure workers' organizations.
We demand that these rights are written in the fundamental texts of the E.U., prepared by the Convention directed by Mr. Giscard d'Estaing . We oppose the Nice Charter, which is a real regression as far as social rights are concerned, compared to all the preexisting international texts. Euromed Civil Forum gives us an opportunity to express very strongly to all the E.U. Official bodies the following demands:

The accreditation of all Sans-Papiers.
Effective repression of all racial discrimination and statutory racial discrimination
Concrete help to exchanges between organization fighting at the social level in North and South of the Mediterranean.
We are determined:
To work towards the convergence of all the E.U. social movements which fight against the crimes of capitalistic Europe. We hope that such a convergence will occur during the next European Council in Seville, Thanks especially to the organization of a march of the social resistance prepared by our Andalucian friends. The E.S.F in Italy next November will offer another opportunity to take this convergence of struggles even further.
To work towards the convergence of the struggles of the Southern Mediterranean social movements and the European. The participation of the Graduate Unemployed from Morocco in the Andalucian march means a lot to us and we hope that no authority will cause it to be compromised.
To work towards the permanent exchange of information and experience with the progressive trade-unions and other movements fighting against unemployment, insecure work and exclusion in the South Mediterranean countries, aiming towards a future in which we can all act together.

this list of demands was pretty much concensual between all party organisations.

http://www.euromarches.org/index.htm

Ireland's national organisation of the unemployed:
http://www.inou.ie/

We can be certain of some things, there are now more jobs in Europe than before.
But we can equally be sure that the nature of Employment has altered.
memory of WSM Irish involvement during the crises years:
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/ws/ws51_unemployed.html
(for me personally I'd like to salute & remember the Liverpool workers who converged on London for RTS!)

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Minimum wage rates across the EU

While all EU member states have some form of mechanism for regulating low pay, nine out of fifteen countries now have a statutory minimum wage. In this feature we highlight some of the salient issues linked to this very complex subject and give up-to-date minimum pay rates for each country.

State of play on minimum wages across EU
Currently nine out of fifteen EU member states have a national minimum wage and Austria may join them soon.

In Denmark, Sweden and Finland, there is little interest in a national minimum wage: the social partners place their faith in existing systems as an effective means for eradicating low pay. Union density is high and most companies belong to employers’ organisations that negotiate sectoral pay agreements. Furthermore, agreements have spill-over effects on the rest of the labour market. Neither has Italy any plans in this direction since binding industry agreements already cover virtually all employees.

In Germany, a binding agreed minimum wage currently applies in the construction sector. While some unions would like to explore this option further, others believe it could undermine existing bargaining arrangements. The European Union has no remit at all in the minimum pay area.

The original Decency Threshold was established in Europe’s Social Charter, first drawn up in 1994, and we have been proud to maintain our support for a touchstone that charged all EU Member States to work towards a minimum remuneration level that would drop no lower than 68 per cent of their citizens’ average earnings.

It has now been dropped to 60% of average net earnings.

The reasons offered for this varied from an increased account being taken of inequality between male and female earners and certain other problems such as occasionaly benefits, (in southern European countries the christmas hamper had to be deducted)

i.e., after deduction of social security contributions and taxes, of the total wages, in principle both monetary and in kind, paid regularly by an employer to a worker for work carried out. Account shall where applicable be taken of bonuses and gratuities not paid regularly with each pay packet.

The minimum "real" wage in southern states of the Union is approxiamately 340€ per month. This has caused embarassment to the Spanish, Portuguese and Greece states in the final quarter of 2003.

The candidate states to the East and North have increased their minimum wage levels since the 90s, at present the highest is the Czech republic with about 500€.

That they have done so, may be seen as a good thing, how they have done so, cause the brow to furrow with worry.

The problem was that the way the minimum wage was set or used under the former system was inappropriate for a market-oriented economy, and subsequent events demonstrated that it was not adapted to meet the extraordinary crises into which the emerging labour markets of the region were plunged. Tragically, for millions of workers and their families, the minimum wage became a means by which their impoverishment was intensified.
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/region/eurpro/mdtbudapest/publ/repo1.htm

MCJOB.
a term for the 21st century:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mcjob


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Social Security Programs Throughout the Europe

By Country of €U.
For ease of reading / reference I shall append this info. in the comments by country.