Indexing Working Conditions for European Policy Monitoring and Imposing a Workplace Tax

This paper suggests indexing individual working conditions for three purposes. The first purpose is evaluating and benchmarking countries and different social groups for policy-monitoring. It is done with the data from the Fourth European Working Conditions Survey 2005 for 31 European countries. The total composite index is built of 15 partial indicators which reflect 15 aspects of working conditions, basing on over 120 questions. The main findings show that working conditions vary broadly among the countries with Switzerland at the top and Turkey at the bottom. The evaluation reveals poor qualification possibilities and career opportunities, high emotional strains, inconvenient time arrangements, and modest income. Besides, it is shown that all forms of atypical employees have worse working conditions than permanent full-time employees. This result shows that Europe is still far from creating 'better jobs' as demanded in the Agenda 2010.

The second purpose is the empirical analysis of the flexicurity concept as outlined in Towards common principles of flexicurity by the European Commission (2007). Our study does not confirm the Commission's assertion that European employees are less interested in remaining with the same employer but need more flexibility combined with 'upward mobility' and lifelong learning. From the perspective of employees, job stability is the most important aspect of working conditions among 15 ones, whereas the income stands far behind at the 6th place. As for the lifelong learning, we provide evidence that Europe is suffering from a shortage of training possibilities and, on the other hand, employees demonstrate a latent resistance to learning. Therefore, the Commission's intent to base the flexicurity strategy on ill-prepared and unpopular measures looks rather questionably.

The third purpose is the suggestion to impose a workplace tax on the employers who offer bad working conditions. Similarly to the green tax in the environment protection which stimulates enterprises to consider the natural environment, the workplace tax should stimulate enterprises to consider the working environment and to serve as a practical policy instrument. Indexing individual working conditions with questions from a certain checklist, as developed in the paper, can be regarded as a prototype for measuring the 'social pollution' to determine the tax amount.

Decent work and fair wages are a fundamental objective for trade unions in Europe, and key to the European Social Model. Decent work makes a vital contribution to reducing poverty, both in Europe and beyond, and to achieving sustainable development and a just and inclusive society.

Decent Work, European Trade Union Confederation, November 26, 2007 (ETUC 2007)