The European Trade Union Institute

As the first ever piece of EU legislation aimed explicitly at ensuring adequate minimum wages and promoting strong collective bargaining, the European Directive on Adequate Minimum Wages in the EU is a milestone in strengthening the social dimension of the European Union.

During the 2008 financial crisis, board-level employee representation (BLER) was touted as an institution that could counter mismanagement with a stakeholder approach and thus improve the quality of corporate governance. 

The European automotive industry is going through an existential crisis defined by multiple challenges: the transition to electromobility, digitalisation and automation and all this in a hostile geopolitical context.

This book provides insight into national case studies for key European automotive locations. It highlights two decades of dramatic decline in France and Italy, and observes how the apparent resilience of the sector in Germany has been shaken in its fundamentals and how the former success story in central-eastern Europe is now facing an uncertain future. 

Much research on far-right voting behaviour highlights the common characteristics of typical far-right voters, who tend to be working-class males with low education levels and limited job prospects. Indeed, the working class has traditionally been identified as the far right’s main constituency.

However, empirical studies reveal considerable variation: there is strong support from segments of the working class but only in some contexts, not in others.

Recent advancements in data availability and empirical methods have allowed us to obtain a much clearer picture of the socio-demographic and attitudinal characteristics that drive far-right party support. This has significantly improved research on who votes for the far right and why. Such studies rely increasingly on individual-level data to explain far-right voting behaviour. 

However, this progress has also led to the unintended neglect of a key methodological issue, namely the so-called ‘atomistic fallacy’ or a ‘fallacy of composition’.

This Technical Brief provides a legal commentary on the Dun & Bradstreet Austria judgment, situating it above and beyond the scope of the GDPR and the AI Act. It examines its implications for algorithmic management and argues that the judgment establishes a systematic logic that must be applied in other fields, including in existing or upcoming legislation, given its reinforcement of workers’ rights under the GDPR. 

The Brief also proposes ways to operationalise the principles of the judgment in the employment context through complementary audit mechanisms inspired by certain provisions in the Digital Services Act.

While the resilience of economic liberalism despite its failures is a well-researched puzzle, there is much less insight into how non-neoliberal policies build up strength. 

Current public procurement policies and practices can be used to study both sides of these issues: the persistence of competitive tendering and lowest price purchasing practices, as well as efforts to move away from ‘buying cheap’.

Research on union revitalisation underscores the agency of unions and their resilience as collective actors. Indeed, several trade unions are experimenting with innovative methods, tactics or practices. 

This volume adopts a case study approach, examining eleven instances of innovation in nine union organisations across eight European countries: Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, France, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Slovenia.

European Union Directive 2024/1385 on combating violence against women and domestic violence (Anti-VAW Directive) marks a historic moment for equality and equal opportunities in the European Union (EU) and stands out in many aspects. 

This paper argues, however, that the Directive falls short of thoroughly regulating gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH) as far as employment is concerned. 

The ecological crisis, largely the result of climate change, poses a significant challenge to the welfare state. 

This brief proposes a framework for reconfiguring minimum income schemes within an eco-social paradigm.