Work and Social Policy in the New Europe

Work and Social Policies in the New Europe deals with one of the most urgent challenges which Europe faces in this decade: the social dimension of the new unified Europe. In the new economic landscape which the single market will create before the end of this Century, it is important to have answers to the following questions. How are we going to work and under which kind of employment contract? Who will decide about our social security systems? What kind of negotiations will take place about the level of our welfare and the condition of our work? Who are the social partners and what kind of delegation do they have? What will be the role of the individual States in this negotiations? What are the arguments justifying the position of the unions or the employers? Who will finally decide about the social laws in tomorrow's Europe? This very timely and most useful book is about our life in the future. It shows how those who are involved in shaping it - from the individual experts to the members of the European Commission - look at the problem and can take the necessary democratic action to build the social Europe of the next Century.

Table of Contents:
Contents: George Spyropoulos: Introduction - George Spyropoulos: Towards a European Industrial Relations Area - Antoine Lyon-Caen: Reflections on the Normative Action of the European Community in Labour Law - Manfred Weiss: Social Dialogue and Collective Bargaining in the Framework of a Social Europe - George Spyropoulos: Reactions of the Social Partners - George Spyropoulos: The Emergence of a European Industrial Relations Area: Components, Legal Status and Future Prospects - Gabriel Fragniere: Partners and Policies on the New Labour Market - Gabriel Fragniere: Partners and Policies on the New Labour Market - Gabriel Fragniere: The Challenges of the Next Ten Years - Fred Catherwood: Concluding Speech - Vasso Papandreou: Postface - George Spyropoulos: Appendices - Selection of articles of EEC Treaty - Extracts from the Community Charter on the Fundamental Social Rights of Workers - Selected bibliography.

About the Author :
The Editors: George Spyropoulos studied law at the Universities of Athens, Nancy and Paris (Laureate of the University of Paris). He spent 28 years with the International Labour Office (ILO), where his last position was Director of the Working Conditions and Environment Department. He is presently a member of the Supervisory Council of the ECWS, Chairman of the governing Council of the Greek Institute for Health, Safety and Working Conditions, and consultant for the ILO. His fields of interests include: industrial and labour relations; working conditions; comparative and international labour law; European social and labour policies. He is the author of several books and a great number of articles. Gabriel Fragniere has been Director of ECWS since the begining of the Centre in 1980. He studied philosophy in Lausanne (Switzerland) and political science at the College of Europe (Bruges) and in the United States. For the last twenty years, he has been active in the field of university and cultural co-operation in Europe, has pursued research in education and vocational training, and has been responsible for several Community programmes related to these fields. Former editor of the European Journal of Education, he is the author of several books and reports, as well as lecturer on vocational training, employment policies, multicultural education and social change in Europe. He is a member of the planning Board of the Central European University in Prague.