The social partners as actors in new labour law legislation in Sweden

This article focuses on the importance of the social partners in new labour law regulation where there is a weak parliamentary majority. The prevailing view in Sweden is that labour law regulation must be modernised as both companies and employees need improved opportunities in order to be able to adapt to changing conditions in the labour market. A Government inquiry and negotiations between the social partners in the private sector focused on these issues. The social partners reached two agreements: a Principle Agreement, including demands that the state provide new labour law regulation; and a Basic Agreement, which is a collective agreement about security, transition and employment protection. The Swedish Government decided to modernise the Swedish Employment Protection Act (LAS) 1 in line with the social partners’ suggestions. The government proposal covers three important labour law areas: (1) changes to the Swedish Employment Protection Act; (2) new state-financed public support for skills development; and (3) a new public transition organisation to provide basic transition support for employees not covered by a collective agreement. This article shows that the social partners have great power over new legislation and can create stability in labour law regulation in Sweden for the future. The government’s proposal implies that new regulation has moved from the provision of employment protection depending on length of service to better transition conditions for employees, and that the state is to take financial responsibility for the lifelong learning of professionals.

Combatting exploitation of migrant temporary agency workers through sectoral self-regulation in the UK and the Netherlands

The recent growth of precarious work has sparked a vivid debate on whether this tendency can be reversed by the social partners through sectoral self-regulation. In this sectoral case study of the temporary work agencies sector in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, the views, approaches, power and interaction between trade unions and employers’ organizations are studied in the context of increasing labour migration in the decade following European Union enlargement. The results show that the employers’ organizations have been leading actors in self-regulation, seeking collaboration with trade unions in the Netherlands. In both countries, trade unions have taken an inclusive approach but had little power to affect the deterioration of employment conditions. It has proven difficult to the social partners to reverse the process of increasing precarious work and exploitation. Strict regulatory frameworks imposed by the government are needed to turn a vicious circle into a virtuous one.

THE SELF-GOVERNMENT OF SOCIAL INSURANCE INSTITUTIONS AS A SPECIFIC EXPRESSION OF THE SOCIAL PARTNERS’ DIALOGUE ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE EVOLUTION OF THE ZUS SUPERVISORY BOARD

The subject of the article is the self-government of social insurance institutions as a special expression of the social partners’ dialogue. Author discusses this issue on the example of the evolution of the ZUS Supervisory Board, starting from the interwar period, through the Polish People’s Republic, to the presentation of the current regulations governing the composition and competence of the Board

Regulating domestic and care work in Italy: Assessing the relative influence of the familistic model today

The domestic and care sector continues to display some problematic aspects due to its complexity, especially in terms of regulation. Italy represents a unique and peculiar case, where domestic and care work remains firmly under the purview of family management, and the work itself is entrusted mainly to immigrant workers. This paper aims to investigate, through in-depth interviews with representatives of both unions and employers’ associations, how the key actors involved in regulating domestic and care work intervene, understanding what kind of measures they take and what systems of relations/exchange exist among the different players involved in this process. The research sought to map strategies at a more macro level. While some of the actions undertaken by the social partners seem promising, there is still a lack of full responsibility for care at the public level, with marked asymmetries with respect to both services provided and working conditions.

Face-Selective Responses Present in Multiple Regions of the Human Infant Brain

Faces are a rich source of social information. How does the infant brain develop the ability to recognize faces and identify potential social partners? We collected functional magnetic neuroimaging (fMRI) data from 49 awake human infants (aged 2.5-9.7 months) while they watched movies of faces, bodies, objects, and scenes. Face-selective responses were observed not only in ventral temporal cortex (VTC) but also in superior temporal sulcus (STS), and medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC). Face responses were also observed (but not fully selective) in the amygdala and thalamus. We find no evidence that face-selective responses develop in visual perception regions (VTC) prior to higher order social perception (STS) or social evaluation (MPFC) regions. We suggest that face-selective responses may develop in parallel across multiple cortical regions. Infants’ brains could thus simultaneously process faces both as a privileged category of visual images, and as potential social partners.