The Politics of Unemployment in Europe

The Politics of Unemployment in Europe

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The Politics of Unemployment in Europe Policy Responses and Collective Action

Edited by Marco Giugni University of Geneva, Switzerland

© Marco Giugni 2009 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Marco Giugni has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editor of this work. Published by Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company Wey Court East Suite 420 Union Road 101 Cherry Street Farnham Burlington Surrey, GU9 7PT VT 05401-4405 England USA www.ashgate.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data The politics of unemployment in Europe : policy responses and collective action 1. Unemployment - Government policy - Europe 2. Unemployed - Services for - Europe 3. Unemployed - Europe - Political activity I. Giugni, Marco 331.1'377'094 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The politics of unemployment in Europe : policy responses and collective action / [edited] by Marco Giugni. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 978-0-7546-7348-4 (hbk) 1. Unemployment--Government policy--Europe. 2. Manpower policy--Europe. I. Giugni, Marco. HD5764.A6P642 2008 331.13'794--dc22  ISBN: 978 0 7546 7348 4 eISBN: 978 0 7546 9071 9

2008029510

Contents

List of Figures  List of Tables Notes on Contributors  

Introduction State and Civil Society Responses to Unemployment: Welfare, Conditionality and Collective Action   Marco Giugni

vii ix xi

1

1

Unemployment and Social Protection   Bengt Furåker

2

Adapting Employment Policies to Postindustrial Labour Market Risks 35 Giuliano Bonoli

3

Work and Welfare: The Rights and Responsibilities of Unemployment in the UK   Peter Dwyer and Nick Ellison

53

The Promises of Labour: The Practices of Activating Unemployment Policies in Switzerland   Christoph Maeder and Eva Nadai

67

Trade Unions and the Unemployed in the Interwar Period and the 1980s in Britain   Andrew Richards

83

Belgian Trade Unions, the Unemployed and the Growth of Unemployment   Jean Faniel

101

Political Challengers, Service Providers or Service Recipients? Participants in Irish Pro-unemployed Organizations   Frédéric Royall

117

4

5

6

7

17

vi

The Politics of Unemployment in Europe

8

Welfare States, Labour Markets, and the Political Opportunities for Collective Action in the Field of Unemployment: A Theoretical Framework   Marco Giugni, Michel Berclaz and Katharina Füglister

9

133

The Hidden Hand of the European Union and the Silent Europeanization of Public Debates on Unemployment: The Case of the European Employment Strategy   151 Christian Lahusen

Bibliography   Index  

173 203

List of Figures

1.1 Changes in EPL scores and changes in employment rates, late 1980s to 2003 22 1.2 UC generosity and standardized unemployment rates ca. 2003 26 1.3 ALMP generosity and standardized unemployment rates ca. 2003 29 2.1 Industrial employment as a per cent of total employment and unemployment rate in Sweden, Germany and in the UK, 1970–2001 39 8.1 A simple model of the relationship between prevailing conceptions of the welfare state and collective action in the field of unemployment politics 139 8.2 A typology of the specific political opportunity structure for collective action in the field of unemployment politics 140 9.1 Proportion of claims on employability issues per year (in %) 166

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List of Tables

1�������������������������������������������������������������������� .1 EPL scores according to two indices – 2003 and change since late 1980s and late 1990s: Rank according to Index II scores 2003 1.2 PLMP and UC expenditures ca. 2003: Rank according to PLMP expenditures per percentage point of unemployment 1.3 ALMP expenditures ca. 2003 2.1 Strictness of employment protection legislation 5.1 Formal organizations of the unemployed movement, Britain 1921–1935 9.1 The spatial frame of reference of public debates (1995–2002) – Multiple answers: Percentage of claims 9.2 Themes of the EES in national debates (1995–2002) as a percentage of claims 9.3 Acceptance of employability (means)

20 24 28 45 87 159 164 168

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Notes on Contributors

Michel Berclaz is Scientific Collaborator at the IDHEAP (Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration). He is specialized in social policy, especially professional reinsertion and conciliation policies issues. Giuliano Bonoli is Professor of Social Policy at the Swiss Graduate School for Public Administration (IDHEAP), Lausanne. He also teaches at the University of Basel. He previously worked at the Universities of Fribourg and Bern in Switzerland, and at the University of Bath in the UK. His work has focused on pension reform, labour market and family polices, with particular attention paid to the politics of welfare state transformation. He has published several books and some 40 articles and chapters in edited books. Peter Dwyer is Professor of Social Policy in The Graduate School, Business, Law and Social Sciences, Nottingham Trent University, UK. His research interests include social citizenship, welfare conditionality, migration and welfare and issues related to ageing and social inclusion/exclusion. To date he has published three books and a wide range of papers on these themes. Nick Ellison is Professor of Sociology and Social Policy and Head of the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds, UK. Research interests include contemporary social policy under New Labour; the nature and impact of ‘globalization’ and the changing politics of welfare; and citizenship in theory and practice. He has published widely on these issues. Jean Faniel is a researcher at the Centre de recherche et d’information sociopolitiques (CRISP), in Brussels. His PhD dissertation (Université libre de Bruxelles, 2006) analysed the relationship between the Belgian trade unions and the unemployed. He has published several articles about Belgian trade unions and about mobilizations of the unemployed in Europe. He has codirected (with Didier Chabanet) ‘L’Europe du chômage’ (Politique européenne 21, 2007). He is currently working on a collective volume (edited with Didier Chabanet) entitled The Mobilization of the Unemployed in Europe (Palgrave). Katharina Füglister is a research assistant at the Insitute for Political and International Studies at the University of Lausanne. She specializes in social policy and is currently working on the diffusion of healthcare policies.

xii

The Politics of Unemployment in Europe

Bengt Furåker is currently Professor of Sociology at Göteborg University. He has previously held positions at other Swedish universities and he was a Visiting Fellow at Yale University, US, 2002–2003. His research is mainly focused on labour market issues, employment and unemployment, working conditions, labour mobility, work-related attitudes, the public sector, the labour market-welfare state nexus and social stratification. Among Furåker’s recent publications are the books; Post-Industrial Labour Markets: North American and Scandinavian Pro.les (ed. with T.B. Boje, 2003), Sociological Perspectives on Labor Markets (2005) and Flexibility and Stability in Working Life (ed. with K. Håkansson and J. Ch. Karlsson, 2007). Marco Giugni is a researcher at the Laboratoire de recherches sociales et politiques appliquées (resop) and teaches at the Department of Political Science at the University of Geneva. He has authored or co-authored several books and articles on social movements and contentious politics. Recent books include Social Protest and Policy Change (Roman and Littlefield, 2004), Contested Citizenship (University of Minnesota Press, 2005; with Ruud Koopmans, Paul Statham and Florence Passy), and La citoyenneté en débat (L’Harmattan, 2006; with Florence Passy). He has directed and collaborated in a number of comparative projects on topics relating to social movements and contentious politics, social exclusion, and social and political integration. His research interests include social movements and collective action, immigration and ethnic relations, unemployment and social exclusion. Christian Lahusen, born in 1962 in Mexico City, is Professor for Sociology at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Siegen, Germany. He studied in Düsseldorf and Madrid, received his PhD at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, and habilitated at the University of Bamberg, Germany. His research interests include sociological theories, political sociology, European studies, unemployment and social exclusion. Christoph Maeder is a sociologist at the University of Teacher Education Thurgau (UTE-TG, Switzerland) and, since 2006, President of the Swiss Sociological Association (SSS). He was Vice President of the Research Network on ‘Qualitative Methods’ of the European Sociological Associations (ESA) and remains a member of that board. Born in 1956, he studied at the University of St Gallen, where he received his doctorate in Sociology. His fields of interests are sociology of knowledge and qualitative methods, applied research on organizations, educational sociology, medical sociology and social problems. Eva Nadai is a sociologist at the School of Social Work of the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland. Her fields of interest are sociology of work, professions and organization, social politics and social problems, gender, sociology of knowledge and qualitative methods. She is currently directing an

Notes on Contributors

xiii

ethnographic research project on inter-institutional cooperation in the Swiss welfare and social security system (funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation) and conducting a study on gender and unemployment programmes. Andrew Richards is Professor at the Center for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences, Juan March Institute, Madrid. His teaching and research interests lie in the fields of labour movements, social movements and social protest, and class inequality. He is the author of Miners on Strike. Class Solidarity and Division in Britain (Berg, 1996), and has contributed chapters to several edited volumes, including Europe Today (Rowman and Littlefield, 1999), Can Class Still Unite? The Differentiated Work Force, Class Solidarity and Trade Unions (Ashgate, 2001), Unemployment in the New Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2001) and The Construction of Democracy: Lessons from Practice and Research (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007). Frédéric Royall is Senior Lecturer at the University of Limerick (Ireland). He has published extensively on French and Irish social movements. He is currently working on a manuscript (with Didier Chabanet) entitled The Politics of Marginalization: Poor People’s Movements in France and Ireland (Lexington Books).

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Introduction

State and Civil Society Responses to Unemployment: Welfare, Conditionality and Collective Action Marco Giugni

Unemployment: Policy Responses and Collective Action Unemployment is no doubt among the major challenges that both policymakers and society at large face in Europe today. Rates of unemployment went up considerably after the economic crisis of the mid-1970s and even more so during the 1990s. Furthermore, European citizens today consider unemployment as one of the most important problems, if not the most important overall. This, of course, poses a number of serious problems, both at the economic and at the social level, which require adequate responses, above all policy and political responses. Policy responses have been given both at the national and the European level. For example, the European Union has a long tradition of attempting to combat unemployment and social exclusion through the European Social Fund, but recognizes that new initiatives are necessary to tackle the issue. Indeed the national governments of the European Union considered the unemployment-related parts of the Amsterdam Treaty so important that they decided to implement them ahead of schedule without waiting for ratification. In particular, the European Employment Strategy indicates the high saliency of issues relating to unemployment on the political agendas of both the member states and the European Union itself. This is also leading to a new impetus on a common European social policy which is complemented by widening the policy repertoire of instruments and actors involved,   I thank Michel Berclaz for his careful reading of a previous draft. Thanks also to Jean Faniel, Bengt Furåker, Andrew Richards and Frédéric Royall for their comments and suggestions.  ������������������������������������������������������������������������� In the February 2007 Eurbarometers, for example, unemployment was ranked first among the most important problems, with 36 per cent of the respondents having mentioned it.  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������� In some cases, policy responses are also given at the sub-national level. Most notably, this is likely to occur in federal states. In Switzerland, for example, cantonal units to fight unemployment and help the reintegration of job-seekers into the labour market were created in the 1990s.



The Politics of Unemployment in Europe

for example in that the regulatory action of European institutions is supplemented by a social dialogue between capital and labour and a higher participation of social non-governmental organizations and citizens’ groups which represent the marginalized and are active in social services. Moreover, new governance instruments (such as the Method of Open Coordination) are promoted particularly in the field of employment policies in order to develop a structured approach that is flexible enough to allow for distinct answers to the unemployment problem at the member states level and that follows a highly integrative philosophy intended to involve all public and private stakeholders who have an interest in and may influence a solution to the problem. Similarly, national governments have tried to counter rising unemployment rates by intervening actively both in the regulation of the labour market and in the provision of social benefits. Responses at the national level, however, vary from one country to the other. Such variation is due to a variety of reasons, but the main reason is the different traditions of the welfare state. I will return in more detail to this aspect below. All these efforts have two main objectives: (1) fostering employment and reducing the number of unemployed in the various members states; and (2) limiting and possibly avoiding the negative consequences of unemployment in terms of poverty, precariousness, social exclusion and lack of social cohesion. Yet, in spite of much discourse about exclusion and the need for a more cohesive society, most efforts have pointed to the reduction of unemployment, perhaps based on the assumption that the most dramatic consequences of unemployment are located at the economic rather than the social level. Scholarly work has largely reflected this state of affairs. Much previous research has focused on two aspects. On one side, scholars have dealt with the socioeconomic conditions that give rise to changes in the labour market, such as technological transformations and changes in the structure of the working population. On the other side, they have looked at the policies that national governments have adopted to fight unemployment. Most notably, a great deal of work by both sociologists and political scientists has looked at the effects of welfare states and social policies (see Arts and Gelissen 2002, Green-Pedersen and Haverland 2002, and Pierson 2000a for reviews). Although this body of research offers important insights into the structural factors that give rise to unemployment and the nature and consequences of policies used to address them, it remains silent on two increasingly important counts. First, it tells us nothing about the role of actors other than state actors and hence largely overlooks the responses by civil society actors (trade unions, NGOs, social movement organizations, and so forth). Indeed, the extant literature has tended to neglect the role of all political actors, focusing on either socioeconomic or institutional factors. However, while the works looking at state policies to fight unemployment consider in some way the role of political parties, as policies are largely a result of party politics, civil society actors have very rarely entered the picture. Second, the mainstream literature has paid little attention to the impact of the condition of being unemployed. To be sure, valuable pieces of research dealing

State and Civil Society Responses to Unemployment



with the individual consequences of unemployment can indeed be found, starting from the classical study of Jahoda, Lazarsfeld ��������������� and Zeisel���������������������� ���������������������������� (1933). However, the scholarly literature has long been silent on this aspect and has so far remained relatively detached from an understanding of the feelings, attitudes and behaviours of jobless people. Only recently have social scientists begun to inquire seriously into the consequences of unemployment at the individual level, perhaps spurred by the growing literature on social exclusion (see Paugam 1996 for a review). I will briefly address this aspect below. Thus, in addition to studying the conditions (economic, social, political) leading to higher unemployment rates, much of what is at stake here is about the responses to unemployment: by the state, the civil society and the individual unemployed. Leaving aside individual responses aimed at coping with the condition of the unemployed, which are of a different nature and would deserve a separate discussion, this book focuses on state and civil society responses or, to put it in terms of the kinds of actions privileged by each type of actor, policy responses and collective action. Although they hardly exhaust the range of possible reactions, three main types of responses can be envisaged. The first and more traditional policy response consists of redistributing collective resources for the benefit of those who have lost their paid job or cannot find one. This is done through the welfare state. The extent and modalities of this kind of response vary very much across countries following differences in the characteristics of the welfare state. Yet, policy responses to unemployment have recently begun to shift from welfare to workfare, that is, from a perspective that aims to compensate for the lack of job to a perspective aimed at improving the ‘employability’ of job-seekers and their sense of responsibility. This second type of policy response sets certain conditions both for being eligible to social benefits and for deserving to be (re)inserted into the labour market. Finally, a third type of response comes from the civil society, in particular in the form of collective action. This is the by far the most neglected aspect. Yet, trade unions for example, in spite of often having a somewhat ambivalent relationship with the unemployed (Faniel 2006a, Linders and Kalander 2007, Richards 2000), have always put the situation of the labour market high on their political agenda. More recently, non-profit charity organizations and pro-unemployed groups have begun to play an increasingly central role in dealing with the problem of unemployment, both in terms of social aid and in terms of improving the ‘employability’ of individual unemployed and therefore their chances of reinsertion into the labour market. In what follows, I will briefly address these three main types of responses, which will be discussed at more length by the various contributions to this volume. I refer to them, respectively, as the politics of the welfare state, the politics of conditionality and the politics of collective action. The first two represent the two main policy responses adopted by the state, while the latter is the privileged means used by civil society actors. Accordingly, the volume divides into two parts: one devoted to policy responses, the other dealing with collective action. In the last section I will spend a few words on what I see as one of the major absences in the existing literature: the unemployed themselves.



The Politics of Unemployment in Europe

The Politics of the Welfare State The politics of the welfare state has traditionally represented and still largely represents the most straightforward response to growing unemployment. To put it more precisely, the challenge of unemployment in Europe has traditionally been faced through a (re)distribution of collective resources via the welfare state. This is not the place to discuss in detail and not even in a cursory way the huge literature on the welfare state (see Arts and Gelissen 2002, Green-Pedersen and Haverland 2002, and Pierson 2000a for reviews), not least because this body of literature has more often dealt with welfare in general and, when it has focused on a specific aspect, these were pension and health systems rather than unemployment. My aim is much more modest: to put into some broader perspective the chapters that address this type of response in this volume. Oversimplifying a much more comprehensive and articulated literature, two main lines of inquiry can be distinguished with respect to welfare states. In the first one, scholars have been interested in explaining the growth of the modern welfare state and the factors leading to its expansion. Here explanations have varied according to the type of factor stressed (Green-Pedersen and Haverland 2002): structural theorists have linked the growth of the welfare state to structural changes in society, such as modernization and democratization; power resources theorists, who have represented the most prominent body of research in this field in the 1980s (Pierson 2000a), have stressed the power resources of the working class vis-à-vis other classes, following a classed-based approach (Esping-Andersen 1985, Korpi 1980, 1983, Esping-Andersen and Korpi 1984). In both cases, the expansion of the welfare state, and therefore the level of social protection of the unemployed, is seen as depending on broader societal forces and processes (van Kersbergen 2002). While studies of the expansion of the welfare state were flourishing especially during the historical phase during which European welfare states were expanding, starting from the 1990s the focus has moved towards the issue of retrenchment and how it can be explained. The crisis of the welfare state at the end of the second millennium has certainly contributed to this shift in the focus. Spurred by the neo-institutionalist perspective that has brought the state back in political science (Steinmo, Thelen ����������������������������������������������������������������������� and Longstreth�������������������������������������������������� 2002, see Hacker 2005 with regard to the welfare state) and, in the field of social policy, most notably by some landmark studied such as those by Pierson (1994, 1996) and Skocpol (1992), an increasing number of authors have begun to pay more attention to political and institutional factors  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������� This is at least the social-democratic way to deal with unemployment, which is usually attributed to the political forces of the Left. Against this solution, the political Right has rather stressed the need for less stringent labour-market regulations as well as a policy more oriented to stimulating the growth of the labour market rather than one based on state intervention ‘after the fact’. Since here I am dealing with state responses to unemployment, I will focus on the former perspective.

State and Civil Society Responses to Unemployment



in the explanation of welfare state retrenchment. By analysing the role of political institutions (such as, for example, the existence of institutional veto points), party competition and political discourse, most studies have been able to stress among other things processes of path-dependency that have made it difficult to dismantle the welfare state (Green-Pedersen and Haverland 2002, see in particular Pierson 1994, 1996, 2001). In a second line of inquiry, students of social policy and the welfare state have looked at cross-national variations (e.g. Bonoli 1997, Cochrane 1993, Esping-Andersen 1990, Ferrera 1993, Gallie and Paugam 2000, Merrien 1996, Taylor-Gooby 1991). Indeed, this research avenue, which is not detached from the previous one, has represented the main focus of scholars. As Pierson (2000a: 791) has emphasized, ‘[u]nderstanding the causes and consequences of welfare state variation has become a major preoccupation of research on the comparative politics of affluent societies’. Accordingly, ‘[m]uch of the existing literature on comparative social policy has been concerned with the classification of welfare states and the identification of ideal-types of welfare provisions’ (Bonoli 1997: 351). Once again, this was mostly done with regard to the welfare state in general and not for specific sectors such as pensions, health or unemployment. Perhaps the most well-known among the numerous typologies of welfare states is the one proposed by Esping-Andersen (1990) in his path-breaking study. In an effort to go beyond traditional classifications based exclusively on the level of expenditure (Cutright 1965, Wilensky 1975), this author proposes typology based on the level of decommodification provided by the different welfare states, not only depending on the amount of social provisions, but also on the ways in which they are delivered. Decommodification is defined as ‘the degree to which individuals or families can uphold a socially acceptable standard of living independently of market participation’ (Esping-Andersen 1990: 37). Briefly put, this is the amount of resources available to workers. He thus distinguishes between three ‘welfare state regimes’: the liberal or residual regime, the Bismarckian or insurance-based regime, and the universalist or social-democratic regime. Esping-Andersen’s classification can be seen as an elaboration of a common distinction found in the literature on welfare states between the Bismarckian and the Beveridgean model of social policy, a distinction that is especially common in the French-speaking literature (see e.g. Castel 1995, Rosanvallon 1995). These two models differ on a number of basic characteristics (Bonoli 1997): the Bismarckian model, which is based on social insurance, aims at income maintenance, the benefits it provides are earning-related based, eligibility depends on the contribution record, it covers employees and is financed through contributions; the Beveridgean model, which is characterized by universal provision, aims at prevention of poverty, the benefits it provides are flat-rate base, eligibility depends on residence or need, it covers the entire population and is financed through taxation.  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ It should be noted, however, that this understanding of the Beveridgean model contrasts with the original view by Beveridge himself that financing should be based on



The Politics of Unemployment in Europe

Other scholars have proposed classifications of welfare states which are more or less directly inspired by this basic distinction. For example, Ferrera (1993) distinguishes between (pure or mixed) occupational and (pure or mixed) universalist welfare states, according to the criterion of coverage of social protection schemes. Bonoli (1997) has made an attempt to classify welfare states according to both the quantity of welfare they provide and to where they stand on the Beveridgean/Bismarckian dimension. These two criteria yield four ideal-types: Beveridgean/high-spending welfare states, Beveridgean/low-spending welfare states, Bismarckian/high-spending welfare states and Bismarckian/low-spending welfare states. Finally, and more specifically focused on unemployment, Gallie and Paugam (2000) distinguish between four ‘unemployment-providence regimes’ on the basis of three factors that may influence the experience of unemployment: the degree of coverage, the level of financial compensation and the importance of active measures for employment. The four resulting types are: the sub-protecting regime, which provides the unemployed with a protection below the subsistence level; the liberal/minimal regime, which offers a higher level of protection, but does not cover all the unemployed and in which the level of compensation is weak; the employment-centred regime, which offers a much higher level of protection, but in which the coverage remains incomplete because of the eligibility principles for compensation; and the universalist regime, which is characterized by the breadth of the coverage, a much higher compensation level and more developed active measures. This, of course, is not an exhaustive list. Thus, state responses to unemployment are likely to vary according to the type of welfare state or welfare state regime one is dealing with. Chapters 1 and 2 should be read against this background. They both embrace a comparative perspective, as they both aim to show how European countries vary in certain aspects of the politics of the welfare state. The chapter by Bengt Furåker looks at how the state in advanced capitalist countries handles unemployment. The author focuses on three main types of state intervention which are at the centre of policy discussions: employment protection legislation, passive labour market policy (both in terms of unemployment compensation and pension programmes allowing early retirement for labour market reasons), and active labour market policies. These three policy types affect labour markets in different ways. Yet, it is called into question as to whether they actually accomplish what they are set up for; it is sometimes argued that they have negative effects on unemployment and employment. The author discusses this issue as part of the general discussion on whether the modern welfare state is, or can be, successful in its efforts to come to grips with social and economic problems. One of his main conclusions is that, in spite of various counterproductive effects, state-provided social protection regarding unemployment normally does not have very detrimental consequences for the labour market. contributions rather than taxation and his aversion to means-testing (Bonoli 1997).

State and Civil Society Responses to Unemployment



The problems and risks that the state has to face are not the same today as they were at the end of the period of economic growth in the mid-1970s. In particular, unemployment is increasingly becoming structural rather than cyclical. The chapter by Giuliano Bonoli addresses the ways in which welfare states deal with the new risks relating to the labour market in the postindustrial era. Labour market risk structures have changed quite dramatically since the early postwar years. Longterm unemployment, low-wage employment and the associated problem of the working poor, and clashes between work and family life constitute today the most widespread social risks. They were not well covered by the welfare states that were built during the postwar years. Today, however, some welfare states, in the Nordic countries, seem much more effective in dealing with these new risks. The author argues that this is a result of different policy decisions taken in response to de-industrialization and the loss of manufacturing employment since the 1970s. The Politics of Conditionality While institutional approaches to unemployment remain anchored in different traditions of welfare, the politics of the welfare state are today seemingly being supplanted, or at least challenged, by a new way of dealing with unemployment: the politics of conditionality. European welfare states have gone through a period of crisis and restructuring after the golden age of the postwar years and, more specifically, since the 1990s. One of the outcomes of this still ongoing phase of crisis and restructuring is the transformation of the traditional social policy based on the provision of social benefits and aid to those in need (regardless of the underlying distributional logic according to one or the other of the three main models outlined earlier). In the field of unemployment, this has mainly taken the form of the shift from passive to active policies. Passive policies reflect the traditional view of the welfare state whereby the state intervenes through various forms of compensations, be they occupationalbased or universalist in scope. In brief, social se�������������������������������������� c������������������������������������� urity and cash benefits are the main vehicles for the protection of those who have lost their job or cannot find one, that is, who are excluded from the labour market. This brings us back to the discussion of welfare states made earlier. Active policies lie on a different principle: that of maximizing the chances that people have to find a paid job and to be (re)inserted into the labour market. This is done through a variety of measures such as public employment services, training and vocational programmes, subsidies to firms, and so forth. In spite of their laudable objectives, active policies have been a matter of strong criticisms (especially from the Left) and their beneficial effects are highly debatable. Yet, today they are increasingly accepted as the only viable means

 ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� I borrow this term from Peter Dwyer and Nick Ellison’s chapter in this volume. We may also call it the politics of activation, as do Maeder and Nadai in their contribution.



The Politics of Unemployment in Europe

of fighting unemployment, as witnessed by the position of the Left in nearly all European countries in favour of such measures. Favoured by economic, political and social changes and spurred by a neoliberal thinking that has put the traditional welfare state under fire, this new view of dealing with unemployment profoundly modifies the relationship between citizens (in particular, unemployed) and the state. Perhaps the major change is embedded in the notion of the ‘responsible citizen’. One of the main justifications put forward by proponents of the ‘new welfare state’ is that the traditional view of welfare, based on social aid, produced ‘assisted’ citizens, thus de-motivating them to look for a job. Furthermore, it implies high financial costs that a modern state can no longer afford. The new approach, in contrast, is not only less demanding in terms of state resources, but would have the advantage of making the individual responsible for their own situation and less dependent on the state. In official discourse, active policies are often depicted as aiming to improve citizens’ ‘employability’. This notion has been used in particular in the context of the European Employment Strategy, through which the European Commission aimed to fight unemployment and social exclusion, but it is also at the centre, for example, of the New Labour’s policy on unemployment in the UK. Again, however, this apparently neutral notion hides ideological underpinnings and is not without ambivalence. Thus, some have pointed out that, while it claims to be motivated by socio-political considerations (the struggle against the exclusion of a particularly vulnerable group of the population), the European Employment Strategy is closely related to a neo-liberal agenda of European economic policy, oriented towards a ‘new spirit of capitalism’ following the guiding principles of employability and flexibility, and applies the instruments of benchmarking and best practice first developed by economic management as instruments of political evaluation and regulation (Schultheiss 2004). This would produce the paradoxical situation whereby social exclusion and precariousness are combated with neoliberal policy and management instruments, hence contributing to ‘de-politicizing the political’. In spite of a general trend towards the politics of conditionality across Europe, both the form and the content of conditionality and activation vary from one country to another. Chapters 3 and 4 examine their application and implications in two countries that have embraced the main principle of the new approach  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������� It should be noted that passive and active policies do not exhaust the ways in which the state can and does intervene in the field of unemployment. Another important type of measure consists of protecting employment by preventing firms laying off their employees. Thus, while both passive and active policies target unemployed people, employment protection measures are aimed at preventing people becoming unemployed in the first place.  ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� The European Employment Strategy, initiated at the Luxembourg EU summit and consolidated on the occasion of the Amsterdam summit, was primarily aimed at fighting youth unemployment.

State and Civil Society Responses to Unemployment



to unemployment and social security in general: Switzerland and the UK. The comparison is interesting as these two countries belong to different models of welfare state in the various typologies I mentioned earlier. While Switzerland, in spite of displaying strong liberal traits in some sectors, such as for example healthcare, is considered to be a continental and insurance-based welfare state, the UK is squarely within the liberal and residual model. Yet, both countries have made active policies one of the pillars of welfare state reform during the 1990s, although with a different political and public echo. While in Switzerland, reflecting the consensus tradition of the country, the new approach has mainly taken a ‘technocratic’ stance and what are called ‘active labour market policies’ have been implemented with relatively little debate, in the UK it has had a broader echo and has evoked deeper ideological issues around the notion of the so-called ‘Third Way’ (Giddens 1994, 1998). Both chapters are critical of this shift towards the politics of conditionality and pinpoint their negative effects. The chapter by Peter Dwyer and Nick Ellison examines the shift from the ‘welfare society’, in which the state exempted certain ‘inactive’ individuals from participation in the paid labour market by entitling them to a minimum of welfare rights, to the ‘active society’, in which increasingly individuals can only access social rights if they are willing to become workers in the paid labour market, as has occurred in the UK. The principle ‘no rights without responsibilities’ is a central tenet of New Labour’s ‘Third Way’ reform of the welfare state. This chapter outlines the extent to which this principle now underpins unemployment policy in the UK. Policy in relation to three groups, unemployed people, lone parents and disabled people, is outlined and the impact of recent and proposed initiatives on the welfare rights of individual citizens outside of the paid labour market is discussed. The authors argue that, as policies based on conditional entitlement become a central aspect of welfare reform, the notion of a right to welfare is systematically undermined. Similarly, Christoph Maeder and Eva Nadai argue that activating labour market policies have become the general mode of regulating unemployment in Switzerland. Their ethnographic study in three activating programmes reveals that the ideal model of the unemployed, which nourishes these policies, is opposed to the life-world realities of the jobless. The unemployed in these programmes are confronted with a never-ending request to improve, with ambivalent logics of hidden agendas, and often with little real help for their tasks of developing their employability and finding a job. Furthermore, unemployment usually goes along with other forms of social vulnerability and exclusion. These aspects are widely ignored by the activating policies. In the daily routines of such programmes the staff therefore has to deal with this ignorance and to try to find a ‘work around’. If activating labour market policies are meant to be more than punishment for not being capable of finding a job, these programmes need major adaptations and improvements.

10

The Politics of Unemployment in Europe

The Politics of Collective Action Policy responses to unemployment vary across nations and European countries display important differences as to the degree of intervention of the public sector in social security matters, specifically with respect to unemployment and labour market programmes. It is therefore important to look at how policymakers in various European nations are responding to the challenges raised by unemployment and how those responses are affected by the claims and demands made in the national political arenas and public space by various social and political actors such as parties, unions, social movements and so forth. This also means taking more seriously into account the impact that organized groups of citizens can have on policy decisions in the field of unemployment and the exclusion from the labour market within each nation. The literature on collective action and, more specifically, on social movements has burgeoned during the past few decades. Again, this is not the place to summarize this body of literature. My goal is rather to show the importance of the politics of collective action for the study of the politics of unemployment. Explanations of social movements and collective action have long stressed the direct impact of deteriorating ‘objective conditions’ and the grievances arising from it, on one side, and protest behaviour, on the other. The latter would arise, almost automatically, from the former. This kind of explanation, known variously as grievances, breakdown or collective behaviour theories (see Useem 1998 and Buechler 2004 for reviews), prevailed up to the late 1960s and early 1970s. Following this approach, growing rates of unemployment would create discontent and strain within society, which in turn would provoke a reaction in the form of collective action or behaviour. These kinds of explanations lost much of their popularity after the 1970s, when resource mobilization and political process theories came to the fore. Social movements are no longer seen as a reaction, often irrational, to a situation of strain, but are rational collective actors engaging in political claim-making outside the institutional channels. As a result, their mobilization and success depend on the resources and mobilizing structures they are able to build as well as on the political opportunities available to them at a given moment in time. The concept of political opportunity structures, which captures those aspects of the political-institutional environment providing signals to the political and social actors that can encourage them to mobilize their internal resources to form social movements (Tarrow 1996, see Kriesi 2004 and Meyer 2004 for reviews), is central in this perspective.10  ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� The interested reader can refer to a recent edited collection that provides comprehensive overviews of different aspects of the social movement literature (Snow, Soule and Kriesi 2004). An excellent introduction to the topic can be found in della Porta and Diani (2005). 10 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� Based on a review of existing works, McAdam (1996: 27) has identified four main features of political opportunity structures: (1) the relative openness or closure of

State and Civil Society Responses to Unemployment

11

This perspective, which stresses power relations both within and outside the institutional arenas, drives our attention towards the political role, rather than the simple reaction to changing conditions, of certain groups and organizations in the responses that civil society gives to growing unemployment. It is in this way that we should read chapters 5 to 7 of this volume. They deal with three collective actors that have important interests involved in the politics of unemployment: trade unions, pro-unemployed organizations and the unemployed themselves. All these three collective actors provide their own responses to the problem of unemployment. Trade unions are a particularly interesting collective actor in this respect. The relationship between unions and the unemployed is an ambivalent one (Faniel 2006a, Linders and Kalander 2007, Richards 2000). On one hand, being a vulnerable group facing sometimes insurmountable mobilization obstacles, the politically oriented unemployed often rely on the unions for organizational resources. On the other hand, unions generally prefer to defend the rights and interests of their main constituency, namely workers and employees, rather than those of jobless people. Thus, the relationship between unions and the unemployed is not without tensions. The problematic relationship between trade unions and unemployed workers is at the centre of the chapter by Andrew Richards. He examines the response of trade unions to unemployment and their potential role as mobilizers of the unemployed. Specifically, he examines union behaviour towards the unemployed in Britain in two periods of high unemployment, the 1920s/30s and the 1980s. While in the earlier period, a national movement of the unemployed emerged, in the latter period it did not. The author argues that, while unemployment is a threat to trade unionism (due for example to a loss of bargaining power and membership), in historical terms this threat does not appear to have determined the behaviour of unions towards the unemployed one way or the other. According to his analysis, union behaviour in the 1920s/30s towards the unemployed was ambiguous, if not outright hostile. Therefore, the movement of the unemployed mobilized in the 1920s and 1930s despite union opposition, rather than because of union support. He shows how the resources of the unemployed in the interwar period were sufficiently powerful to underpin the emergence of a powerful movement which helped shape subsequent economic and social policy. In contrast, the resources enjoyed by the unemployed in the 1980s were not sufficient to underpin the emergence of an independent movement, as in the interwar period, although unemployment was high enough to be perceived as a very significant threat to union interests and ensured that the fate of the jobless was an object of union concern. His analysis leads him to a reflection on the unions’ priorities with respect to the unemployed in the 1990s, a period marked by much lower unemployment. the institutionalized political system; (2) the stability or instability of that broad set of elite alignments that typically undergird a polity; (3) the presence or absence of elite allies; and (4) the state’s capacity and propensity for repression.

12

The Politics of Unemployment in Europe

The unions–unemployed relationships is also discussed by Jean Faniel in his contribution. For historical reasons, Belgian trade unions play an import part in the indemnification of the unemployed. Eighty-five per cent of the Belgian jobless are unionized and receive their benefit via their unions. However, labour movements are organizations made by and for workers with jobs. Their core constituency influences union agenda setting much more than the unemployed do. Although union officials generally seem to take care of the jobless, they merely consider them as objects rather than actors enabled to mobilize. This reinforces the other obstacles the unemployed usually face in order to protest. Anyway, the Belgian unemployed have mobilized on several occasions since the mid-1970s rapid growth in unemployment. The author analyses those protests, as well as the way unions supported them, or rather tried to avoid them. He describes the organization of the unemployed, inside and sometimes outside the unions, as well as the results of the protests. Trade unions are not the only collective actors from the civil society who mobilize in the unemployment political field, be it in favour of or against the interests of the unemployed. Other important actors are pro-unemployed organizations. They intervene in political debates and play an important role as service providers. The chapter by Frédéric Royall is about the roles, status and motivations of people who are associated with Irish organizations in aid of the unemployed. He argues that, by acceding to a state-driven view of community development, organizations in aid of the unemployed have unwittingly allowed a two-tiered situation to arise. At one level lies an increasingly professional staff that provides services for – or act on behalf of – the unemployed. At another level are part-time staff and the unemployed themselves. Part-time staff are involved in organizations by virtue of their participation in various state-sponsored programmes. The unemployed, however, are increasingly associated with the organizations not as active participants but rather as service recipients. While Chapters 5 to 7 deal with responses by specific civil society actors (trade unions and pro-unemployed organizations) within single countries (Britain, Belgium and Ireland), Chapters 8 and 9 broaden the picture by looking at claimmaking by various types of actors in a comparative perspective covering several countries. In such a cross-national perspective, Marco Giugni, Michel Berclaz and Katharina Füglister and propose a theoretical framework for the study of collective action in the field of unemployment politics based on the idea that the form and content of political claim-making on issues relating to unemployment are influenced in important ways by the prevailing conceptions of the welfare state and the consequent institutional approaches to unemployment. They argue that the prevailing view of the welfare state specific to a given country impinges in significant ways upon what they call the ‘contentious politics of unemployment’, that is, the public debates and collective mobilizations pertaining to unemployment. Specifically, dominant conceptions of the welfare state define a political opportunity structure that enlarges or restricts the options for action by

State and Civil Society Responses to Unemployment

13

collective actors that intervene in this field. This approach is germane with recent developments in scholarship of the welfare state that stress the role of normative discourse (e.g. Cox 2001, Schmidt 2002). Finally, the picture would remain far too narrow if we did not take into account, even in a cursory fashion, the European dimension, especially in the light of the developments that have occurred in the past decade at the EU level which I hinted at earlier. In this vein, the chapter by Christian Lahusen uses original data on claim-making in the field of unemployment politics, drawn from the same research project that inspired the theoretical reflection of the preceding chapter, to assess assumptions relating to a possible Europeanization of national debates, using the debates around the European Employment Strategy as a case in hand. The results suggest that the Europeanization thesis has to be assessed in a differentiated way. On one hand, national differences still seem to exist with regard to public agendas and there is no ‘vertical’ denationalization of public debates, as mass-mediated debates within the member states do not open themselves to European actors and do not frame problems and solutions in a ‘European’ way. On the other hand, if one looks at the content of public debates, there seems to be a diffusion of problem definitions, regulatory approaches and policy ideas which points to a ‘horizontal’ denationalization across national borders. A Forgotten Actor: The Unemployed The unemployed, which represent the group that is more directly concerned with the problem of unemployment, have largely been overlooked in the scholarly literature. To be sure, sociologists in particular have paid much attention to them. Following the path opened by of the classical work of Jahoda, ��������������� Lazarsfeld and Zeisel���������������������������������������������������������������������������� (1933) and spurred by the recent increase in interest in studying patterns of social exclusion,11 some have looked, at the micro-level of analysis, at the individual trajectories that lead to unemployment and the personal experience of such status (e.g. Gallie 2004, Gallie, Marsh ���������������������������������������� and Vogler������������������������ 1994, Schnapper 1981), often with a focus on long-term unemployment (e.g. Demazière 1992, 1995a, Demazière, Helleboid and Mondoloni 1994, Gallie and Benoît-Guilbot 1994), or at the psychological effects of unemployment (e.g. Gallie and Russell 1998, Jahoda 1982, Kelvin and Jarret 1985, Ouweneel 2002, Whelan, ��������������������� Hannon and Creighton� 1991, Warr 1987). Some of these studies make use of systematic methods of data collection (such as standardized surveys) in order to provide comparative evidence that makes it possible to examine cross-national variations and link them, for example, to differences in welfare arrangements or cultural patterns (e.g. Gallie 1999, Gallie and Paugam 2000, Gallie et al. 1998). They are important to the extent that they allow for making a linkage between macro-sociological and institutional 11 ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� The literature on social exclusion is especially developed in the French-speaking context (see Paugam 1996 for a review).

14

The Politics of Unemployment in Europe

factors, on the one hand, and their impact on the micro-sociological and individual feelings, attitudes and behaviours on the other. More specifically, they make a link between the characteristics of the welfare state and the individual-level effects of unemployment. This body of literature has deepened our knowledge of the processes and mechanisms through which social exclusion is produced and reproduced, especially in the field of unemployment. These works, however, present two major shortcomings: an individualistic bias and a lack of attention to agency. On one hand, they focus on the consequences that unemployment has on the personal life of those who are struck by it, most of the time through individual coping strategies, and neglect the ways in which the unemployed try to struggle collectively and politically against their situation. On the other hand, they tend to see the individual unemployed person as a passive recipient rather than an actor capable of taking initiative and reacting to his or her own situation. To be sure, there are good reasons why scholars and common sense alike have been inclined to relegate the unemployed to the role of passive actors. At least when it comes to organizing to defend politically their collective interests (that is, through collective action and political mobilization), the unemployed do not have a good record, as compared with other social movements. Why is this so? We can mention a number of reasons, which would certainly deserve a longer discussion (see Giugni 2008). First of all, jobless people may suffer from a lack of interest in politics and therefore in engaging in political mobilization, as they would be more worried about their economic situation and struggle to get a job rather than becoming involved in some kind of political activity. It can indeed be shown that the unemployed display lower scores of political interest and, more generally, of other political attitudes (for example, trust, satisfaction with democracy, feeling of political efficacy) and participation than people who have a job. Second, besides the lack of political interest, the low level of mobilization of the unemployed may be due to the lack of an ‘objective’ condition that gives rise to grievances about the situation of the labour market. Especially, in countries in which unemployment rates are relatively low, the number of jobless people would not create a ‘critical mass’ large enough for a social movement to form. Yet, as work on social movements and collective action has shown, the objective conditions relating to the situation of being unemployed can hardly lead to protest behaviour unless unemployment is socially and politically constructed as a ‘problem’ (see Benford and Snow 2000 and Snow 2004 for reviews). In this sense, unemployment is also a social construct, a way of saying, classifying and categorizing things (Demazière 1995b, Pierru 2005, Salais, Baverez and Reynaud 1986, Topalov 1994). Third, therefore, the lack of political engagement on the part of the unemployed may also stem from the difficulty of motivating people for action, identifying causes and consequences (prognostic frames) of a given problem, defining unemployment as an unjust condition, blaming the political authorities or someone else for this condition, and so forth. Fourth, the unemployed may remain politically apathetic because of a lack of a strong

State and Civil Society Responses to Unemployment

15

collective identity to be engaged in the struggle for better conditions. Indeed, as suggested by work stressing the role of identity for social movement mobilization (see Polletta and Jasper 2001 for a review), the presence of a collective identity is crucial to forming a social movement and to granting a certain continuity over time, even when the political context is not very favourable to mobilizing. Fifth, the political apathy of unemployed may result from a lack of internal resources (both in terms of the organizational infrastructure supporting mobilization and the networks of interpersonal relations that facilitate the formation of collective identities as well as the creation of shared understandings of their situation), which has been shown to be a necessary condition for political mobilization by resource mobilization theory (see Edwards and McCarthy 2004 for a review). Finally, when it comes to explaining the emergence or latency of social protest, numerous works on social movements in recent years have stressed the role of political opportunity structures (see Kriesi 2004 and Meyer 2004 for reviews). In this perspective, the absence of favourable political opportunities may prevent the unemployed expressing their grievances publicly. In spite of these potential obstacles, the unemployed do engage in political activities and mount sometimes successful instances of collective action, which are often local, but sometimes have a national and even transnational scope.12 Accordingly, a number of significant works, done in particular by students of social movements, have paid attention to the political mobilization of the unemployed and its conditions (e.g. Bagguley 1991, 1992, Baumgarten, Chabanet and Lahusen 2008, Berclaz, Füglister and Giugni 2004, Chabanet 2002, 2008, Chabanet and Faniel forthcoming, Cinalli and ������������������������������������������������ Füglister 2008, della Porta 2008, Demazière �������������� and Pignoni 1998, Duvanel 2002, Faniel 2004, Ferrara 1997, Fillieule 1993, Galland and Louis 1981, Locke 2007, Mathers 2007, Maurer 2001, Maurer and Pierru 2001, Piven and Cloward 1979, 1993, Richards 2002, Royall 1997, 2002, Valocchi 1990, 1993). Often these studies have stressed two particular features of their activism. On the one hand, it has been observed that marginalized groups hardly engage in structured forms of political action. For the reasons I listed earlier, the unemployed have difficulties organizing and mobilizing. On the other hand, when these groups do mobilize, they do so in spontaneous and unorganized ways rather

12 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������� A notable example of a supranational mobilization by unemployed is represented by the European marches against unemployment, job insecurity and social exclusion in 1997 (Chabanet 2002, Mathers 2007, Royall 2002). This transnational network went beyond the specific mobilization in 1997, as it was created before that event and, above all, has mobilized in subsequent events as well. A striking example of effective mobilization by the unemployed occurred in 1996, when a local Swiss unemployed organization launched a referendum against a change in the unemployment law that was detrimental for the rights of unemployed (Duvanel 2002). Owing to a series of favorable circumstances, this organization succeeded not only in gathering the required signatures for the question to be submitted to popular vote, but the referendum was accepted by voters in 1997, probably also thanks to fact that unions and the Socialist party led the campaign.

16

The Politics of Unemployment in Europe

than in more conventional and structured forms of political activism. Thus, their political participation seems to oscillate between apathy and radicalism. These insights have emerged from various studies of the protests that characterized the period of the Great Depression in the United States and UK in the 1920s and 1930s (Bagguley 1991, Piven and Cloward 1979, Richards 2002). However, this pattern hardly reflects the situation we face today in Europe, as the mobilization of the unemployed has been much stronger in Europe since the early 1990s. Furthermore, organized unemployed have been able to display a more structured activism, attesting to the fact that the integration of marginalized groups into a political committed and responsible civil society can indeed succeed (Demazière and Pignoni 1998, Faniel 2004). In spite of these works and of a recently renewed interest in this topic,13 we still know little about the political participation and mobilization of the unemployed, and we know even less about the impact of different state and civil society responses on their situation. To be sure, this book will not fill this gap. However, by at least starting a reflection about the role of the welfare state (via the redistribution of collective resources), of new ways to face unemployment (for example, by means of active policies) and of the reaction by non-institutional actors (such as trade unions and pro-unemployed organizations), we will make a step towards a more comprehensive understanding of the politics of unemployment in Europe.

13 ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� See for example various papers presented at conferences and workshop over the past few years on the subject matter: a section on ‘Social Movements, Contentious Politics, and Social Exclusion’ at the second ECPR Conference (Marburg, Germany, 18–21 September 2003); a conference on ‘Public Employment Action and Unemployed Movements’ (Lyon, France, 19–20 November 2004); the closing conference of the UNEMPOL project (Geneva, Switzerland, 1–2 April 2005); a workshop on ‘The Mobilization of the Unemployed in Europe’ (Maison Française d’Oxford, Oxford, UK, 10–11 June 2005); and a conference on ‘From the Blanketeers to the Present: Understanding Protests of the Unemployed’ (German Historical Institute London, Bloomsbury, UK, 16–17 February 2007).

Chapter 1

Unemployment and Social Protection Bengt Furåker

Gainful employment is the way in which most working-age people earn their living in modern societies, and unemployment is therefore a major social and economic problem. Those individuals who offer their labouring capacities in the market but find nobody willing to hire them run the risk of having no income and of encountering various other difficulties (see, e.g. Alm 2001, Gallie 2004, Gallie and Paugam 2000, Nordenmark 1999, Strandh 2000). However, to counteract this, contemporary welfare states provide some degree of social protection for people who are, or are likely to become, unemployed. This chapter deals with issues related to how the state in advanced capitalist countries handles unemployment. State intervention with respect to unemployment or potential unemployment involves legislation, transfers of income and direct services. It can be classified in many different ways and for the following analysis and discussion I distinguish three principal types. These do not make up an exhaustive list of all relevant state policies, but all three are certainly at the centre of policy discussions. First, I will pay attention to employment protection legislation (EPL) that is generally oriented towards making it more difficult and/or more costly for employers to lay off workers. The overall purpose is to reduce the risk of workers being arbitrarily or quickly dismissed, and suddenly having no job and no income. It is a kind of intervention designed to reduce the likelihood of people becoming unemployed in the first place. The second category covers financial support for individuals who have become unemployed and therefore cannot provide for themselves. Under the concept of passive labour market policy (PLMP) there are two subcategories. One of them is a matter of different forms of cash benefits paid to people who have no job and who are, or at least should be, jobseekers. In this case, I utilize the term ‘unemployment compensation’ (UC). The other PLMP subcategory refers to pension programmes allowing early retirement for labour market reasons. People who have enduring difficulties in finding employment are supported financially so that they can leave the labour market. Such programmes exist only in some of the advanced capitalist countries, but should be taken into consideration. Finally, we have active labour market policy (ALMP), in principle organized for the purpose of putting people to work. This goal is supposed to be attained with the help of public employment services (job-search assistance, counselling, etc.), training programmes, subsidized jobs, job creation and certain other measures. Of course, to some extent ALMPs have the same function as PLMPs of providing

18

The Politics of Unemployment in Europe

an income to the unemployed, but their distinctive feature is their further aim of getting people into jobs. There is thus a difference in the level of ambition, which can also explain why the adjectives ‘passive’ and ‘active’ are being used. We may have doubts about the appropriateness of these words, but they belong to the standard terminology in the literature and I will therefore stick to them. The three policy types to be focused on here – EPL, PLMP and ALMP – affect labour markets in different ways. As hinted above, they are not the only ways in which the state intervenes with respect to unemployment; in fact, there are several other policies (e.g. general economic policies, public childcare and education) that also play important roles. However, if we want to concentrate on a few core aspects of social protection in connection with unemployment, it goes without saying that EPL, PLMP and ALMP must be focal points. One essential aspect is that all three policies are called into question as to whether they actually accomplish what they are set up for. Sometimes it is argued that they have negative effects on unemployment and employment. This whole debate is part of the general discussion on whether the modern welfare state is, or can be, successful in its efforts to come to grips with social and economic problems. I want to provide an overview of issues related to the functioning of EPL, PLMP and ALMP in developed capitalist countries and to discuss these issues in the light of previous research and some empirical data from recent years (see also, e.g. Furåker 2002, 2003a, b). Employment Protection Legislation In the main, EPL includes a set of rules prescribing under what circumstances and how employers can carry out dismissals (individual and collective) and what rights workers have to keep their jobs. It can define legitimate causes for dismissal and specify rules regarding procedural matters, time of notice, severance pay, etc. Another purpose of the legislation is to provide a legal framework for the establishment of fixed-term employment contracts. There are several studies on the role of EPL and they show somewhat inconclusive results (see, e.g. Baker et al. 2005, Bertola, Blau and Kahn 2002, Esping-Andersen 2000a: 84–90, OECD 1999: Ch. 2, 2004: Ch. 2). Among other things, these studies have tried to establish whether strict legislation has counterproductive effects, above all whether it leads to higher unemployment and lower employment. The explanation as to why such effects might appear goes something like this. If the law makes it difficult and costly for employers to get rid of workers when they need to do so (for example in a recession), they become restrictive with hiring people. Consequently, employment rates may be lower than they would be without this legislation. Moreover, employers are also expected to become selective with whom they hire. When layoffs are costly, it is especially important to hire only people who are well suited for the jobs and who are not likely to involve any risk-taking. In other words, strict EPL may increase the

Unemployment and Social Protection

19

difficulties of finding work for certain vulnerable categories, and these individuals may accordingly run a greater risk of ending up in unemployment. The most recent study done by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD 2004: Ch. 2) analyses the changes in EPL from the late 1980s up to and including 2003. Various countries are compared regarding strictness of EPL with the help of two indices. One is presented for the late 1980s, the late 1990s and 2003 and the other only for the late 1990s and 2003. Actually, the two indices are strongly correlated with one another – the second version involves only minor adjustments – so it does not matter very much which one we choose to use. Both of them are based on the legislation concerning three dimensions: regular employment, temporary employment and collective dismissals. In Table 1.1 both indices are included. The higher the scores, the more restrictive is the legislation. Countries are ranked according to the degree of strictness in 2003 (Index II), with the strictest at the top and the most liberal at the bottom of the table. We find the highest scores on Index II for Portugal and Turkey, with Mexico as number three and Spain as number four in the rank order. With Index I, the picture at the top is roughly the same. Southern European countries generally have high figures, but it should be observed that Italy has liberalized its EPL substantially over recent decades. At the bottom of the table, we come upon the United States, somewhat below the UK and Canada. The other Anglo-Saxon countries also have low scores. Most of the central European and the Nordic countries are somewhere in between. As we can see, there is no common Nordic model; Norway and Sweden have relatively high figures, whereas Finland and, in particular, Denmark score clearly lower. Looking at changes over time, we discover that a number of countries have become more liberal, but the picture is somewhat divided. Data for the changes between the late 1980s and 2003 (Index I) are available for 20 of the 28 countries in the table. Scores then decreased in 13 cases (most of all in Italy, followed by Sweden, Belgium and Germany), but increased in four cases and remained stable in three cases. Comparing the late 1990s and 2003 (with Index II), we have access to data for all 28 countries and nine of them had lower scores in 2003, eight had higher scores, and 11 had unchanged scores. With respect to change, although EPL has become less strict in many countries, it can be concluded that there is rather strong continuity over the years (OECD 2004: 71–5). The question is then to what extent EPL affects unemployment and employment rates. According to the OECD (2004: 76-8), strict EPL tends to slow down the flows of people from employment to unemployment. This is simply in line with the purpose of the law, that is, to give workers some protection against hasty dismissals. With the exception of the Nordic countries, there is a similar indication regarding flows from unemployment (to employment or out of the labour force). It is not, however, statistically significant. Unfortunately, in the OECD report, transitions from unemployment to jobs are not kept separate from transitions from unemployment out of the labour force. The theoretical assumption is anyhow that strict rules make employers more restrictive with hiring. Consequently, the total

The Politics of Unemployment in Europe

20

Table 1.1

EPL scores according to two indices – 2003 and change since late 1980s and late 1990s: Rank according to Index II scores 2003

Portugal Turkey Mexico Spain France Greece Norway Sweden Belgium Germany Italy Netherlands Austria Finland Poland Korea Slovak Republic Czech Republic Denmark Japan Hungary Switzerland Australia Ireland New Zealand Canada UK United States

Index I Change late 2003 1980s to 2003 3.5 −0.6 3.7 – 3.1 – 3.1 −0.7 3.0 0.3 2.8 −0.8 2.6 −0.3 2.2 −1.3 2.2 −1.0 2.2 −1.0 1.9 −1.7 2.1 −0.6 1.9 −0.3 2.0 −0.3 1.7 – 2.0 – 1.9 – 1.9 – 1.4 −0.9 1.8 −0.3 1.5 – 1.1 0.0 1.2 0.3 1.1 0.2 1.5 – 0.8 0.0 0.7 0.1 0.2 0.0

Index II Change late 2003 1990s to 2003 3.5 −0.2 3.5 0.1 3.2 0.0 3.1 0.1 2.9 0.1 2.9 −0.6 2.6 −0.1 2.6 0.0 2.5 0.0 2.5 −0.1 2.4 −0.7 2.3 0.0 2.2 −0.2 2.1 −0.1 2.1 0.2 2.0 0.0 2.0 −0.5 1.9 0.0 1.8 0.0 1.8 −0.1 1.7 0.2 1.6 0.0 1.5 0.0 1.3 0.1 1.3 0.5 1.1 0.0 1.1 0.1 0.7 0.0

Source: OECD 2004: 117.

impact on the level of unemployment can be expected to be low, because two forces are supposed to be in operation and they go in opposite directions. According to the OECD (2004: 81), it cannot be verified that EPL strictness is associated with high overall levels of unemployment, but it appears that the incidence of long-term unemployment is affected. Furthermore, the OECD (2004: 81–6) calls attention to the impact that EPL has on the demographic composition of employment. If employers become more restrictive with hiring people, certain categories are likely to run into increasing

Unemployment and Social Protection

21

difficulties in getting a job. Consequently, strict rules seem to be a disadvantage for prime-age women and youths, whereas prime-age men and older workers tend to be favoured. It needs to be noted that temporary jobs are to some extent functional alternatives to liberal legislation. Given that the possibility of establishing temporary employment contracts is not too limited, we can expect them to be used more often in countries where EPL is generally strict. There is also empirical support for this assumption (OECD 2004: 87; see also Hudson 2002: 40–42). Moreover, the step from temporary to permanent employment contracts is negatively correlated with the strictness of legislation regarding permanent employment (OECD 2004: 87–8). When, in the latter respect, liberalization has taken place, it seems that the proportion of temporary contracts has decreased. Using data for 2003 and 2002, respectively, the OECD (2004: 81) detects a statistically significant negative correlation between EPL (Index II) and employment levels. In other words, countries with less strict EPL tend to have higher employment rates, but, as emphasized in the report (OECD 2004: 80), a bivariate association is not enough for policy conclusions. We can just add that neither is it enough for scientific generalizations. To provide some further information on the issue, I shall examine what has happened with employment rates when EPL has been changed. If strict rules contribute to holding down employment levels, liberalization should be expected to increase these levels. Figure 1.1 presents the relationship between changes in EPL scores (Index I) between the late 1980s and 2003 and changes in employment rates 1988–2003. For those who had expected that liberalization would be associated with higher employment rates, the picture presented in Figure 1.1 is likely to be disappointing. The relationship between the two variables is not negative but positive, although the correlation is far from statistically significant. When calculating the corresponding correlation between the changes from the late 1990s to 2003 (with Index II) and the changes in employment rates between 1998 and 2003, we get a similar outcome (not shown). Most importantly, these outcomes reject the hypothesis that liberalization of EPL would generally lead to increased employment. The reason is of course that employment rates are determined by so many other factors (the low R2 figure also suggests this). For example, in many countries a growing number of women have jobs, and to explain this we must obviously consider factors of a very different kind. Young people, on the other hand, stay longer in the educational system and their employment rates have therefore gone down. In sum, there is no conclusive evidence that EPL in the economically developed Western countries can be blamed for their failures in terms of unemployment and employment. No doubt, given the way labour markets function, problems of this kind may appear if EPL strictness passes a certain point. Still, so far it appears that other factors are more critical for the problems in question. In this connection, we must be aware that fixed-term employment contracts are more widespread in countries with strict EPL, and such contracts can be seen as a compensatory mechanism that reduces the effects of strict rules. There is also another aspect

The Politics of Unemployment in Europe

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that should not be forgotten. Strict legislation seems to lead to a redistribution of chances among people both to keep a job and to find employment, to the disadvantage of prime-age women and youths. Passive Labour Market Policies As mentioned above, we have two types of PLMP. First, there are various forms of cash benefits (UC) to people who do not have a job and who are supposed to be jobseekers. Second, some countries provide early retirement pensions for labour market reasons. This kind of policy implies that people do not have to be available for work in order to fend for themselves; it gives them the opportunity, permanently or temporarily, to exit the labour market. Most of the discussion on PLMP focuses on UC, probably because benefit recipients are expected to be active in looking for work and eventually to find and take a job. There is a never-ending controversy about whether benefits make

Unemployment and Social Protection

23

the unemployed less eager in their job-searching activities and choosier with respect to employment offers. A common claim is that the benefit systems are too generous. The discussion then deals with issues such as replacement rates, ceilings, waiting days, duration of benefits, eligibility requirements and sanctions when people quit jobs voluntarily or refuse to take jobs offered. Regulations differ across countries and a detailed examination of a large number of rules is required to decide whether a given country has a more generous system than another (cf., e.g. Grubb 2001, OECD 2000: Ch. 4). Inspired by Francis Castles’s (1998: Ch. 6, 2004) analysis of welfare state developments, I have instead decided to focus entirely on expenditures; with the help of such data we have a less ambiguous way of making cross-national comparisons. In the following we shall deal with two measures: PLMP and UC expenditures as a percentage of GDP and, more importantly, these proportions per percentage point of unemployment. The latter kind of calculation gives us a crude measure of the generosity of the systems. It ignores the details but summarizes how much each country spends on PLMPs or UC when we control for unemployment rates. Without this kind of control, figures would be misleading, because as soon as unemployment rises, costs go up, unless there is a reduction in the amount of money that benefit recipients can receive – or an increase in GDP. Having emphasized the need for control of unemployment levels, we can turn to Table 1.2, where data for OECD member states on PLMP and UC expenditures are presented for one specific year. It can be added that the picture would be quite similar if other recent years were chosen. For most of the countries, data are provided for 2003. However, in Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, the UK and the United States they refer to the fiscal year 2003/2004 and I have then used average unemployment rates for 2003/2004 when calculating expenditures per percentage point of unemployment. As always, it is difficult to find data that are perfect for cross-national comparisons, although the information provided in Table 1.2 seems to be of fairly good quality. The perhaps most significant inconsistency applies to Spain, where costs for early retirement for labour market reasons are included in the UC figure and cannot be separated from it. Countries are ranked according to the proportion of GDP spent on PLMP per each percentage point of unemployment. Starting with expenditures on PLMP as a percentage of GDP, we discover a great deal of variation across countries in 2003. Four countries – Denmark, Belgium, Germany and Finland – have figures higher than 2 per cent. The lowest percentage appears for Korea, followed by the Czech and Slovak Republics. We should also note the low figures for the UK and the United States. In the next column to the right, it is shown how much each country spends on PLMPs per percentage point of unemployment (standardized unemployment rates as defined by the OECD). The Netherlands is the most generous with a score of 0.50, with Denmark as second and quite close to the Dutch level. Austria and Belgium share third place in the rank order. Ten countries have percentages of 0.20 or more and, with the exception of Ireland, they are all located in central and northern Europe.

The Politics of Unemployment in Europe

24

In the lower end of the scale, we find ten cases with figures of 0.10 or below; they make up a mixture of countries from the Anglo-Saxon world, the former socialist sphere, southern Europe and East Asia. Table 1.2

PLMP and UC expenditures ca. 2003: Rank according to PLMP expenditures per percentage point of unemployment

Netherlands Denmark Austria Belgium Germany Switzerland Finland Sweden Portugal Ireland France New Zealand Norway Australia Spain Canada Japan UK Italy Poland United States Czech Republic Greece Korea Slovak Republic

PLMP UC Per percentage Per percentage Percentage Percentage point of point of of GDP of GDP unemployment unemployment 1.86 0.50 1.86a 0.50 2.68 0.48 1.91 0.34 1.37 0.32 1.12 0.26 2.51 0.32 2.06 0.26 2.31 0.25 2.27 0.25 1.02 0.24 1.02 0.24 2.09 0.23 1.58 0.18 1.22 0.22 1.22 0.22 1.28 0.21 1.11 0.18 0.91 0.20 0.85 0.18 1.77 0.19 1.67 0.18 0.80 0.19 0.80 0.19 0.87 0.19 0.87 0.19 0.74 0.13 0.74 0.13 1.48 0.13 1.48b 0.13 0.77 0.10 0.77 0.10 0.46 0.09 0.46 0.09 0.37 0.08 0.37 0.08 0.62 0.07 0.51 0.06 1.08 0.06 1.08 0.06 0.37 0.06 0.37 0.06 0.28 0.04 0.28 0.04 0.41 0.04 0.41 0.04 0.14 0.04 0.14 0.04 0.32 0.02 0.32 0.02

Notes: a This figure is lower than in the data source, as I have excluded unemployment benefits provided to participants in labour market training; b Includes expenditures for early retirement for labour market reasons. Source: OECD 2005: 237, 262–75.

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Two countries, Germany and Belgium, spent more than 2 per cent of GDP on UC in 2003. The lowest figures in this respect are in general the same as for PLMP (with the exception of Italy), simply because many countries do not have early retirement programmes for labour market reasons and they are less common among those with low expenditures. Turning to the generosity measure, we again discover the Netherlands at the top, clearly ahead of Denmark and, further below, Austria, Belgium and Germany. As just suggested, the bottom of the table looks very much the same as for PLMP. As mentioned before, there is a great deal of political discussion about the impact of generous benefits on the levels and duration of unemployment. It is frequently argued that generous systems increase the reservation wage, that is, the lowest wage at which an individual is willing to accept a job offer; jobseekers become choosier and existing vacancies are not filled as quickly as would otherwise be possible. Instead we can expect an increase in the average duration of unemployment periods and consequently also in unemployment levels. An indirect effect is also often mentioned; increasing reservation wages tend to lead to inflation that in the end can have detrimental consequences for employment. The effects of UC on unemployment rates have been subjected to numerous empirical studies, with somewhat inconclusive results (see, e.g. Atkinson and Micklewright 1991, Atkinson and Mogensen 1993, Castles 1998: Ch. 6, EspingAndersen 2000a: 73–80, Holmlund 1998). Stephen Nickell and Richard Layard (1999) have summarized the main findings from the available literature. They suggest that generous compensation levels and long-lasting benefits tend to increase unemployment. It is therefore important how the rules for benefit system are designed and implemented. Nickell and Layard emphasize that unemployment can be lowered with the help of ALMPs and strictly operated work tests. Presumably UC systems involve a tradeoff. It seems that, in principle, the same level of unemployment can be accomplished with the combination of high benefits/long benefit duration and strict work tests as with the combination of low benefits/short benefit duration and lenient or no work tests. The first situation presupposes that sanctions are implemented by the authorities when unemployed individuals do not look for a job as they are expected to do or refuse to accept employment offers. Strict work tests can undoubtedly be designed so that they lead to high-intensity job-searching activities (cf. Grubb 2001: 188–9). In the second case, sanctions are transferred to the replacement side; if the benefit level is very low, people will be forced to take almost any job that they can find. The risk is, however, that some individuals instead become dropouts from the labour market and sink down into poverty. It is important to keep a sense of proportion concerning the relationship between UC generosity and unemployment (cf. Esping-Andersen 2000a: 78–9). In most countries we find a great deal of variation over time in unemployment rates and these fluctuations are mainly due to business cycles. Sometimes large inflows of refugees or other population changes become important by affecting the supply of labour. Modifications in UC systems usually play a minor role; they do

The Politics of Unemployment in Europe

26

not occur that often and they are rarely very radical. Still, now and then significant reforms do take place; for example, both the Netherlands and Denmark – the two most generous countries according to Table 1.2 – carried out some crucial changes to their UC systems in the 1990s (see, e.g. Björklund 2002, Gorter 2000, Grubb 2001: 205–206). It can then be interesting to look at some recent data on the relationship between UC generosity and unemployment rates. Figure 1.2 gives us such a picture for 2003 (or 2003/2004), but the outcome would not be very different if other recent years were selected. The correlation between the two variables is negative and it is statistically significant. We should be cautious in drawing conclusions from the simple information in Figure 1.2. No causal relationship can be established between the variables, but I believe that we can say something like the following. Countries with very high unemployment do not have very generous benefit systems, which probably has something to do with what can be afforded. They would get very high costs for UC if they were to spend as much on each unemployed individual as certain other nations do. Among countries with low or, to put it more correctly, moderate



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Unemployment and Social Protection

27

unemployment levels, it is easier for governments to choose the system they want to have. Our two most munificent spenders, the Netherlands and Denmark, both have moderate levels of unemployment, but the same goes for Korea, the UK, Japan and the United States, which are much less generous. In other words, there seems to be a political choice involved; governments can have it either way. It should be mentioned that I have also run a scatter plot (not shown) on the relationship between UC generosity and employment rates. In contrast to what we have just seen in Figure 1.2, the two variables are positively correlated and the correlation is statistically significant. UC generosity is thus associated with high employment rates. No causal relationship can be established here, but with a large proportion of the population in jobs, it is generally easier for countries to afford ample benefits. In any case, there is no support for the idea that UC generosity means lower employment rates. Unquestionably, state measures in the form of PLMP and UC play a very important role in society by mitigating the hardships that hit unemployed individuals. These policies are crucial in order to reduce inequalities produced through the functioning of the labour market. Having said this, we must be aware that they may also involve counterproductive elements. Insofar as benefit systems make it easier for people to avoid taking jobs offered – and thus raise unemployment rates – they counteract the purpose they are set up for. Two things need to be noted, however. First, the effect of UC generosity is often rather limited; normally, it cannot explain much of the variation in unemployment over time and across countries. Second, it may not always be best that people take the first job offered; waiting a little longer can pay off, because there is little to be gained by filling vacancies with jobseekers unsuited for them. Both jobseekers and employers can frequently benefit from waiting for more appropriate and durable solutions. Active Labour Market Policies Although early retirement for labour market reasons contributes to lower unemployment rates, the main purpose of PLMP is not to lower unemployment but to support unemployed individuals. In contrast, ALMP is aimed at getting people into work or, to phrase it more modestly, at strengthening the possibilities of them finding a job. In a recession, the number of participants in active programmes is likely to increase. This will in itself reduce unemployment, unless all participants are counted as jobless. It may be tempting for governments to expand ALMPs just to be able to show lower unemployment rates. Nevertheless, even if this happens from time to time, it does not have to take away the overriding purpose of the programmes, which is to help people find employment in the regular labour market. The principal ALMPs are public employment services, labour market training, employment subsidies and direct job creation. We shall take a look at the total expenditures on these programmes in various countries. Table 1.3 provides this kind of information for the year 2003 or, in some cases (the same as in Table 1.2),

The Politics of Unemployment in Europe

28

Table 1.3

ALMP expenditures ca. 2003 Percentage of GDP

Netherlands Denmark Ireland Sweden Norway Switzerland Belgium Austria Germany New Zealand France Portugal UK Finland Australia Japan Spain Canada Korea United States Czech Republic Slovak Republic

1.83 1.74 1.17 1.29 0.81 0.77 1.24 0.63 1.14 0.52 1.09 0.67 0.53 0.91 0.39 0.32 0.72 0.37 0.16 0.16 0.17 0.29

Per percentage point of unemployment 0.49 0.31 0.25 0.23 0.18 0.18 0.16 0.15 0.13 0.12 0.11 0.11 0.11 0.10 0.07 0.06 0.06 0.05 0.04 0.03 0.02 0.02

Source: OECD 2005: 237, 262–75.

2003/2004. Countries are ranked according to ALMP generosity, calculated in the same way as PLMP and UC generosity. Again, there is a lot of variation across countries. With respect to expenditures as a percentage of GDP, the Netherlands and Denmark have the highest figures, close to 2 per cent. Five other countries exceed the 1 per cent level: Sweden, Belgium, Ireland, Germany and France. The lowest percentages are found for Korea, the United States and the Czech Republic. I have calculated the same figures for other recent years with approximately the same outcome. Furthermore, Table 1.3 shows that, given the way I have defined generosity, the Netherlands is the most generous country in terms of ALMP. Denmark is second, Ireland comes third and Sweden has the fourth place in the rank order. At the low end of the table, we find the Czech and the Slovak Republics, but figures are also very low for the United States, Korea, Canada, Spain, Japan and Australia. Actually, the pictures presented in Tables 1.2 and 1.3 are rather similar; the countries with generous PLMPs are usually open-handed with ALMPs as well.

Unemployment and Social Protection

29

Over recentt decades, there has been some small increase in ALMP expenditures among the economically developed capitalist countries, but no general switch-over from PLMP expenditures can be discovered (Martin and Grubb 2001: 15–19). This may be surprising, at any rate in the light of all the political rhetoric on ‘active’ policies and ‘activation’. The reason why we find more words than deeds in this respect is probably that ALMPs have not been very successful; there is a gap between what they are supposed to accomplish and what they actually accomplish. I will come back to this below. First, I want to pay attention to the relationship between ALMPs and unemployment levels (the same type of diagram as before on UC). Figure 1.3 gives this information for 2003 or, in the same cases as before, 2003/2004. On one axis, we have ALMP generosity and on the other axis, standardized unemployment rates. The two variables are negatively correlated with one another with a p-value just above 0.05. In other words, it seems that great ALMP generosity is associated with low unemployment rates. This is very much in line with the outcome in Figure 1.2 on UC expenditures, and it is possible to make a similar interpretation to the one I

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30

The Politics of Unemployment in Europe

made in connection with that. It is difficult for countries with high unemployment to have very munificent ALMPs; it might lead to very high expenditures. Countries with moderate unemployment are in a different situation, but they nevertheless make very divergent political choices. The open-handed alternative with respect to ALMPs is exemplified by the Netherlands and Denmark and the opposite case by Korea, Japan and the United States. As before with UC, I have run a scatter plot (not shown) in which unemployment rates are replaced by employment rates. The outcome is basically the same; in other words, the relationship between ALMP generosity and employment levels is positive and the correlation is statistically significant. Again, it can be pointed out that a country’s possibilities of having generous ALMPs are facilitated by high employment rates. Obviously, the outcomes with respect to PLMPs and AMLPs are not so far from each other. Countries that are willing to spend a large amount on the one kind of policy commonly also spend quite a lot on the other kind. This means that, if we add up expenditures for the two types of state intervention and calculate their proportions of GDP and their generosity in relation to unemployment, the patterns will be rather similar to what has already been presented here. The discussion on ALMPs is concentrated on a number of topics (see, e.g. Calmfors 1994, Heckman, Lalonde and Smith 1999, Martin and Grubb 2001, OECD 2005: Ch. 4). As with PLMPs, there is a debate on the risk that various measures lower people’s readiness to take the jobs available. Participants in programmes usually receive an income, which is likely to be the same as, or rather close to, unemployment benefits. In other words, the same arguments as regarding the reservation wage can be applied and do not have to be repeated here. In addition, it is claimed that, when programmes are rapidly expanded, as sometimes happens in deep recessions, we can expect diminishing returns. For example, if labour market training programmes are set up for large numbers of participants in a very short time, it is difficult to make them meaningful and efficient. They risk meeting with different kinds of organizational problems. What is more, deep recessions do not provide very favourable conditions for such programmes; it does not help very much to train more people as long as the demand for labour remains low. Even under more normal circumstances, due to lock-in, deadweight, displacement or substitution effects, ALMPs do not always achieve as much as expected. The lock-in or retention effect means that, when people participate in programmes, they do not search for regular jobs as actively as they would otherwise do. On the other hand, it is not always better for participants in training programmes to quit as soon as a vacant job shows up. The optimal solution may be that they complete their training, at any rate if the qualifications they acquire are valuable for their long-run labour market career. Besides, programmes are timelimited and frequently short-term and, therefore, as a rule, the lock-in effect does not last very long.

Unemployment and Social Protection

31

Deadweight effects appear when, for example, the state subsidizes employers for expanding their workforce, but this would have occurred anyway. The subsidy is then simply superfluous, as the same result would have come about without it. Employers just get a windfall profit; they get something for nothing. However, we also need to pay attention to another aspect. Subsidies may be provided only if certain categories of people, such as long-term unemployed individuals, are recruited. When such categories are hired instead of others, we can talk about a substitution effect. The total hiring may be exactly the same, but the composition of those recruited is different. Accordingly, there is a possible positive element in this, insofar as people who would otherwise have great difficulties in finding a job – and who would perhaps also remain unemployed if employers increased recruitment – actually become employed. ALMPs can also lead to a displacement of jobs. If certain activities are subsidized or if the state creates certain jobs, other employers might not be able to provide as many jobs as they could otherwise do. One example is when sheltered workshops produce things for the market and, due to the state funding, capture a share of the market from other producers. This is then likely to reduce the number of jobs among these other producers and in the end total employment may remain just the same. Again, however, if sheltered workshops employ disabled individuals who have no chance at all to get a job in the regular labour market, something positive is accomplished. Focusing merely on the size of the employment effects, however, the significance of ALMPs appears to be less impressive than at least some might have expected. It is indeed difficult to determine the effects of various programmes; analysts must have awareness of and skills in methods and methodological issues as well as access to good empirical data (cf. e.g. Heckman, Lalonde, and Smith 1999, Martin and Grubb 2001: 20–23). In these respects, some considerable steps forward have been taken over recent decades and, as a consequence, we know more about the limitations of ALMPs. This can perhaps explain why expenditures on these programmes have not increased very much in spite of the political rhetoric about their positive role in combating unemployment and non-participation in the labour force. Even if the empirical studies on ALMPs often discover displacement and other effects that reduce – or even eliminate – the positive impact of these programmes, they show both positive and negative results. In recent years, there has been a tendency among researchers to focus on ALMP failures instead of what has actually been accomplished. This may be due to disappointment with programmes that have often been accompanied by great expectations as to what can be achieved. One way of approaching the issue of ALMP effects is to look not only at what works but also at for whom it works. The point is to see whether programmes are positive for more or less all participants or for certain categories of participants. From such a perspective, economists John Martin and David Grubb (2001; see also OECD 2005: Ch. 4) have surveyed the literature on OECD research to see what conclusions can be drawn. They distinguish five principal categories of ALMP:

32

The Politics of Unemployment in Europe

training programmes, job-search assistance, special youth measures (which can involve training programmes, wage subsidies and direct job creation), subsidies for private sector employment and direct job creation in the public sector. Whether programmes are considered successful or not is a matter of whether they improve people’s chances of getting a job in the regular labour market. This criterion is undoubtedly crucial, but it also has certain obvious limitations which I will come back to. With respect to labour market training, a distinction is made between classroom education and on-the-job training. Starting with classroom education, it appears to work for women re-entrants, while the outcome is most often not so good for prime-age men and older workers who start out with low education. In order to lead to the desired results, it is important that courses have high labour-market relevance. On-the-job training also shows rather positive results for women reentrants as well as for single mothers in general, whereas the outcomes for primeage men are somewhat unclear but apparently more negative. Job-search assistance (that is, public employment services, counselling, job clubs, etc.) seems to have positive effects for most unemployed individuals, and especially for women and sole parents. Another positive aspect is, as Martin and Grubb (2001: 27) point out, that this kind of programme is usually the least expensive among ALMPs. In contrast, with few exceptions, the record for special youth measures – no matter whether they are public training programmes, subsidies for employment or direct job creation – turns out to be rather discouraging. These policies have rarely been able to improve young people’s prospects in the regular labour market. On the other hand, it is hardly unproblematic to do nothing in relation to unemployed youths, as they may run the risk of becoming dropouts. Besides some of the special youth measures, there are two other types of programmes oriented towards increasing the number of jobs: subsidies to private sector employment and direct job creation in the public sector. Wage subsidies in the private sector appear to work for the long-term unemployed as well as for women re-entrants and, additionally, no other category of worker is generally associated with negative results. However, due to deadweight and displacement effects, the net employment gains are usually rather small. It should be noted that Martin and Grubb discuss subsidies to the private sector only, but such grants are sometimes also offered to public sector employers. In contrast to their positive picture of wage subsidies, the two authors regard direct job creation programmes in the public sector as basically a failure. Because job creation programmes have been used quite extensively, they have also frequently been the subject of evaluations and most studies report rather negative outcomes. Yet, we should not forget that such programmes can be very important for disabled individuals, even if they do not increase these individuals’ employment chances in the open labour market. They can play a very significant role in participants’ quality of life, albeit they are a matter of extraordinary jobs. This is perhaps the only possibility for disabled individuals to find work, given the reluctance of employers to hire them.

Unemployment and Social Protection

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One important observation to be made is that the winners from ALMPs are to some extent the same categories (women re-entrants, long-term unemployed) that we have previously found to be losers as a consequence of EPL. There is a crucial lesson to learn from this. We should consider more than one programme at a time, as programmes operate simultaneously and interact with one another. Certain categories of people can be disadvantaged by one type of state intervention but favoured by another. Finally, we should not only look at the impact of ALMPs on people’s chances of finding employment in the regular labour market but at other effects as well. To get a job is certainly the most important goal, but we must not neglect the wider social and psychological consequences. For example, the policies for disabled individuals touched upon above represent one case in which such aspects need to be taken into account. Moreover, we do not generally know much about how participation in programmes affects people’s well-being. From a psychological point of view, it is perhaps better for the individual to participate in a programme than just to receive cash benefits, at least if the activities in themselves entail something positive. Conclusion In this chapter I have concentrated on three main types of state intervention with regard to unemployment in advanced capitalist countries. They have important functions in keeping down the flow from jobs to unemployment (EPL), in providing the unemployed with income (PLMP) and in increasing chances for employment (ALMP). Thereby they also contribute to a reduction in poverty and other difficulties that jobless individuals are often confronted with. EPL is above all a way of redistributing the chances for people to get and keep a job, whereas PLMPs and many ALMPs have a crucial role in providing unemployed individuals directly with an income. In addition, ALMPs increase job chances for at least certain categories, and they may provide activities for people who might otherwise become dropouts. Like all kinds of legislation and government policies, however, the three types of state intervention are in turn associated with certain problems. They do not fully accomplish their goals and sometimes they may even have counterproductive effects. It is possible that EPL makes it more difficult for certain categories to find employment. PLMPs, and particularly generous unemployment benefits, may contribute to increased levels of unemployment. ALMPs are associated with certain mechanisms that more or less undermine their capacity for producing better job chances for people. In spite of various counterproductive effects, a main conclusion from my analysis is that state-provided social protection regarding unemployment normally does not have very detrimental consequences for the labour market. Of course, if, for example, the strictness of legislation on dismissals went beyond some critical

34

The Politics of Unemployment in Europe

point, employers would be strongly discouraged from hiring people, and if the generosity of unemployment benefits had no boundaries, jobseekers’ incentives to find employment would be seriously damaged. As far as I can see, these critical points have not been reached in the developed capitalist countries. This is not to deny that the three types of state intervention dealt with here can be improved and be made more efficient (some programmes are indeed costly), but they are hardly the main factors why many countries have high levels of unemployment and low levels of employment. In fact, countries with high employment levels tend to have the most generous PLMPs and ALMPs. One important aspect is that EPL, PLMPs and ALMPs are in operation simultaneously and are therefore involved in an interaction process with each other. The outcome of a battery of measures can be very different from the outcome of single policies, because one measure can make up for another. For example, some of the categories disadvantaged by EPL are favoured by ALMPs. On the other hand, measures may be contradictory and counteract one another. The important lesson is, in brief, that in studying the role and impact of government policies we must take into account how they work together.

Chapter 2

Adapting Employment Policies to Postindustrial Labour Market Risks Giuliano Bonoli

Introduction Labour market risk structures have changed quite dramatically since the early postwar years. Unemployment, essentially a cyclical risk during the golden age of Western capitalism, has become a structural feature of today’s labour markets. In addition, trends in earnings inequality and labour market instability mean that today employment income alone is sometimes not sufficient to ensure a povertyfree existence, especially for families with children and single-parent households. Labour markets interact with family structures to create entirely new types of social risks. The risk of poverty is lower among the increasingly numerous two-earner couples, who are nonetheless facing entirely new problems and dilemmas in terms of reconciling work and family life. All these contingencies can be labelled ‘new social risks’ and refer to situations that are typical of the postindustrial labour market and family structures in which we live today. They have little in common except the fact that they are generally not well covered by the welfare states that we have inherited from the postwar years, and that they tend to hit the same social groups, especially younger people, women and those with low skills (Armingeon and Bonoli 2006, Bonoli 2007). Current labour market risk structures are the result of two challenges, often conflated in the literature, but quite different in the real world: deindustrialization and the tertiarization of employment. Deindustrialization, defined in terms of rapid decline in manufacturing employment, has generated large numbers of jobless who are particularly difficult to reintegrate in the new expanding service economy. As a result, deindustrialization is responsible for the emergence of long-term and mass unemployment, with all its consequences in terms of social exclusion and disruption. However, deindustrialization may be neither the only nor the most important feature of the current transformation in labour market structures. In fact, the new service-based labour markets that are emerging in Western economies are characterized by strong polarization and inegalitarian pressures. Job creation in service-based economies tends to bifurcate between high-skill, high-wage sectors (finance, information and communication technology, producers’ services) and low-skill, low-wage activities (retail trade, hotels and restaurants, personal

36

The Politics of Unemployment in Europe

services). The results are more unequal labour markets or, to the extent that countries try to resist this sort of pressure, more unemployment. Countries responded first to the most urgent and visible challenge, deindustrialization, and they did that in rather different ways. Generally speaking, they developed new policies that were in line with their long-standing political economy and welfare state traditions. For English-speaking countries, the dominant policy-orientation was labour-market deregulation and liberalization; continental European countries strengthened employment protection and income replacement programmes (especially early retirement) so as to reduce labour supply and open unemployment; Nordic countries, finally, developed an approach based on the expansion of employment through active labour market polices and public social services. These three strategies, which are briefly reviewed below, fare very differently in relation to the second postindustrial challenge: tertiarization. First, in a servicebased economy, labour market liberalization generates stark inequalities and social problems for those at the bottom of the wage distribution. This is the trajectory followed by countries like the United States or the UK. Second, employment protection and generous labour market exit provision, for example in the shape of early retirement schemes, result in barriers to employment for low-skill workers and high labour costs, which in turn produce high rates of unemployment. This is the root of the employment problems faced by countries like Italy, Germany and France. Finally, whether through wisdom or luck, the response to deindustrialization that seems to fit best in the current service-based employment structure is the one adopted in the Nordic countries. Active labour market polices and public social services are a clear asset in managing a labour market that tends to be polarized. ALMPs allow the upskilling of workers, and social services, especially in the fields of childcare and elderly care, facilitate women’s employment. The superiority of the Nordic response to both labour market challenges is increasingly been recognized, sometimes explicitly, but much more often implicitly. Governments outside Scandinavia have, over the last ten years or so, put increasingly strong emphasis on the two pillars of the Nordic response to postindustrialization: ALMPs and public social services. The EU, through the European Employment Strategy, is clearly pushing countries in the direction of a variant of the Nordic model, with high rates of employment for all groups, especially women, with state support through childcare services and ALMPs (Bertozzi and Bonoli 2002). This chapter presents and illustrates this two-stage process of policy adaptation. The argument presented introduces a chronological dimension in the study of labour market policy, by distinguishing between different stages in the adaptation process. Other studies have emphasized sequences of policy adjustment (Hall 1993, Hemerijck and Schludi 2000), but they have generally tended to pay  On the importance of considering the chronological dimension of political phenomena, see Pierson (2004).

Adapting Employment Policies to Postindustrial Labour Market Risks

37

more attention to learning processes. Here, instead, we focus on the impact of decisions taken at time t on policy problems emerging at time t + 1. The chapter starts by reviewing the key elements of the new postindustrial labour market risk structures. It then moves on to an account of the policy trajectories adopted in response to deindustrialization in different groups of countries, and shows how different responses are more or less suitable for the service-based economies that are dominant today. Finally, it looks at how countries having embarked on suboptimal reform paths are now trying to shift to more efficient policy solutions. Postindustrial Labour Market Risks Postindustrial labour markets differ from the sorts of employment structures that were dominant in the postwar years in many respects. First, of course, a smaller proportion of the working population is employed in manufacturing, and the service sector provides the vast majority of jobs. Second, and this is to a large extent a consequence of the point just made, there are important differences in terms of life chances and career opportunities for low-skill individuals. Persons belonging to this category have always been disadvantaged. However, during the postwar years, low-skill workers were predominantly employed in manufacturing industry. They were able to benefit from productivity increases due to technological advances, so that their wages rose in line with those of the rest of the population. The strong mobilizing capacity of the trade unions among industrial workers further sustained their wages, which came to constitute a guarantee of a poverty-free existence. Today, low-skill individuals are mostly employed in the low-value-added service sector or are unemployed. Low-value-added services such as retail sales, cleaning, catering and so forth are known for providing very little scope for productivity increases (Pierson 1998). In countries where wage determination is essentially based on market mechanisms, this means that low-skill individuals are seriously exposed to the risk of being paid a poverty wage (e.g. the United States, the UK, Switzerland). The situation is different in countries where wage determination, especially at the lower end of the distribution, is controlled by governments (through generous minimum wage legislation) or by the social partners (through encompassing collective agreements). Under these circumstances, the wages of low-skill workers are protected, but job creation in these sectors is limited, so that many low-skill individuals are in fact unemployed. Overall, the fact of possessing low or obsolete skills today entails a major risk of welfare loss that is considerably higher than in the postwar years. Third, partly as a consequence of the tertiarization of labour markets, postindustrial employment is considerably more feminized. In the late 1960s in the Nordic countries, in the 1980s in English-speaking countries and in the 1990s in continental Europe, we saw the take-off of female employment. Married women and women with children, two categories of the working-age population who tended not to be involved in paid work in the past, are increasingly less likely to exit the

38

The Politics of Unemployment in Europe

labour market. In spite of big steps towards gender equality in the labour market, women’s career profiles remain different from those of men. Women are still more likely to have career histories punctuated by periods of inactivity, usually after childbirth. Everywhere they are more likely to work part-time. Finally, they are on average less well paid then men. In these respects, women’s entry into employment has generated a new dimension of stratification in the labour market. As already hinted, these three important developments, tertiarization, skill polarization and the feminization of labour markets, are responsible for the emergence of new, postindustrial, labour market risks. These are discussed next. Long-term Unemployment Long-term unemployment is a feature of postindustrial economies. During the postwar expansion years, unemployment, where it existed, was essentially frictional or cyclical. Today, instead, virtually every developed market economy is confronted with the problem of structural, long-term unemployment. Current long-term unemployment has essentially two roots: deindustrialization and the institutional rigidities in service-based labour markets mentioned above. Deindustrialization is a decade-long process whereby low-skill manufacturing jobs are transferred to low-income countries or taken over by machines. The result has been a more or less constant decline in industrial employment in the traditional OECD countries since the 1970s. Deindustrialization presents a problem for labour markets because it destroys low-skill jobs. The individuals who as a result are left without employment cannot easily re-enter other segments of the labour market. The skills acquired through years of experience in manufacturing industry are not easily transferable to service occupations. The archetypical example is that of a metal worker or a miner. After several years spent in this sort of occupation, learning a new profession which perhaps requires sophisticated social skills is extremely difficult. Deindustrialization is, as a result, a major source of social risk in modern societies and an important cause of structural unemployment (Iversen 2001). Chronologically, it was also the first postindustrial trend to affect labour market risk for large sections of Western societies. Deindustrialization caused unemployment and particularly long-term unemployment in the 1970s and 1980s. Most countries experienced sharp rises in the rate of unemployment in the late 1970s and early 1980s that can largely be attributed to the loss of manufacturing jobs. Figure 2.1 illustrates this development by looking at three countries that are typical of the different postindustrial labour market trajectories: Sweden, Germany and the UK. In spite of the differences, which will be discussed in more detail below, the three countries have clearly followed a similar path: fewer industrial jobs and higher rates of unemployment. Deindustrialization explains the initial stages of the emergence of mass unemployment. It does not, however, explain current variation in unemployment levels across countries. Figure 2.1 also shows that Germany, of the three countries the one with the highest proportion of jobs in manufacturing, is also experiencing

Adapting Employment Policies to Postindustrial Labour Market Risks

39













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Figure 2.1

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Industrial employment as a per cent of total employment and unemployment rate in Sweden, Germany and in the UK, 1970–2001

Source: (OECD 2006).

the highest rate of unemployment. Most labour economists today agree that, in the current postindustrial context, one of the main causes of differences in unemployment rates is variation in the extent of employment protection and other forms of labour market rigidity, such as high minimum wages (Esping-Andersen 2000a, Nickell 2003). The sort of service-based low-skill jobs that are needed to mop up unemployment today are only created in relatively deregulated labour markets (Iversen and Wren 1998). Low-wage, Poor-quality Employment Low-wage, poor-quality employment is the price that has to be paid, in a postindustrial economy, in order to avoid or contain the problem of long-term and mass unemployment. Deregulated labour markets favour job creation in the low-skill service sector, but the other side of the coin is a segment of the labour market that is characterized by low wages, often providing incomes that fall below the poverty line, and that is poor-quality employment in the sense of the level of social protection and the opportunities for career advancement associated with it (Esping-Andersen 1999, Iversen and Wren 1998). This is the case above all in the United States, but also in other mostly liberal labour markets, such as the UK and Switzerland. These countries have been confronted since the 1980s with the problem of the ‘working poor’, individuals who, in spite of having a job, often a

40

The Politics of Unemployment in Europe

full-time job, live with incomes below the poverty line. It is a phenomenon that was unheard of during the postwar years. Labour market deregulation results in low pay but often also in new forms of atypical employment that are often not well protected by the sort of social security programmes that were built during the postwar years. Pension coverage in most Western European countries is optimal for workers who spend their entire working life in full-time employment. Part-time work usually results in reduced pension entitlements, as do career interruptions due to childbearing. The result of the presence of these new career profiles in the labour market, if pension systems are not adapted, may be the translation of the labour market and working poor problems of today into a poverty problem for older people in 30 or 40 years’ time. From an individual point of view, the fact of following an ‘atypical’ career pattern represents a risk of insufficient social security coverage, and hence a loss of welfare. Reconciling Work and Family Life The massive entry of women into the labour market has meant that the standard division of labour within families that was typical of the postwar years has collapsed. The domestic and childcare work that used to be performed on an unpaid basis by housewives now needs to be externalized. It can either be obtained from the state or bought in the market. The difficulties faced by families in this respect (but most significantly by women) are a major source of frustration and can result in important losses of welfare, for example if a parent reduces working hours because of the unavailability of adequate childcare facilities. To the extent that dual earner couples with children are considerably less likely to be in poverty than families that follow the ‘male breadwinner model’ (Esping-Andersen 2002: 58), inability to reconcile work and family life can, especially for low-income parents, be associated with a poverty risk. New Social Risks in Postindustrial Societies These situations are caused by different factors, but have a number of things in common. First, they are all ‘new’, in the sense that they are typical of the postindustrial societies in which we live today. During the trente glorieuses, the period of male full employment and sustained economic growth that characterized the postwar years, these risks were extremely marginal, if they existed at all. Second, different new social risks tend to be concentrated on the same groups of individuals, usually younger people, families with small children and working women. While it is difficult to set clear borders around the section of the population that is mostly exposed to new social risks, it is clear that the categories mentioned here are to some extent overlapping. The partially overlapping character of new social risks results in the existence of a more or less large section of the population that is hit by various contingencies. Low-skill single parents, low-income working

Adapting Employment Policies to Postindustrial Labour Market Risks

41

mothers and low-skill young unemployed people are likely to experience additional difficulties because of the accumulation of disadvantage that affects their position. These situations are also those that most often result in social exclusion (Room 1999). Third, new social risk groups have a further thing in common. They are generally not well served by the postwar welfare states. These tended to focus their efforts on core workers with stable employment and uninterrupted careers. In an ideal-typical postwar welfare state, concerned above all with the preservation of the income of the male breadwinner, the groups identified here as mostly exposed to new social risk do not benefit from social policies. Stage 1: Responding to New Labour Market Risks: Deindustrialization The 1970s and early 1980s were difficult times for Western labour markets. While most advanced democracies had managed to keep full employment until the mid 1970s, between 1974 and 1983 unemployment rates soared throughout industrial countries. In the seven big economies (G7), the unemployment rate increased from 3.7 to 8.2 per cent during this period (OECD 2006). Countries responded in different ways to what they perceived as a truly new challenge. The trajectories followed by Western countries in the aftermath of the economic crisis of the 1970s and early 1980s are widely documented in the literature (Katzenstein ������������������� 1985, Esping-Andersen 1990, 1996a, Hall 1993, Hemerijck and Schludi 2000, Scharpf and Schmidt 2000). In short, what we see is the adoption of three distinct strategies. Liberal countries, essentially the English-speaking countries, chose the labour market deregulation option. At the time of the economic crisis, these countries already had some of the most deregulated labour markets, and the little rigidity that existed was done away with. This entailed, in countries like the United States and the UK, an important weakening of the labour movement and its power to stage industrial action. The result was an adjustment process based on market mechanisms that produced high levels of inequality. Continental European countries instead followed the so-called ‘labour reduction route’, consisting of incentives to leave the labour market for older workers, especially those in declining industries and women (Esping-Andersen 1996b). Nordic countries, instead, building on a comprehensive system of active labour market policies, developed a strategy based on employment expansion in the public sector. The 1970s, for example, saw the beginning of a decade-long process of building up a labour-intensive system of social services (especially childcare and older person care services), which had the result of increasing the supply of labour and ultimately the total quantity of employment. This divergence is widely discussed in the literature of labour market trajectories and welfare regimes. What is somewhat less known, but extremely important in understanding subsequent developments in employment policy trajectories, is the

42

The Politics of Unemployment in Europe

adoption in continental European countries of employment protection laws. In many cases employment protection existed before the 1970s, but when confronted with a major employment crisis some continental European countries made it more difficult for employers to lay off their workers. The various ingredients of the policy response to the unemployment crisis of the late 1970s were combined in very distinctive ways so as to reflect different welfare state and labour market regime types. Next we illustrate these trajectories on the basis of three examples that are typical of each regime-type: the UK (liberal), Germany (conservative) and Sweden (social democratic). UK: Market-based Adjustment The election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979 signalled the end of Keynesian macroeconomic management, a policy paradigm that had inspired postwar British governments regardless of political orientation. Monetarism, the new economic credo, implied that state intervention in the economy had to be limited to the setting of interest rates at the appropriate level, and that combating inflation was to be given priority over the fight against unemployment. The early Thatcher years saw the adoption of a tight monetary policy that succeeded in containing high inflation rates only at the cost of a massive increase in unemployment (between 1980 and 1984, see Figure 2.1) and some cuts in social programmes. In the field of employment policy, the measures adopted resulted in the strengthening of the liberal character of the UK labour market. The few forms of direct control over the labour market, such as the wages councils, were done away with. Wages councils were set up in 1909 with the task of setting minimum wages in low-skill industries. They never played a substantial role: in 1968 they covered only 3.5 million workers and in 1984 they covered only 2.7 million, mainly in catering, the retail trade and hairdressing, with about a third of those covered earning the minimum wage. Wages councils were weakened on various occasions by the Thatcher governments in the 1980s, and were finally abolished in 1993 (Addison and Siebert 1993: 372–3, Glennerster 1995: 216). In the field of unemployment compensation, a modest earnings-related supplement to unemployment benefit was abolished in 1979 and never reintroduced. In 1986, the duration of the unemployment insurance benefit was reduced to 6 months, leaving social assistance (called ‘income support’) responsible for the income security of those unable to re-enter the labour market. The result of these measures was a shift away from social insurance and towards a residual, means-tested system (Erskine 1997). During the same years, new requirements were imposed on unemployment benefit and income support recipients to ensure availability for work and training. As a result of these changes, beneficiaries who refuse to comply can be sanctioned with benefit reductions or withdrawal.  It has been argued that the de facto abandonment of Keynesianism was the result of austerity measures adopted by the previous Labour government between 1976 and 1978.

Adapting Employment Policies to Postindustrial Labour Market Risks

43

Finally, the third pillar of liberalization of the UK labour market consisted of a radical reduction of trade unions’ influence in the workplace and in politics. Traditionally, British unions had been rather effective in guaranteeing high wage growth and good fringe benefits to their members. A series of laws adopted from 1980 onwards made it more difficult to organize industrial action, by requiring a ballot to be held, by outlawing political strikes and by holding unions responsible (financially) for any losses due actions not respecting the new rules. State intervention in the functioning of the labour market has traditionally been limited in the UK, but after Thatcher the liberal character of its welfare state and employment structure was clearly reinforced. In a way, the transformation of the British political economy that took place under Thatcher was very much in line with the tradition of liberal British capitalism (Rhodes 2000). Germany: The Labour Reduction Route When confronted with similar challenges in the late 1970s and early 1980s, continental European countries reacted differently. The main strategy to deal with industrialization was to take out of the labour force those who were being laid off by restructuring industries. As a result, in the Netherlands there was a dramatic expansion in invalidity benefit recipiency, France reduced the age of retirement to 60 and introduced generous provision for early retirement and Italy, with a retirement age of 55 (women) and 60 (men), provided easy ways to exit the labour market. Germany was no exception. Like other continental European countries, today it stands out for its comparatively low employment rate of older people, especially men. This is largely a result of policy initiatives taken since late 1970s with the aim of compensating for the social cost of restructuring industry and the decline in industrial employment. The German welfare state provides a number of routes to early exit from the labour market. Since 1957 it has been possible for unemployed people to take early retirement at age 60 without s reduction in benefit level. From the late 1970s onwards the use of this option increased substantially, often with firms laying off workers as they reached age 59, who would be first entitled to one year unemployment insurance benefit and then five years’ pre-retirement for older unemployed people. Its use was so widespread that this practice became known as the 59er rule. In the 1980s, the duration of unemployment insurance benefits was extended to three years for jobless people aged 54 or over, as a result of which firms could dismiss employees at the age of 57, knowing that the welfare state would guarantee them a decent income until the age of retirement. In contrast to other countries, disability insurance has not been used as a major route to labour market exit. This is probably due to the existence of strict requirements in order to qualify for it and the availability of more appealing alternatives (Ebbinghaus 1998, Manow and Seils 2000). In addition to early retirement, labour supply was controlled also through family and fiscal policy, essentially by failing to adapt these two important areas

44

The Politics of Unemployment in Europe

of economic policy to changes in the aspirations of women, who more or less simultaneously with deindustrialization were claiming more equality, including in the labour market. In Germany, changes in women’s aspirations became a political issue in the 1980s, with the introduction of a relatively generous parental leave scheme. The decision to step into this then new social policy field was part of a reorientation in the CDU/CSU social policy, which culminated in the 1985 Essen party conference. On that occasion, the new orientation in family policy was elaborated. According to a long-standing CDU social policy advisor, ‘the driving force of the Essen party conference was the realisation by the general secretary, Heiner Geissler, that if the party didn’t change its approach in gender issues, it would lose its attractiveness for women’ (quoted in Aust and Bönker 2004). Interestingly, the practical results of the reorientation included only measures that helped women with children by supporting them in their capacity as carers, not as workers. The measures included a long parental leave and the introduction of pension contribution credits for unpaid caring work, performed mostly by women. This approach can be understood with reference to two factors. To consider women as primarily informal care providers was consistent with the social Catholic ideology dominant in the Christian Democratic party, and certainly made it easier for the party leadership, concerned by the prospect of losing the female electorate, to get the endorsement of the party grassroots and of those with more traditionalist views. Second, and more importantly from the point of view of this chapter, the emphasis on measures that, while helping mothers, reduced the labour supply was a policy that fitted well with the direction taken in employment policy. The new family policy developed by the Kohl government was a skilful move. It allowed him to do something popular with women, and at the same time to remain consistent with the policy option of containing labour supply. The third element of continental European countries’ response to deindustrialization was a strengthening of employment protection laws. Employment protection was strong in some countries in the early postwar years, but in the late 1970s and early 1980s there was an acceleration of measures aimed at making it difficult for employers to dismiss their workers. As shown in Table 2.1, this was the case above all in continental European countries, which by the mid-1980s displayed the highest levels of employment protection. Sweden also increased employment protection levels during the same years, but reduced them again soon afterwards (the index for Sweden declined rapidly after 1987: 1.53 in 1988–1995 and 1.10 in 1998). In one of the most lucid analyses of the continental-conservative labour market and welfare state regime, Esping-Andersen used two metaphors: the labour reduction route and the ‘ring fenced labour market’. The former refers to the incentives provided to older workers and women to stay away from the labour market. The latter highlights the high degree of protection enjoyed by those who were in core employment, thanks also to strong employment protection legislation, and the difficulties that more marginal people faced in entering the labour market.

Adapting Employment Policies to Postindustrial Labour Market Risks

Table 2.1

45

Strictness of employment protection legislation

Denmark Sweden

1960–1964 0.90 0.00

1965–1972 0.98 0.23

1973–1979 1.10 1.46

1980–1987 1.10 1.8

France Germany Italy

0.37 0.45 1.92

0.68 1.05 1.99

1.21 1.65 2.00

1.30 1.65 2.00

UK US

0.16 0.10

0.21 0.10

0.33 0.10

0.35 0.10

Notes: Index 0–2: 0 = virtually no employment protection; 2 = extremely strong employment protection. Source: Nickell 2003.

Sweden: Expanding Em�������� p������� loyment Nordic countries, typified by Sweden, followed yet another trajectory in response to deindustrialization. Losses in industrial employment were dealt with using instruments that had already been around for a couple of decades: active labour market polices. In the 1950s Sweden developed an employment regime based on egalitarian collective wage bargaining, full employment and active labour market policies, the so called Rehn–Meidner model (Benner and Vad 2000). These were meant to allow constant adaptation of labour supply to demand, by training workers from declining industries so that they could take up new jobs where they were created. Active labour market policies turned out to be extremely useful in dealing with the side effects of postindustrialization: inegalitarian wage pressures, the possible emergence of a working poor problem and the risk of skill obsolescence. However, active labour market polices were not the only significant new policy adopted in the 1970s. At that time in Sweden, women were going through a process of change in their preferences in relation to the balance between employment and family life. This sea change in women’s aspirations was spotted by the ruling Social Democrats, who soon decided to make it a central feature of their social policy, adopting the reconciliation of work and family life as a policy objective. Sweden did have a tradition of providing childcare services, but these were set up in the context of combating poverty rather than facilitating the reconciliation of employment and family life (Morel 2001). In fact, the development of extensive childcare coverage and other policies supporting women’s (and mothers’) employment followed the expansion of female employment; it did not precede it (Leira 1992). As in much of continental Europe today, the late 1960s and early 1970s for working mothers in the Nordic countries were dominated by juggling, having to a large extent to rely on informal care (Leira 1992, Naumann 2001). The

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The Politics of Unemployment in Europe

reorientation of the Nordic welfare state began in the 1970s. Sweden introduced individual taxation in 1971, its first law on preschool education in 1973 and parental leave in 1974. A law on childcare was introduced in Norway in 1975. The result of this reorientation of social and in particular family policy in Sweden was twofold. First, childcare centres and other expanding social services needed to be staffed, and this contributed to a massive increase in public employment at a time when private sector employment was declining. Second, women’s employment probably contributed to an overall expansion in employment. With increasingly large numbers of women, including the mothers of small children, entering the labour market, aggregate demand for family services (cleaning, washing, cooking, childcare) increased and this resulted in additional job creation (Esping-Andersen 2000a). The Swedish, and in general the Nordic, response to the challenges of the 1970s, deindustrialization and the change in women’s aspirations was rather successful at the time, Sweden succeeding in containing open unemployment until the early 1990s. However, its most significant feature is the fact that it has transformed Nordic welfare states and labour markets in a way that makes them considerably more suited to the current postindistrial socio-economic setting than their liberal or continental European counterparts. Decisions taken in response to the crises of the 1970s and early 1980s affect countries’ ability to cope with the challenges of the 1990s and 2000s. Stage 2: Adapting Employment and Social Policies to Postindustrial Labour Markets Initial responses to deindustrialization go back to the 1970s and, during the 1980s, most countries stuck to the approach adopted back then. It was only in the 1990s that something seems to have changed in the assessment of the adequacy of labour market polices in English-speaking and continental European countries. The reasons that pushed governments to reconsider the choices made one or two decades earlier were different across groups of countries. English-speaking Countries Political leaders in English-speaking countries, in the United States and especially in the UK, realized that an unregulated labour market coupled with excess supply of low-skill labour results in extremely low wages, lower than any reasonable poverty line. This had two consequences. First, the living conditions of low-skill workers and their families were deteriorating, contributing to social problems. Second, to the extent that the state intended to run an anti-poverty policy, low equilibrium wages for low-skill workers meant a serious incentive problem. Low wages could be lower than the social assistance level, so that in many cases work did not pay. This was especially the case when several means-tested benefits

Adapting Employment Policies to Postindustrial Labour Market Risks

47

were combined (e.g. free health care through Medicaid in the United States or help with accommodation costs through housing benefit in the UK). It was in the late 1980s and 1990s that both the UK and the United States began to take these issues seriously. Both countries already had in place income supplement programmes for low-paid workers (Earned Income Tax Credits in the United States and Family Credits in the UK). These were strengthened with a view to reinforcing work incentives, making sure that it always paid to work, including for low-skill individuals with large families. The reformed tax credit programmes, in both countries, guaranteed income levels well above the (meagre) social assistance level to all those who worked a minimum number of hours per week. In addition, both countries strengthened their ALMPs, although, contrary to the approach taken in the Nordic countries, then main emphasis here was on pushing people back into the labour market and not so much in providing them with new skills. This was especially the case in the United States, whose approach was reflected in an unusually high rate of sanctions for social assistance recipients (OECD 2003). In both countries most of these reforms were adopted by progressive governments (New Labour in the UK and the Clinton administration in the United States), but they did not seem to reflect partisan politics. In many cases the reforms where initiated by previous, right-wing governments. In the United States, because of the divided government, Clinton’s plans required the support of the Republicans in parliament. In line with earlier developments in the Nordic countries, the UK has also invested considerably in the development of childcare services and work–life balance policies in recent years. The New Labour government elected in 1997 found itself in a situation that could be characterized by an almost total absence of provision in this field, and by strong expectations from working women and families for more to be done. In fact, work–life balance policies featured prominently in the 1997 election manifesto that brought Labour back to power after 17 years of Conservative rule. A chapter on ‘work and family’ included promises to ‘help parents, especially women, to balance family and working life’ and to introduce a ‘limited unpaid parental leave’ (Labour Party 1997). The promises were followed by policies. The first high-profile initiatives in this area were, in 1998, the launching of a ‘national childcare strategy’, which had the objective through the coordinated effort of various actors of expanding childcare coverage, and the publication of a Green paper on childcare. The Green paper focus was on improving the quality, the affordability and the accessibility of childcare. The document made reference to non-working mothers, and to the fact that lack of childcare was often an obstacle to employment, especially for single parents (British Government 1998). A childcare tax credit was introduced in October 1999, as part of a larger tax credit scheme (Working Families’ Tax Credit, WFTC). It consists of a meanstested tax credit available to parents who work more than 16 hours a week and use approved forms of childcare. The credit covers 70 per cent of costs up to a maximum. Eligibility depends on income, family configuration and other factors.

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The Politics of Unemployment in Europe

As an example, in 1999, a family with two children younger than 11, where one adult worked at least 30 hours per week, was entitled to some help as long as its annual income did not exceed approximately £14,000 per annum (or 65 per cent of average full-time earnings). At the end of 1999 there were over 800,000 families receiving WFTC, a number which increased to 1.1 million by May 2002, most of them eligible for the childcare tax credit (British Government 1998). The same year, 1999, saw the adoption of provision for parental leave. This remained modest by European standards, as the scheme essentially translated the minimum requirements of the EU directive. Each parent can take up to 13 weeks unpaid leave before the child’s fifth birthday, in addition to maternity leave (Hall 1999). Work–life balance polices also maintained a prominent place in the second term of the Blair government. They extended their reach upwards in the income distribution, but also developed a stronger anti-poverty orientation. This was the case for other schemes targeted at disadvantaged families and neighbourhoods (like the Surestart programme). These developments need to be seen also in the context of New Labour’s emphasis on the eradication of child poverty. To facilitate parents’ employment is considered to be the most effective strategy to deal with child poverty. Continental European Countries Continental European countries were forced to reconsider their initial response to postindustrialization, essentially for financial reasons. The approach developed in the 1970s turned out to be unsustainable. Facilitating labour market exit whether through early retirement pensions (Germany, France) or invalidity benefit (the Netherlands) is extremely costly. Because of the employment-based financing method adopted in these welfare states (employer–employee contributions), these cost directly impact on labour costs, making job creation in the low-productivity, low-skills sectors difficult. This problem is compounded by strict employment protection laws, constituting a further obstacle to the expansion of this segment of the labour market. As a result, continental European countries in the 2000s are struggling to correct past mistakes, but are finding the process extremely difficult. The reform of labour market policies is based on three elements that are more or less developed in different countries: less restrictive employment protection, some investment in active labour market policies and some investment in work–life balance policies. Developments in these three areas are reviewed next. Continental and especially southern European countries are confronted with the most serious unemployment problems, in particular youth unemployment. It has been shown by labour economists that strict employment protection laws have a strong effect on the composition of unemployment. Where protection is strong, women and young people are more likely to be on the dole. Some continental and southern European governments have taken this research seriously, although they have so far generally refrained from abandoning high employment protection levels

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for core workers. Instead, they have created a whole range of new employment contracts that are available to employers wishing to take on new workers and provide an alternative to the highly protected unlimited job contracts. This has been the case in particular in Italy, Spain and France. All these countries have seen the proliferation of new types of employment contracts, in general with very low levels of protection, whether social protection or from dismissal. In Italy, a law inspired by Marco Biagi, a labour economist killed by the Red Brigades in 2002, made it possible for employers to recruit workers on temporary contracts, on contracts related to a specific task, on part-time contracts, etc. One result of these (and previous) labour market reforms has been a sizeable expansion in employment, almost entirely due to the new contracts. Between 2002 and 2005, some 600,000 new jobs were created, the vast majority through the new contracts (ISTAT 2006). Labour market deregulation has been pursued essentially without questioning the status of core workers, who still enjoy high levels of protection against dismissal. Active labour market polices and work–life balance policies have entered public debates in most continental European countries, but steps in the development of these polices have been rather limited in comparison to Nordic countries but also in comparison to the UK, although national trajectories are somewhat different in this respect. France is a country that stands out in continental Europe for a strong emphasis on work–life balance policies, especially childcare. This has largely historical reasons, and constitutes an exception in continental Europe (Morgan 2001, Daguerre 2006). In relation to active labour market policies, France has invested non-negligible amounts of money in this field. French ‘reinsertion’ policies, however, generally do not aim at reinsertion into labour markets (reinsertion professionnelle) but at making sure that unemployed people remain part of mainstream society (reinsertion sociale). In this respect, the French trajectory is rather atypical. In Germany, the Social Democratic governments of the late 1990s and early 2000s have tried to reorient polices towards women by emphasizing more the availability of childcare as a policy objective. Actual initiatives, however, have been limited and Germany remains a low spender on family services. High and persistent rates of unemployment have pushed policy makers to invest more funds in ALMPs. However, the social insurance character of the unemployment compensation system in that country has limited the extent to which this instrument can be used effectively (Clasen and Clegg 2006). Italy, finally, has clearly been lagging behind in relation to both policy areas. Some regional level initiatives in the field of labour market policy have taken place, especially in the north of the country. Childcare, instead, remains an affair for the family or (less frequently) the private sector. Nordic Countries Even though Nordic countries developed responses to deindustrialization that were to turn out to be particularly suitable for the current postindustrial context, some further adaptation was needed there too. Policy change became inevitable

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in these countries also as a result of economic internationalization and the need to develop welfare states and labour market regimes compatible with their strongly internationalized economies (Benner and Vad 2000). In the early 1990s, when Sweden was confronted with high budget deficits, this meant cuts in social benefits and some other austerity measures. These decisions, however, were reversed in the late 1990s as the economic and budget situation improved. Both Denmark and Sweden had to strengthen the pro-employment orientation of their welfare states, which remain viable as long as a high proportion of the working-age population is in employment. This effort resulted in increased investments in active labour market polices, more explicitly oriented towards re-entry into employment. Denmark has contributed to popularizing the so-called ‘flexicurity’ model, based on low employment protection and high levels of labour market flexibility combined with relatively high benefits for the unemployed and access to extensive active labour market programmes. The Nordic countries were also forced to continue adapting their welfare states during the 1990s and 2000s, but the extent of change was limited, because decisions compatible with the new socio-economic setting had already been taken in the 1970s. Both their trajectory and their outlook in the 1990s and 2000s are dramatically different from those of the liberal and, especially, the continental European welfare states. Conclusion: Big Obstacles and Limited Convergence Often in public policy, as well as in many other areas of life, inefficient solutions persist long after the discovery of more efficient ones. Economic historians have termed this phenomenon ‘path dependency’ (Pierson 2000b). The development of employment and social polices in Western countries provides yet another example of this. It has become clear and it is being increasingly recognized by labour market experts, politicians of different political persuasion and national and supranational organizations that several aspects of the Nordic model are essential for a welfare state to survive in the current postindustrial social and economic context. These are summarized by the notion of flexicurity, but also include the arsenal of polices that help parents reconcile work and family life. This has been recognized by international agencies such as the OECD and the EU, which makes this point very strongly periodically in the documents published in the context of the European Employment Strategy. It is also acknowledged by national political leaders in continental Europe, including in those countries that seem the most intractable, such as Germany and Italy. Nonetheless, there is little movement. There are obviously important obstacles which have to do with entrenched interests, but also with the ‘inconvenient’ timing of the various postindustrial developments in continental Europe. In the Nordic countries, the expansion of service employment and the emergence of new aspirations among women concerning the balance between family and

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professional life occurred in the 1970s, a time when population ageing was not yet inflating pension and health care budgets. In contrast, continental European countries such as Germany and Italy entered the postindustrial era somewhat later, in the 1990s or even the 2000s. In both countries, current labour market problems and women’s aspirations have to compete with the preservation of the welfare state inherited from the postwar years for politicians’ attention. Differences in the timing of crucial socio-economic developments, like deindustrialization, changes in women’s aspirations and population ageing, are likely to play a crucial role in determining countries’ ability to adapt to the postindustrial world (Bonoli 2007).

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Chapter 3

Work and Welfare: The Rights and Responsibilities of Unemployment in the UK Peter Dwyer and Nick Ellison

Introduction: The New ‘Active’ World of Welfare The profound economic, political and social changes of recent years (Cox 1998, Williams 1999, Esping-Andersen 2002) have led to significant organizational modifications in many Western welfare states (Taylor-Gooby 2002). Influenced by the powerful right-wing critique that the availability of extensive and largely unconditional social rights has led to the development of a passive, welfaredependant ‘underclass’ (Murray 1984; Mead 1986, 1997), policies which aim to ‘activate’ recipients of social security and make access to welfare benefits conditional on acceptance of specified work, work search or related training responsibilities have become an established part of contemporary welfare reform. According to Walters (1997), a fundamental shift has occurred. In the ‘welfare society’ of the past the state exempted certain ‘inactive’ individuals from participation in the paid labour market (PLM). This was because they were recognized as making socially valid contributions elsewhere (e.g. women engaged in informal/familial care work), because they had previously contributed (retired senior citizens) or because their inactivity was due to individual impairment or illness. This ‘welfare society’ which, theoretically at least, entitled such citizens to a minimum of welfare rights has given way to the ‘active society’ in which increasingly individuals can only access social rights if they are willing to become workers in the PLM. Today, ‘many of these assumptions about the specifically social obligations and consequent rights of the citizen no longer apply … The active society makes us all workers’ (Walters 1997: 223–4). Proponents of this new active world of welfare believe that passive entitlement to public welfare benefits entrenches welfare dependency and that reluctant individuals on welfare should be variously encouraged, cajoled and, if necessary, compelled (via the application of benefit sanctions) into paid work. As Dean et al. (2005) note, in different national locations various terms (welfare-to-work, insertion, activation, workfare, active labour market policies), have been used to describe and analyse the policies that are at the heart of the shift. Regardless of the language used to describe them, such policies are built on two

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shared assumptions. First, that active labour market policies are a prerequisite for the smooth functioning of the globalized market place. Second, although the ways in which activation is operationalized in particular contexts vary considerably (Lødemel 2001, Van Berkel and Hornemann Møller 2002, Barbier and LudwigMayerhofer 2004, Wright, Kopač and Slater 2004), activity in the PLM is now generally deemed a necessary requirement of full citizenship status (Goul Andersen and Halvorsen 2002). Within the UK these themes have found expression in a ‘Third Way’ politics that has been enthusiastically endorsed by the New Labour government (Blair 1998). According to the chief exponent of the Third Way, Anthony Giddens (1994, 1998), the new ‘social investment state’, meets its welfare commitments via the redistribution of ‘possibilities’ (primarily the opportunity to work and the right to education), rather than wealth. Giddens’s assertion that there should be ‘no rights without responsibilities’ (Giddens 1998: 65) has also become a central feature of New Labour’s welfare policies in respect of unemployed citizens. Increasingly, a principle of conditionality, under which the right to social security benefits becomes conditional on individuals accepting that they have a responsibility to enter, or at least prepare for future entry, into the PLM, has become an integral part of the UK government’s response to unemployment (Dwyer 2002, 2004a, b). In its attempt to fundamentally rework the contract between citizen and the state, New Labour has jettisoned ‘the post war ideal of a society based on universal state benefits’ (McDowall 2004: 152). This has been replaced by a welfare system that combines coercive contractual governance (Freedland and King 2003) with highly conditional entitlements (Dwyer 2004b). Subsequent sections of this chapter outline the extent to which a principle of conditionality underpins unemployment policy in the UK. Following this introduction, the ways in which conditionality is being practically applied to those who are deemed to be inactive and/or excluded from the UK paid labour market are highlighted. Policies that relate to three groups – those formally defined as unemployed, lone parents and disabled people – are outlined and discussed. It is important to include the latter two groups. As New Labour redefines the notion of social security, lone parents and disabled people are no longer exempt from conditionality and the compulsion it implies (Hewitt 2002). As the new contract for welfare is expanded, they are being reconceptualized as potential workers in need of activation (Trickey and Walker 2001, Millar and Ridge 2002, Stanley, Asta Lohde and White 2004). Having outlined New Labour’s approach, the next section moves on to locate UK policy developments within a wider discussion of the emergence and consolidation of conditionality within other European and Western welfare states. The conclusion argues that, as conditionality becomes a foundational principle of social security and unemployed people’s access to welfare benefits become provisional on engagement with the PLM, the notion of a right to welfare is systematically undermined. It is also suggested, however, that a second and ‘latent’ dimension of conditionality is contained in contemporary activation policies. As labour market policies become increasingly ‘individualized’, through

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personalized work-focused interviews, guidance about job opportunities as well as targeted sanctions, individuals are gradually induced – or conditioned – to ‘govern themselves’. A New Deal? Unemployment Policy in the UK The centrality of paid work within New Labour’s welfare reforms has long been widely acknowledged (Deacon 1998, Levitas 1998). The government has declared ‘that work is the best form of welfare’ and introduced a range of measures ‘to make work pay’ and discourage benefit dependency. These include positive measures such as a national minimum wage, an extensive system of tapered, means-tested tax credits, arrangements for the subsidized provision of childcare and the training and educational aspects of the various New Deals discussed below (see Bennett 2004, Hewitt 2002, Millar and Ridge 2002 for details). Indeed, an element of New Labour’s approach to welfare has been to improve certain benefits, for example, child benefit and children’s allowances for those on income support/incomerelated jobseeker’s allowance (JSA) (Lister 2001). A minimum income guarantee of £179 per week and help with childcare costs for lone parents working 16 hours plus per week are also part of the Job Centre Plus initiative (Blair 2002). More negative policy changes for inactive citizens have included ending lone parent benefit supplement and the ongoing introduction of stricter eligibility tests for disability benefits (Clasen 2002). Furthermore, in order to be eligible for the financial benefits available through the tax credits system, poorer citizens are required to be active in the PLM. Allied to what may be seen as the government’s attempts to encourage paid work, it is important to note the extent to which a principle of conditionality has become an integral element of unemployment policy in the UK. The wholehearted endorsement of this approach by a British Labour government would have been unthinkable less than a decade ago, but it is now fundamental to their vision of a twenty-first-century welfare state (Deacon 2002). The government is not afraid to use a mix of incentive and sanction in order to compel or cajole people into paid work. In seeking to activate those without paid work, New Labour is endorsing and extending the approach of its Conservative predecessors (Dwyer 1998, 2000, Freedland and King 2003, Lindsay and Mailand 2004, Wright, Kopač and Slater 2004).

 ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� One aspect of New Labour’s policy is out of step with conditionality. Unlike other tax credits that are conditional on engaging with paid work, the Child Tax Credit (introduced in April 2003) is intended to enable people to engage in paid work by meeting some of the costs of childcare. However, activity in the paid labour market is not required. Wright, Kopač and Slater (2004: 524) argue that this represents a ‘social democratic strengthening of social rights for people with children’.

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Unemployed People In launching the national Job Centre Plus initiative, the Prime Minister stressed three elements in the government’s strategy for reducing dependency on social welfare benefits. The first is Job Centre Plus; the second to extend the concept of the New Deals and rights and responsibilities beyond the unemployed to the sick and disabled (sic). The third part is new opportunities for skilled jobs (Blair 2002: 6).

The national Job Centre Plus initiative launched in April 2002 retains the rationale and extends the reach of the ‘One’ initiative that it replaced (Hewitt 2002). Anyone claiming working-age benefits must agree to take part in a work-focused interview with an assigned adviser as a condition of benefit eligibility. The list of benefits that this measure covers is extensive and includes jobseeker’s allowance, income support, incapacity benefit, maternity allowance, bereavement benefits, industrial injuries disablement benefit, care allowance and the social fund (Treolar 2001). Within the existing ‘New Deals’ for the young and long-term unemployed, the link between rights and responsibilities has been clearly defined since 1997. Failure to take up one of the four work/training options offered (i.e. a subsidized job with a participant employer, work in the voluntary sector, a place on an environmental task force or approved full-time education/training) results in punitive benefit sanctions. A fifth option, of a passive right to benefit, has long since been removed. Claimants can lose some or all of their benefit for a period of between two and 26 weeks depending on circumstances. Detailed data on those affected by cuts and suspensions to benefits indicate that in quarter-yearly periods between October/December 1998 and July/September 2000 the numbers of young people sanctioned varied between a low of 2,695 and a high of 5,157 (Bivand 2001). Government figures relating to JSA also show some 21,000 claimants as subject to sanctions in May 2002 (DWP 2002). Two other policy initiatives focused on JSA recipients are also worth considering. In December 2000 the Secretary of State for Education outlined the need for a ‘radical and imaginative strategy’ to tackle the problem of adult illiteracy in the UK, which he identified as a significant cause of exclusion from the PLM, decent jobs and wider community networks (Blunkett 2000). In setting a target to reduce the number of adults with very weak numeracy/literacy skills by threequarters of a million people by 2004, Blunkett announced a series of pilot projects across England to begin in March 2001. Again, conditionality is very much part of the UK government’s thinking. The nine localized schemes established as part of the ‘Skills for Life’ strategy test the effectiveness of a variety of ‘carrot and stick’ approaches in persuading JSA claimants to learn basic skills. In Wearside, appropriate individuals are referred to a full-time basic education scheme and given £10 per week extra benefit for attending and £100 bonus for successful completion of the course. In contrast, some claimants in north

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Nottinghamshire/Leeds are not so lucky. Since 17 September 2001 the right to JSA of these claimants (aged 25–49) is subject to removal if they refuse, or give up, their allocated place on a basic educational skills programme. Initially benefit will be withheld for two weeks and this period will be doubled for a second ‘offence’ (Treolar 2001). The government has since rolled out the Skills for Life programme and integrated it into Jobcentre Plus. All JSA claimants, new dealers and inactive benefit applicants are now routinely screened to assess their basic literacy and numerical skills levels. Since April 2004, financial incentives have been introduced to encourage claimants to take up basic educational courses and enhance their chances of future employment. A second set of pilot studies to further consider the effectiveness of benefit sanctions has also been commissioned (DFES 2004). The government has not ruled out the possibility of extending the use of sanctions to compel people to improve their basic skills in future – and this despite the fact that the Social Security Advisory Committee has previously stated its opposition to such measures (SSAC 2002). Finally, since 2001, under the community sentences sanctions policy offenders in receipt of JSA, income support (IS) and other specified training allowances who are in breach of the conditions of community punishment orders or community rehabilitation orders face benefit cuts (Knight et al. 2003). For those who live within four specified pilot areas, JSA can be removed entirely and IS reduced by up to 40 per cent. Sanctions can last up to a maximum of four weeks. ‘The objective of the policy is to link the receipt of benefit more closely to the fulfilment of responsibilities to society’ (Rowlinson 2004: 120). It remains to be seen if this explicit linking of behavioural responsibilities and rights to benefit will become policy at a national level. Lone Parents The issue of lone parenthood brings into stark relief the gendered tensions underlying policies which aim to get women into the PLM. Most lone parent families, the vast majority of which are headed by a woman, are especially susceptible to poverty. Whereas past policies may have helped to encourage a lack of paid work and entrenched dependency on welfare benefits, Lewis (1998) also points out that the new solution centred on paid employment may also be problematic. Citing evidence which suggests that most lone parents want to work once their child is established in primary school, Lister (1999) believes that it is right to use a variety of measures to encourage lone mothers into paid work, as potentially this provides them with the best route out of poverty. This approach, however, may undermine the social value of raising children, which arguably is as valid and necessary a form of social contribution as paid work, and therefore should, when necessary, be supported by the state. The UK has been very liberal in enforcing paid work responsibilities on lone parents in the past, but as previous discussions indicate, the balance between the rights of lone mothers to draw on collective welfare provisions to support their family and their responsibility as

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individuals to provide for their family’s needs through paid work is currently being renegotiated. It is here, of course, that the impact of tax credit systems, popular in both the United States and the UK, is most noticeable. The logic behind the introduction of the working tax credit and childcare tax credit in April 2003 was precisely to make (low) paid work attractive to lone parents. In consequence, the informal care contribution of lone mothers may be rendered invisible and those who continue to draw welfare benefits rather than work are at risk of being labelled ‘partial’, dependent citizens (Burns 2000). For Hancock (2000) the devaluation of the informal care work of women has been central to the past marginalization of women, but under New Labour she argues that a significant shift has occurred. Where once the role of women was constructed primarily around their duties as ‘mothers/carers’, they are now viewed as ‘worker/citizens’. Lewis (2000) similarly argues that an ‘adult worker model’ rather than a male breadwinner/female carer approach is now central to contemporary policy. New Labour utilizes a similar, although perhaps less severe, approach in its attempt to increase the numbers of lone parents in paid employment. Although participants in the New Deal for Lone Parents (NDLP) are not yet compelled to seek work, the social welfare benefits available to lone parents are becoming more conditional. From April 2001 work-focused interviews (WFI) became compulsory for most lone parents claiming income support with children aged 13 years plus. In the period between 30 April 2001 and 29 March 2002, 1,531 lone parents were sanctioned for failing to attend the compulsory interview without good cause (Hansard 2002). Since April 2003 all lone parents claiming income support have been required to attend a WFI. Coupled to this requirement, benefit entitlement for many lone parents may be conditional on a woman naming a child’s absent father under rules introduced under the Child Support Act 1991. More recently, the government has reiterated that lone parents have ‘a responsibility to engage more intensively with our employment advisers’ (DWP 2005a: 8). Whilst the government states that it would be inappropriate to extend the more stringent JSA-type regime, with an emphasis on sanctions for those who are not actively seeking work, a more rigorous approach appears to be part of future policy for lone parents with older children. A requirement for lone parents whose children attend secondary school to increase ‘work related activity’ under the guidance of a personal advisor is outlined in the latest proposals. In order to encourage participation, payment of a £20 per week ‘work search premium’ will only be paid those lone parents who take part in the scheme (DWP 2005a). Furthermore, since October 2005 all lone parents with children aged 14 plus who are claiming out of work benefits are required to attend WFIs at three monthly intervals (Stanley, Asta Lohde and White 2004). A number of studies have noted the positive effects of policies that encourage lone parents into the paid labour market, but simultaneously these studies have emphasized that the provision of quality support and education/training schemes, as well as help with childcare, are vitally important if lone parents are to enter paid employment in substantial numbers (Heron et al. 2002, Bradshaw 1996). By

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setting out less stringent requirements for the receipt of benefits by lone parents and in offering a package of advice, support and childcare through the NDLP, the government appears to endorse such findings. However, in making it clear that in future lone parents will be expected to enter the PLM, the government is implying that the contribution they make as informal carers outside the PLM is an inadequate basis on which to make a claim for public support (Gray 2001, Levitas 1998). Disabled People A key component of attempts to activate disabled people has been the New Deal for Disabled People (NDDP), established in 1998 extended nationally since 2001. Targeted at working-age recipients of incapacity benefit (IB) or severe disablement allowance, the NDDP aims to encourage disabled people into the PLM by offering benefit enhancements and personalized support whilst individuals make the transition from welfare to work (see Stafford 2003, 2005 for details). Although participation is voluntary, and sanctions are not part of the NDDP, conditionality is increasingly seen as legitimate way of activating disabled people. In relation to disabled people, reforms introduced in the Welfare Reform and Pensions Act (1999) – strengthening the link between work and entitlement to incapacity benefit so that only those who have recently been in work and paid NI contributions are eligible; the application of the ‘all work test’ (now called the personal capability assessment, PCA); attendance at a work focused interview – can be seen as meeting the requirements of a cost-cutting government rather than meeting the needs of disabled people who do not work. The Prime Minister is keen to emphasize that the government’s strategy is focused on enabling (re)entry into the PLM whilst simultaneously recognizing the needs of those who are unable to work because of personal impairments. The stated aim is to return as many of the 2.7 million people currently in receipt of disability and incapacity benefits to the workforce as possible (Blair 2002). Faced with a situation whereby there are three times as many people of working age in receipt of more generous disability benefits than jobseeker’s allowance and disabled people account for 24 per cent of benefit expenditure (Walker 2003), the government signalled their intent to embark on radical reform of incapacity benefit (DWP 2005a, b; Johnson 2005). Building on the ‘Pathways to Work’ programme, which combined the ‘carrot’ of enhanced benefits and support with the ‘stick’ of benefit sanctions for those who failed to attend compulsory workfocused interviews (Stanley, Asta Lohde and White 2004), the most recent reforms will mean, more people will be required to attend a series of work focused interviews with a Personal Adviser, and those whose health problems are deemed less severe will also be required to participate in activity aimed at moving closer to work (Corden and Nice 2007: 566).

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Under changes included in the Welfare Reform Act (2007), the new ‘employment support allowance’ (ESA) will replace incapacity benefit and income support paid in relation to sickness or incapacity. During an initial 13 week, ‘assessment phase’, all new claimants will be paid a basic allowance at JSA rates and expected to undergo a revised PCA. If the PCA requirements are satisfied, the majority of claimants will be able to access the work-related activity element of ESA. However, receipt of this ‘employment support’ component (paid at a higher level than basic allowance) is conditional on clients drawing up individual return to work action plans, attending regular WFIs, and routinely undertaking ‘reasonable steps’ to manage their condition and/or accepting specified training or basic skills support to facilitate their return to paid work. Refusal carries the threat of benefit sanctions and an enforced return to the lower basic assessment phase benefit. A small number of people who (following their PCA) are identified as having severe conditions and ‘limited capability for work-related activity’ will qualify for a ‘support component.’ This will be set at a higher level than the work-related activity element of ESA and such claimants will not need to participate in workrelated activities (CPAG 2006, DWP 2007). Thornton (2005) has argued that the UK is rapidly moving towards a policy that blames disabled people for their lack of engagement with paid work and forgets that many are unable to work due to illness and impairment. The assumption that many of those in receipt of incapacity benefit are in reality capable of paid work underpins emergent policy and the government’s stated desire to undermine what it perceives to be the ‘sick note culture’ (Johnson 2005). The proposals ‘represent a significant extension of labour market conditionality for incapacitated claimants … [and] a further shift towards subjecting sick and disabled people to a workfarestyle regime’ (Allirajah 2005: 4). Policy operates, therefore, more to discipline rather than enable disabled people. Ultimately, it may be more appropriate to view paid work as a goal, rather than a condition, of citizenship for disabled people. Sanctions remain inappropriate whilst, for many, suitable employment opportunities are lacking and widespread discrimination and significant structural/ environmental barriers to paid work remain (Riddell, Banks and Wilson 2002, Howard 2004). Conditionality is firmly embedded at the core of New Labour’s emergent policy. In March 2007 the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, John Hutton, re-endorsed the ‘fundamental principle of rights and responsibilities; of something for something’ and denounced condition-free systems of welfare as exclusive (Hutton 2007: 9). In a similar vein the Freud Report, established by the Secretary of State to review welfare reform progress to date and to consider further ways of reducing work inactivity in order to meet the government’s 80 per cent employment aspiration, recommended, maintaining the current regime for the unemployed, introducing stronger conditionality in line with Jobseeker’s Allowance for lone parents with progressively younger children, and moving to deliver conditionality for other

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groups (including people already on incapacity benefits) along the lines of Pathways to Work and the Employment and Support Allowance (Freud 2007: 9).

Making Work Pay or Activating the Irresponsible? The 1.7 million people helped back into work by the New Deals during Labour’s first term of office should not to be dismissed lightly (Freud 2007: 2), if this is an accurate figure. However, other evidence is less positive about the impact of the government’s approach. Certain commentators have suggested that the New Deals may not be as successful as they at first appear and make strong arguments that industry and capital rather than unemployed people/lone parents are the real beneficiaries of the New Deals (Grover and Stewart 2000, Gray 2001, Prideaux 2001, 2005). Peck (2001) notes that job entry rates for the New Deal to March 2000 were modest, with overall only a third of participants leaving to enter paid work. He also argues that many of those who leave the New Deal become trapped in ‘contingent employment’ where they continually move from one short-term, low-paid, insecure job to another. The UK government’s own research also indicates some strong reservations about the effectiveness of its chosen approach. Only 27 per cent of companies participating in the ‘One’ scheme recruited lone parents to their workforce with even fewer (20 per cent) taking on the long-term unemployed. People with mental or physical impairments fared considerably worse (DSS 2001). The Adult Learning Inspectorate (a government agency) has also issued a damning appraisal of the New Deal for Young People. The recruitment figures noted for this scheme for the four years up to 2001 appear positive, but the report highlights some serious shortcomings. Sixty per cent of the training provided for young adults is condemned as inadequate. Similarly, although fulltime education and training was the most popular option with recruits (40 per cent of 18–24 year olds), only 26 per cent of those participating got a job and 31 per cent a qualification (ALI 2002). The aim is for all trainees to achieve both by the end of their one-year course. Within the UK, the government remains committed to extending the linking of benefit entitlement to work-related conditions. It is a policy driven more by political conviction rather than hard evidence. For, as Treolar notes, ‘the impact [of conditionality] on claimant attitude and behaviour is yet to become fully apparent’ (Treolar 2001: 3). Serious doubts about whether or not conditionality achieves its  �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Eight per cent of participating employers recruited people with physical impairments, 5 per cent with mental impairments (DSS 2001).  ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Of the four options available, 112,700 young people went into full-time education/ training, 52,500 went into government-subsidized employment (60 per cent of whom went on to unsubsidized employment), 60,000 went into the voluntary sector and 56,000 joined the environment task force (ALI 2002).  ������������������������� Our addition in brackets.

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intended aim of activating reluctant workers have also been expressed in a wider context. Within the United States there is scant evidence of many durable success stories and workfare has had a limited long-term impact in shifting people from welfare into work (Peck and Theodore 2001). Widespread systematic appraisal of the schemes that have emerged within the European Union is lacking but Gallie argues that the limited evidence available suggests a ‘disappointingly small’ (Gallie 2002: 116) impact in helping participants maintain stable employment. Aside from questions related to the effectiveness of active welfare systems, a number of authors challenge the legitimacy of the imposition of conditionality by questioning the contractual principle used to defend ongoing reforms (see Goodin 2000, Dwyer 2000, 2004b, Standing 2002, Freedland and King 2003, Dean et al. 2005). Dismissing arguments that people implicitly consent to a rewriting of the welfare contract that exists between the individual citizen and the state, they note that this argument falls down on two levels. At the client–caseworker level such contracts are one-sided. In effect the coercion/compulsion of the user is couched as ‘consent’. Consent implies choice and, given that people have real needs for their benefits, this element is missing from the process. As Standing (cited by Dean et al. 2005: 20) argues, ‘dignified work can only evolve if ordinary people have the capacity to say no’ – and many unemployed people in the UK lack that capacity. As the active welfare state evolves, it is increasingly likely that other ‘inactive’ individuals, such as lone parents and certain disabled people, will find their ability to access welfare benefits curtailed in the future. The supposed aim of enabling poorer citizens by making work pay is often secondary to the implicit rationale that underpins activation: that governments are dealing with calculating citizens who need to be disciplined rather than empowered, whose conduct needs to be supervised rather than liberated and whose responsibilities and obligations should be strengthened (van Berkel and van der Aa 2005: 341–2).

Beyond the UK: A Drift Towards the Active World of Workfare? The emergence of conditionality is not limited to the UK; indeed, the policy changes outlined in this paper have a much wider resonance. In the new, active world of twenty-first-century welfare, imposing work-related responsibilities for all is seen as a panacea for the problems of passivity/welfare dependency. Increasingly they inform policy in many states across Europe (Van Oorschot 2000, Lødemel and Trickey 2001a, Barbier and Ludwig-Mayerhofer 2004), in the United States (O’Connor 1998, Prideaux 2001, Deacon 2002), in Australia and elsewhere (Goodin 2002, McDonald and Marston 2005). In effect, a move towards social policies that combine coercive paternalism and conditional entitlement to reduce the rights of vulnerable citizens is underway in many Western welfare states (Dwyer 2004b). At supranational level the mantra of conditional, active

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welfare, that social rights come with attendant responsibilities, finds expression in European Union policy, particularly in the guise of the European Employment Strategy (Peck and Theodore 2000, Wincott 2003, Dean et al. 2005, van Berkel and van der Aa 2005). Likewise, the OECD supports conditionality and argues in favour of access to disability benefits being ‘conditional on participation in paid work, rehabilitation schemes and other integration measures’ (Marin, Prinz. and Queisser 2004: 26). A number of scholars, however, would argue that it is over-simplistic to equate the reforms in the UK with policies that have emerged across Europe. Levy (2004) distinguishes between ‘thick’, or ‘human capital’, and ‘thin’, or ‘work-first’, approaches to labour market activation. Both share the same ultimate goals of reducing formal unemployment, whilst simultaneously looking to reinsert other ‘inactive’ citizens into the PLM, but use different means to achieve their ends. ‘Thin’ activation policies, such as those pursued in the United States, attribute inactivity in the PLM to personal failings and the existence of overgenerous, ‘passive’ welfare benefits. They are characterized by a ‘work-first’ (Peck and Theodore 2000) stance, which places the onus on individuals to take offers of employment irrespective of wage levels or their domestic circumstances. In contrast, policy in certain EU countries, Sweden being an obvious example, follows a human capital or ‘thick’ approach to activation. In this version of what may be labelled the ‘new social liberalism’, an enabling state is concerned with enhancing the skills of marginalized individuals and providing them with high-quality employment opportunities rather than merely removing them from the welfare rolls. Levy argues that ‘thick’ activation ‘demands much more of the state as well as the individual’ (Levy 2004: 190) in that a substantial financial commitment is required on the part of government to fund extensive educational/training and employment opportunities. A similar analysis that differentiates between ‘liberal’ and ‘universalistic’ activation policies in European welfare states has been offered by Barbier and Ludwig-Mayerhofer (2004), while Lødemel suggests that two very different welfare experiments are taking place on either side of Atlantic. In Europe he contends that reform is primarily about a move away from unconditional welfare, whereas policy in the United States combines an end to welfare entitlement with ‘an accompanying emphasis on hassle rather than help’ (Lødemel and Trickey 2001b: 335). As discussed below, however, what distinguishes US-style policies from their human capital counterparts is not simply ‘hassle’ but the unremitting preoccupation with – literally – work first. This effective privileging of market capacity not only discriminates against necessary but unpaid work but, in doing so, also disadvantages women and minority ethnic groups, neither of which occupy secure positions in the capitalist labour market. Judging from the above, differences in approach to activation/workfare type policies clearly exist both within and beyond Europe. However, it is argued here that, in spite of the various combinations of incentive and sanction that currently operate in different national settings as conditionality becomes a foundational principle of the new welfare settlement, important changes in the normative and

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legal foundations of welfare states are taking place. Their impact on social policy is being felt most keenly by those on the margins of social citizenship to the point where citizenship itself is effectively ‘conditional’ for the most vulnerable social groups (Dwyer 1998, Lødemel and Trickey 2001a). The consequences of this shift to active welfare should not be dismissed lightly. Although Pierson (1996, 2001) has argued that mature welfare states are resilient, path-dependent institutions, which are often resistant to retrenchment, it is nevertheless the case that pathdependent behaviour among defenders of the welfare state, particularly but not exclusively in liberal regimes, is weakening. Consequently, the weakest groups, which frequently have only the much-diminished institutions of organized labour to support them (Ellison 2006), are vulnerable to sustained efforts on the part of governments to recalibrate welfare as ‘activation’. So a qualitative shift is ongoing within many welfare states: ending the right to welfare was central to US welfare reform in the mid-1990s (Deacon 2002), while terminating unconditional entitlement for many outside the PLM is becoming a central feature of welfare reform across and beyond the EU. Conclusions This chapter illustrates several important points. First, in the UK, New Labour has travelled a significant ideological distance in a relatively short time. Less than a decade ago the Labour Party was opposed to workfare-type unemployment schemes, although today such schemes are central aspects of policy. Their implementation signals a ‘a fundamental shift in the aims of policy making and the introduction of a new policy paradigm’ (Wright, Kopač and Slater 2004) within the UK employment/unemployment strategy. Having accepted their predecessors’ narrow definition of welfare dependency, New Labour has extended the use of compulsion and benefit sanctions within the British welfare state. Second, conditionality lays bare some of an inherent contradictions at the heart of the New Labour’s welfare project. It is a stated aim of the present administration to challenge welfare dependency, but as Grover and Stewart (2000: 248) note, only certain types of dependency are deemed to be problematic. Obviously, for Labour’s true believers having a job which only exists because of some scheme or subsidy, and using subsidised nursery places for one’s children, is not part of benefit dependency, whereas looking after one’s own children at home on benefit is dependency.

New Labour’s attempt to ‘activate’ large numbers of unemployed people, disabled people and lone parents demonstrates the extent to which these groups are now conceptualized as undeserving welfare dependants unless they buy into the new work-first welfare contract that is on offer (Trickey and Walker 2001).

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Third, New Labour’s ‘make work pay’ strategy might not be the answer for many who still remain outside the paid labour market. The government’s combination of activation and increased support has improved the financial position of some poorer people who engage in paid work. However, whilst the number of those registered as formally unemployed has diminished, overall levels of economic inactivity for people of working age have barely altered from 21.6 per cent in 1994 to 21.4 per cent in 2002. There is certainly evidence from a number of European commentators that active labour market policies are not quite the panacea that policy makers hope (Martin 1998, Calmfors, Forslund and Hemström 2002). Of course, it is clearly the case that informal familial care responsibilities continue to restrict the ability of many women to take up paid work and levels of disability remain the main reason for male absence from the PLM (Taylor-Gooby, Larsen and Kananen 2004). Fourth, the UK legislation and initiatives outlined in this paper are clearly part of a wider, ongoing shift towards activation as increasingly the dominant understanding of ‘welfare’. Regardless of the precise label (conditionality, activation, workfare, welfare-to-work), and whether or not a policy best fits a ‘thick’ or ‘thin’ classification, rights are becoming progressively more conditional upon an individual’s acceptance of work-focused responsibilities. This ‘creeping conditionality’ (Dwyer 2004b) represents a significant qualitative shift away from the public welfare envisaged in the postwar welfare state, built around notions of need and entitlement. It should also be noted that the policy changes discussed in this chapter are illustrative of a broader and substantial shift in the principles that underpin the provision of social benefits (Cox 1998, Taylor-Gooby 2002). As an adjunct to this qualitative shift away from ‘social protection’, it is worth briefly considering a fifth, more speculative, point that follows from those discussed so far. In addition to the analysis presented here, it could be argued that conditionality is not only a point of policy but also a particular means of social control that ‘encourages’ individuals to ‘govern themselves’ in what are becoming increasingly individualized welfare systems. Ferge’s (1997: 23) contention about the ‘individualization of the social’ – the withdrawal of social commitments and ‘the rejection of the importance of an integrated society’ – chimes with the notion of ‘DIY social policy’ developed by Klein and Millar (1995) to produce a notion of ‘dual conditionality’. On one level, state policies (whether thick or thin), work to ‘encourage’ individuals to be ‘active’, while simultaneously pushing responsibility for activity onto individuals themselves. On another level, however, because the unemployed and other vulnerable groups are either forced, or strongly encouraged, to participate in job search activities, including interview training, job placements and so on, there is a sense not just of conditionality but of ‘self-conditioning’ as perceptions about the necessity of work – and the individual’s responsibility not only to find work but to have a life shaped by work – become embedded and ultimately ‘assumed’. Over time, assumptions are institutionalized and so become an integral part of a new consensus about work and welfare.

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If we are to challenge the prospect of this ‘new welfare institutionalism’ and ensure a truly inclusive new welfare settlement in the twenty-first century, two issues need to be addressed. First, the validity of different forms of social contribution beyond activity in the PLM, particularly unpaid care work within a familial setting (Levitas 1998, Lewis 1998) needs to be properly recognized. Second, the right to adequate welfare for those who are unable to engage in paid work due to sickness or impairment must be ensured. The danger, of course, is that over time the residualization of social rights as part of the ongoing shift towards ‘active’ welfare states will become ‘normal’ as the new institutional welfare consensus becomes ever further embedded. With social citizenship effectively redefined, welfare is no longer about an optimum level of support but rather about individuals’ capacity to fashion ‘their’ own welfare provision in an increasingly conditional and conditioning social policy environment (Dwyer 1998, 2004a, Lister 2002, Ellison 2006).

Chapter 4

The Promises of Labour: The Practices of Activating Unemployment Policies in Switzerland Christoph Maeder and Eva Nadai

Introduction In the 1990s profound transformations took place throughout Western welfare states. The ‘caring’ or the ‘providing state’ (de Swaan 1988) has been superseded by the ‘activating’ or ‘enabling’ state (Gilbert 2002). While the former aimed at providing its citizens with a comprehensive safety net for social risks and at the same time at reducing social inequality, the latter limits its function to guaranteeing a minimal infrastructure (Vogel 2004). The state provides opportunities, but it is the responsibility of the citizens to make use of them. In popular discourse the idea of activation in social politics has been captured most concisely in the German slogan ‘Fördern und Fordern’ (foster and demand). The state fosters citizens in need by economic incentives and integration programmes and demands their active efforts to overcome their dependency on support. Recently the ‘fostering’ dimension of the activating state has been complemented by the concept of social politics as ‘social investments’ in the human capital of the population (EspingAndersen 1999, Lessenich 2004). Although activation has become a key term in welfare and labour market politics alike, in international comparison its contents differ widely (Handler 2003, Lødemel and Trickey 2001a, van Oorschot 2002, Walther 2003). In the realm of social assistance this maxim translates into ‘workfare’, but while workfare means the conditioning of benefits to the acceptance of jobs in some countries (for instance in the United States), in others (such as the Scandinavian states) it denotes the obligation of the state to invest its citizens with the necessary resources to compete in the labour market. Likewise, activation aiming at those entitled to unemployed   This paper is based on our research project ‘The enforcement of the entrepreneurial self. The work of integration and exclusion in welfare and economy’ (see Nadai and Maeder 2006). The project was funded by the National Research Programme 51 ‘Social integration and social exclusion’ (project No. 405140-69081). We thank our research assistant Matthias Hofer, University of St Gallen, Institute of Sociology, for participating in the fieldwork and discussion.

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benefits operates with a varying mixture of incentives and coercion. The aim of our ethnographic study in the field of active labour market policies is to examine how such policies operate on an everyday basis and to what extent such strategies of mobilization are functional with regard to their declared goals. The Swiss Context Switzerland – unlike other countries – has em���������������������������������� b��������������������������������� raced the politics of activation not just in the realm of means-tested social assistance, but within the system of social security insurance as well (Magnin 2005). In fact, it installed the principle of reciprocity earlier and in an even more forceful way in unemployment insurance than in welfare. Welfare legislation falls within the responsibility of the 26 cantons, while local political communities have to implement those laws. Therefore, there is no generalized workfare model in Swiss public welfare; rather we can observe different styles of managing the poor, ranging from bureaucratic poverty administration to more professional forms aiming to integratre clients into the labour market by means of incentives and integration programmes (Maeder and Nadai 2004). In contrast, unemployment insurance is regulated on a national level. Even though there are differences in the practices of the regional employment centres (RAV, Regionales Arbeitsvermittlungszentrum), all these offices operate within the same legal framework of the national unemployment insurance law (AVIG, Arbeitslosenversicherungsgesetz). The concept of activation was introduced in the second revision of the AVIG, which was implemented in 1996. Only parts of the new instruments of activation were really new, though. For instance, the law had already allowed for ‘preventive measures’ such as integration programmes and training courses, but in the context of low unemployment rates these measures had not been applied on a large scale (Magnin 2005). A definite ‘innovation’, however, is the obligation for the insured persons to enhance their ‘employability’ or else they lose their benefits. ‘Employability’ has become the keyword of activating labour market policies: the responsible citizen has the moral obligation to permanently adapt to the ever-changing exigencies of the labour market. This applies even more to those who have failed to live up to this demand and lost their job. The unemployed must not just ‘passively’ collect their unemployment benefits, but are expected to do everything they can to enhance their marketability in order to find a new job. With this rationale they can actually be forced to participate in educational and integration measures: if an unemployed person refuses a suggestion of her RAV-counsellor, she is penalized by the cessation of benefits for a limited time.   The guidelines of the Swiss Welfare Conference provide a framework for harmonizing the practice of social assistance to a certain extent. The last revisions of these guidelines dating from 1998 and 2005 introduced and tightened activation measures for welfare clients (Wyss 2005).

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Sanctions vary according to the severity of the offence, but in international comparison Switzerland imposes sanctions frequently – not just for refusing job offers or integration measures, but also for purely administrative misbehaviour (Oschmiansky, Schmid and Kull 2003, Aeppli and Peters 1999). In addition, the criteria for acceptable jobs were tightened considerably. For instance unemployed people have to accept jobs involving as much as four hours commuting time per day or salaries as low as 70 per cent of their previous job or jobs with lower qualifications. In sum, the guiding principle of the unemployed insurance is to make its clients accept any job at any cost. As mentioned above, one of the instruments of activating unemployment policies is a variety of educational and training schemes. By far the most important measures are individual educational and training courses, which are financed by the unemployment insurance. Roughly 35 per cent of the registered unemployed participate in some form of educational measure, while only 11 per cent are enrolled in work programmes. Among the latter, individual placements in private and public non-profit organizations are more frequent than participation in collective programmes that are operated by private institutions according to the rules of the unemployment insurance and funded by it. Since the implementation of the regional employment offices and of the various integration programmes, there have been a number of studies analysing the efficiency and effectiveness of these measures with inconclusive results (see overview in Gärtner and Flückiger 2005, Aeppli 2006). However, these studies tend to analyse the effects in a purely economic way, leaving aside the social dimensions of the programmes, and they try to measure effects but do not look into the actual workings of the programmes. Before describing the practices of the integration programmes and analysing their effects in a sociological perspective, we will briefly present our research approach and the three programmes we studied. Research Questions and Fields In a society that is entirely organized around paid work, being out of work has more consequences for the unemployed than just finding themselves on the demand side of the labour market. In particular, paid work is still important to maintain a sense of self-worth and to provide social recognition. Unemployment carries the potential for exclusion, social downward mobility and marginalization in nearly all spheres of life (Bude and Willisch 2006, Castel 2000, Kronauer 2002). Seen this way, one   As a consequence of regulations on temporary jobs (Zwischenverdienst), there is actually no bottom line regarding pay levels, since the unemployment insurance covers the difference between a salary below the 70 per cent margin and the benefits based on the previous job’s salary (Magnin 2005: 201).   Own calculations based on data provided by the section labour market statistics of the Seco (State Secretariat for Economic Affairs).

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basic task of labour market policies is also social integration in a broader sense. In the 1990s, therefore, preventing exclusion came to be seen as an important goal of unemployment and anti-poverty politics throughout Europe (Paugam 1996). This is where our research starts. We are interested in how programmes designed to integrate people function on an everyday basis for participants and staff alike: how does activation operate in practice? In what ways and by what practical actions do these programmes enhance the employability of their participants – if at all? What other and perhaps unintended effects can be observed? To answer these questions we need an inside look into the workings of the programmes. Therefore we chose the research approach of a multi-sited ethnography, theoretically framed by the question of integration and exclusion and focused on the ‘going concerns’ (Hughes 1971) of those involved. In order to explore the organized ‘social world’ (Strauss 1984, Clarke 1991) of the unemployed and the staff of integration programmes, we conducted participant observation in three different integration programmes for the unemployed. We spent between one and two weeks in each programme. Our research design included additional formal interviews with staff and programme participants, as well as analysing official documents. Our database consists of several hundreds of pages of fieldnotes, 19 transcribed interviews, seven recorded and transcribed interactions and dozens of records of the unemployed. The three programmes are run by a public utility foundation named ‘Weichenstellung’ (in the following translated as Switch). The first programme, called ‘Packwerk’ (= Packworks), is a workshop for roughly 50 unskilled workers. Participants do manual labour like packing samples of advertising material, separating different types of plastic for recycling purposes, producing kindling for home-fireplaces and so on. Given the kind of work provided, the workshop is organized like a small factory and is run by an administrator, a social worker, a secretary and a foreman. At the other end of the qualification scale we selected a virtual trading company, the Mercator with 22 workplaces for clerical staff with formal qualifications. Participants perform all the tasks necessary to run a trading company: accounting, purchasing, marketing, personnel work and so on. The overall rationale of this programme is to offer the participants skilled ‘jobs’ in order to preserve occupational experience while unemployed. The programme personnel have a management or counselling background. Our third field, Kickstart, focuses on helping unemployed teenagers and young adults without formal qualifications to find either a job or in-firm vocational training. The programme offers counselling, schooling and internships for those who for whatever reasons are not capable of finding a vocational training job themselves. The programme starts with a personal assessment, a negotiation between the programme officers and the young person in order to formulate goals and to identify weak points in education and social competences. Depending   For a methodological discussion of this approach see Nadai and Maeder (2005).  In Seco statistics this type of programme is counted as an educational measure. In 2004 roughly 3,600 people participated in virtual firms.

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on this diagnosis the young clients receive different forms of counselling and schooling for at least one day a week while they work in a fixed-term job in the labour market. The primary goal of the programme is to help its participants find a vocational training job. If this cannot be achieved, the participant has to look for unskilled labour. Activation Policies in Practice Learning by doing is our motto. In our programme you deepen your professional knowledge in a realistic setting. Our workshops offer varied jobs and structures corresponding to real working conditions. Our counsellors support young people to plan their start in the world of work; our teachers prepare them for vocational school.

In this way Switch advertises its different programmes in its glossy brochures. Tailored to the presumed needs and expectations of its respective target audience, Switch promises a comprehensive package of measures to help its clients back into the labour market. After the referral by the RAV agent, a prospective participant is invited for an interview and a presentation of the programme in order to decide whether the programme suits their needs. On the other hand, Switch checks whether the candidate will fit in with the programme. At the beginning of our fieldwork we were taken along on a one-day tour of all the Switch programmes and presented with much the same information as would-be clients. However, unlike real candidates, we also got the backstage picture, i.e. the foundation’s overall philosophy. In fact, we were quite puzzled when we were first of all informed about all the things the programmes do not provide: ‘We don’t do social work, we don’t qualify people, we don’t place people with employers, we don’t do vocational counselling’ and so on and so forth. If all this is not considered to be the programmes’ task, what could it possibly be? The real raison d’être of the Switch programmes, we learned, is to offer its participants the opportunity to work: work per se, plain and simple, is thought to be the best way to reintegration. By remaining in the labour process, the unemployed freshen up and broaden their professional experience, they make new contacts, their days and weeks are structured – in short, they keep in touch with the world of work. This sounds compelling at first, but is it really as simple as that?

  This kind of youth programme (officially called ‘Motivationssemester’) is regarded as a work programme. In 2004 almost 5,000 young people were enrolled in such a programme.

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The Trouble with the Double Logic Paragraph 64a of the AVIG stipulates that work programmes are to be operated in the public or private non-profit sector and must not compete with the for-profit economy. This legal regulation limits the scope of the programmes severely because it undermines the very concept on which they are based, namely the idea to offer work experience that comes as close as possible to the conditions in the ‘real’ or ‘first’ labour market. As a consequence of this paragraph, the programmes are actually restricted to a simulation of the labour market. This problem is most salient in the virtual trading company Mercator. In this training firm the participants are paid virtual salaries, buy and sell virtual goods and services from other training firms with virtual money and simulate all the necessary processes to operate a trading company. There is a personnel department, an accounting department, a sales department and a purchasing department, sales brochures are being designed, prices and shipping and handling costs are being calculated and so on. ‘Everything is normal’, staff and (some) participants assured the researchers, ‘except the goods we’re trading are virtual’. The slightly schizophrenic structure of this type of programme is mirrored in language and symbolic presentation as well. The unemployed participants are called employees and the Switch staff who run the programme see themselves primarily as company managers, not as counsellors for the unemployed. Official documents addressed to the outside world carry two names and logos: ‘Mercator’ is placed prominently in the heading while the reference to Switch and the company being an ‘educational and integration programme’ is hidden at the bottom of the documents. Sometimes the real and the virtual dimension get jumbled up, for instance when the accounting department has difficulties in separating virtual from real payments, or when the company needs employees with certain qualifications while the regional employment centre can only present candidates with an unsuitable profile. The gap between the real and the simulated world may be most acute in the virtual company. Nonetheless, the other two programmes are faced with similar problems. While participants package, strip down and assemble real goods at Packworks and the programme even works for private companies in the for-profit sector, there are still two aspects that mark a clear difference to a comparable factory. Firstly, Packworks has to hand in any profits to the Seco (State Secretariat for Economic Affairs), which is funding all the unemployment programmes. Thus, the first and foremost driving force of an enterprise, i.e. the motive of economic gain, is missing. Secondly, unlike an enterprise in the first labour market, the integration programme cannot simply select the most capable workers. Although it can and does occasionally reject candidates, it basically accepts almost anyone the RAV assigns to the programme, even persons with personal and health problems (see below). Accordingly, the required performance level is much lower than in the labour market, which in turn prompts the programme to adjust its demands

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regarding workload, working hours, precision, etc. As a consequence, some participants find their job at Packworks much more comfortable than any job they could ever realistically hope to find outside. As one participant noticed: ‘No noise, no dirt, no stress and sitting all the time – it’s ok!’ In the youth programme Kickstart there is at first glance only a slight difference from the labour market: participants get some schooling that is not related to professional training, as would be the case in an apprenticeship. Once they have found a practical training job, however, they actually work in the real economy, albeit under different conditions than other young people. In particular, their ‘salary’ is paid by the unemployment insurance, not by the employer. Thus, their work actually has no market value. The gap between the second labour market of the integration programmes and the first in the real economy varies from programme to programme, but cannot be bridged completely. Its roots lie in the basic contradiction between the two competing logics of unemployment programmes. On the one hand the programmes intend to offer the most realistic work experience in order to demonstrate the participants’ intact employability and increase their chances in the labour market. For this purposes they would have to organize the work according to the standards of the economy, stress performance, use state-of-the-art work equipment and so on. On the other hand integration programmes are an offer for those unemployed who, for whatever reasons, have failed to find a job on their own. Logically this calls for some form of support. Therefore, the programmes would have to consider their clients’ weaknesses and adjust their standards. In this respect the competitive logic of the market collides with the care logic of social support. With the legal restraint on competition on top of that, the programmes inevitably turn into a parallel world of work, which seems somehow ‘unreal’ to the participants. This in turn creates problems of meaning, motivation and cooperation. The participants often feel that their work does not make sense, that they do not learn any marketable skills, that they do not make useful contacts and that they do not really profit from the programme. Again, those who lack a sense of meaning are not committed – sometimes to the point of refusing to cooperate. In fact, keeping up morale is one of the main problems for staff, because a few unmotivated participants may severely hamper the whole operation. Participation and Conformity Considering the above-mentioned list of what the programmes do not provide and the problems created by their double logic, what function can they still fulfil? We argue that above all the programmes set the stage for a kind of conformity test. By   At Mercator the workload is also much lighter than in a comparable company in the real economy. This is partly due to the fact that participants need time for their job search, but as an observer one cannot help but notice the slow pace of work and the relaxed atmosphere.

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participating, the unemployed can demonstrate that they are still both willing and able to work just like anybody else (Nadai 2006). In public and political discourse the unemployed as a group are periodically suspected of being lazy and living on the honest citizens’ money (Oschmiansky, Schmid and Kull 2003). By accepting participation in an integration programme, the unemployed person proves that she is not a scrounger, but still shares the work ethic of the general population. At the same time, participation shows that the unemployed person is still capable of maintaining a regular work discipline. In fact, the function of conformity test was the single most important benefit the interviewed participants themselves attributed to the programmes: ‘At least employers can see that I’m not just hanging around, but I’m doing something.’ Even if they did not believe that the programme had much improved their chances of finding a job, they still hoped that programme participation had at least stopped their downward trajectory by demonstrating that they still functioned normally and could still be valuable workers and employees. On the other hand, some feared that working in an unemployment programme might constitute a sort of stigma: ‘Many people don’t know these programmes. They think this isn’t a smart thing, so if he’s in a programme, he’s probably not a smart guy.’ Therefore some people hide their participation as well as they can. One young man in Packworks informed us that not even his parents, with whom he still lived, knew that he participated in an integration programme. He did everything he could to obscure his actual ‘working place’, but was faced with an irresolvable problem: which phone number should he put in his job applications? During the working hours in Packworks the use of mobile phones was not allowed. So he had to put the number of the facility, thereby risking exposure, as he suspected: ‘If an employer sees this phone number he will know it! And then he knows that he is fishing in shallow waters. And my chances for a job will surely decline. Whenever they can they take folks off the street, not the damaged people from Packworks.’ Even though this man’s fears might be exaggerated, they nevertheless inform us about the difficulties of stigma management (Goffman 1963) under such conditions. Whether prospective employers appreciate participation as an indicator of normality or, on the contrary, rate it negatively, we cannot tell. From a sociological point of view, however, the programmes not only offer the opportunity for demonstrating socially desirable behaviour – they also generate conformity to the exigencies of the employers. Improving the Self Generating conformity happens most effectively in formal and informal counselling and coaching activities. In these interactions we can discern a specific cultural model (Holland and Quinn 1987: 4) with three sequentially ordered main elements: exploring/assessing, improving and marketing the self. In a first step the participants have to explore their professional aspirations as well as assess their strengths and weaknesses. The underlying assumption is that work is not just

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about breadwinning but also about self-fulfilment. Moreover, the call for reflecting on one’s professional wishes implies an image of the labour market as a market of unlimited possibilities. The idea of work as a career and vehicle for self-fulfilment is clearly a middle class concept, though, which does not correspond to the experiences and options of unskilled workers. Nor, for that matter, is it really adapted to the participants of Mercator who have more formal professional qualifications, but nevertheless come mainly from the lower rungs of the professional hierarchy. In a way, exploring the self is an adequate task for the adolescent participants of Kickstart. However, here as well we can observe a constant tension in the staff’s work: on the one hand the counsellors encourage the young people to find out what their vocation might be. Yet, they often have to dampen immoderate aspirations, because many participants lack the necessary educational credentials for their dream job. The same tension between encouragement and ‘cooling out’ (Goffman 1952) becomes apparent in Mercator, while the model of exploring the self with regard to professional choices is virtually absent in Packworks. Irrespective of the specific target group the concept of the customized job actually contradicts the harsh reality of AVIG rules regarding acceptable jobs. While the programmes implicitly hold the view of work as self-fulfilment, the unemployment law clearly enforces work as breadwinning: work life is not about realizing your dreams, but about having some job at all. The second step, improving the self, aims at enhancing employability. However, as mentioned before, the programmes do not offer any formal professional training, but basically refer to the formula ‘learning by doing’. There is some formal training in prevalent office software at Mercator and some schooling at Kickstart, but none whatsoever at Packworks. So, improving the self actually merges with the third step, marketing the self. Even though Switch staff are not allowed to directly place participants with employers, supporting the job search is an essential part of the programmes. People receive advice on what search channels to use, how to write job applications, how to follow up applications and how to behave in job interviews. Advice may be given in informal talk, in formal one-to-one coaching sessions or in role-plays. In all of this participants are once again confronted with a contradictory message. On the one hand they are taught that authenticity and individuality are decisive in getting a job: first, your application has to stand out among a mass of others. Then you have to be convinced of the company and the job to be able to project enthusiasm and convince an employer that you are the right candidate. On the other hand, the instructions the programmes offer amount to standardization of application documents and behaviour. Of course, even fulfilling all the requirements still does not guarantee a job, but the constant imperative to improve one’s employability through self-perfection induces the unemployed to perceive themselves as somehow deficient, as not ready for the labour market, as socially incompetent – in sum: as losers.

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The Ideal and the Real Person One of the striking contradictions in the regulation of unemployment inheres in the contrast between the concept of the unemployed implicit in the legal frame of the AVIG and the actual situation of the unemployed. The law models the unemployed as context-free economic actors with the sole problem of being temporarily out of work. They are supposed to possess marketable skills and professional qualifications and to be socially integrated, yet free from social and familial responsibilities, therefore highly mobile and flexible. In sum, this actor is ‘the disembodied worker’ (Acker 1991) existing only in regard to the job. As such, this fictitious worker is implicitly male and, as we might extend Acker’s argument, he is also free from the marks of class or ethnicity. In reality, however, the Switch programmes are confronted with people burdened with social responsibilities and problems. Many of the participants of the three programmes studied featured at least one, but probably two or more, of the following indicators of social vulnerability: alcoholism, drug abuse, domestic violence, psychiatric diagnoses and chronic illness, traumatic migration backgrounds, severe forms of stutter and other stigmas, illiteracy, broken homes and relationships. If these factors are combined with the lack of vocational and social competencies of most Packworks and Kickstart participants, this definitively raises the question of whether the ‘therapy’ of work only is appropriate and enough. Most of the Switch staff recognize these problems because they are all too obvious in their daily work with the unemployed. However, given the dominant scheme of interpretation provided by the AVIG laws and the corresponding financial restrictions, their options are limited. Indeed we found an ongoing discussion among the staff on whether there should be some form of social work integrated into the programme. However, because of the idealized concept of the abstract worker in the AVIG laws, funding such activities is difficult. These facts act against the effective integration of those who not only lack a remunerated job but also show signs of social disintegration, social vulnerability or marginality. Three examples from our fieldwork data elaborate this point. During our fieldwork at Packworks a typical and very instructive incident occurred: a young woman from former Yugoslavia with barely any knowledge of the German language and with no formal training except primary school showed up one morning with a bruised face. She made unclear complaints about her living situation to the supervisor of the workshop by pointing at her black eye. In a short time the supervisor, a trained social worker but not engaged in this function, found out about the situation of this young woman. She was living with her parents-inlaw, together with her two children. Her husband was absent and he had left his wife and children under the strict custody of his father. This man ruled his family with an iron fist, as we could see by the proof of the woman’s black eye. A phone call with her medical doctor and the teacher of the children revealed a situation of serious domestic violence. Discarding official rules and competencies, the social worker coordinated a transfer of the woman and her children to a shelter. The

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woman was dismissed from the integration programme immediately and declared to be a case for the local welfare office. In this case it is obvious that social work interventions regarding protection from violence and further measures toward enabling this woman to decide on her own way of living must come parallel with or even prior to the labour market integration. The supervisor of Packworks acted accordingly and went as far as he could, but because the AVIG restricts social work by not paying it, he could not offer her what would have been the most sustainable intervention: to combine a prolonged, multi-faceted counselling process with the opportunity of having a time structure and a temporary escape from home that the job at Packworks provided her with. The next example is the story of a middle-aged man who suffered from an epileptic disease. According to his medical assessment he was disabled to a degree of 50 per cent, and hence he was expected to work for the other 50 per cent. The invalidity insurance offered the former gardener a one-year training to become a domestic appliance repairman. However, he still could not find an appropriate job for several years. Instead he became what the staff calls a typical ‘programme hopper’. This label is attributed to people who migrate between all kinds of welfare state programmes. The good thing about Packworks for him was the fact that after one year of participation he would be entitled to another 400 days of unemployment benefits, but in the interview he told us that his main problem was loneliness and feeling useless. He had given up looking for a job because of the reactions to his disease. You can absolutely forget to find a job when you tell people that you are an epileptic. They drop you like a hot potato. It’s so humiliating for me that I don’t want to make such experiences anymore. In the past I’ve tried. I didn’t want to give up. But no one can take this if it goes on forever. And epilepsy goes on forever.

His story shows clearly how painful and damaging the continuous pressure of activation toward the labour market can be. Because the man had to live on a small invalidity pension he also gave up his apartment and was living with his 70 year old mother again. ‘That is good from the money point of view, but bad for my social life’, he concluded. ‘I just feel useless, lonely and not treated well. Even though you get a fair treatment here in Packworks and at the moment I even make some surplus money it’s not very nice to be here. Too many foreign people and only stupid work.’ Here too we can see the narrow limits of work as therapy. Obviously it is highly unlikely that this man will ever find a job. Moreover, it seems his invalidity pension is not fixed at an adequate level. It would take a fair amount of highly specialized social work to sort out his entitlements within the   In Switzerland the maximum period for receiving benefits from the unemployment insurance is 400 days. Afterwards the unemployed can apply for means-tested social assistance. People over the age of 55 are entitled to a maximum of 520 days.

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jungle of the welfare system and to develop a new and viable perspective with him. Just as in the case of the young woman, Packworks staff recognized the problems, but could not act accordingly. The only thing available was some sort of instant counselling: ‘Go talk to a social worker in your community to find out about better alternatives!’ or ‘You should engage in a sports-club to fight your social isolation!’ and the like. Of course this is kind of counselling is inappropriate in a situation of mental problems in combination with material deprivation and exclusion from employment. But as the supervisor said: ‘No real social work allowed here. AVIG does not pay for that.’ Another problem connected with the real person is moral hazard. This phenomenon is much discussed in economic theory, which states that the existence of a contract with an insurance might lead beneficiaries to increase their risktaking, or even cause adverse effects. In everyday practice this theorem melts into a kind of test. The RAV seemingly sends people to Packworks just to test their willingness to work. Because the RAV officers know very well what kind of repetitive unskilled work the facility has to offer, they use it as a deterrent against moral hazard. Here is a short ethnographic sample: Mr Muller, a highly qualified technician who was suspected of abusing the unemployment insurance, was sent to apply at Packworks. Shortly before he came, the RAV officer called the head of Packworks to inform him: ‘We cannot believe that Mr Muller is really looking for a job. A man with his qualifications always finds a job. So we want to test him. If he accepts a job in Packworks, then he’ll be fine. But if not, we have a reason to discipline him.’ Mr Muller appeared on time and got the usual 15 minute instruction on what the placement had to offer: boring manual labour and factory discipline. After the introduction he was shown around on a short site visit. When he came back and the employee asked him if he needed more information he only replied: ‘Thank you, I know it all now. I’ve seen hell. A person with my skills cannot work in a place like this.’ The employee did not agree and mentioned that Packworks was a fair offer for every jobless person and that Mr Muller should be aware of the possibility of disciplinary measures by the unemployment insurance if he did not accept. Mr Muller did not say much and left the scene. He did not sign the contract offered to him and never showed up again. Conclusion Structurally the insurance principle implies an inalienable legal claim to specified benefits based on the prior contributions of th����������������������������������� e insured ��������������������������������� person, independently of individual financial need. In contrast, the means-tested system of social assistance, designed for individual emergencies, is a unilateral benefit, which constitutes an asymmetric relation of dependency between the donor (the state) and the recipient. Welfare always has and still does carry a touch of charity and arbitrariness. Historically the implementation of social insurance was meant to erase exactly this degrading effect of welfare. The politics of activation, by coupling behaviour

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and benefits, gradually merges the spheres of poverty and unemployment and tends to level the distinction between social assistance and insurance once again. Yet, this fusion is inconsistent: on the one hand the status of the recipients of unemployment benefits is undermined, by conditioning eligibility on behaviour. On the other hand immaterial social support, which is an integral element within public welfare, is ruled out of measurements within the framework of AVIG, and hence within integration programmes. While welfare laws explicitly state that support encompasses financial and social assistance regarding personal problems, the AVIG is focused on clients’ work-related capacities only. As we have shown, the practices of activating labour market policies are afflicted with an unacknowledged double logic. Above all, any measure in the context of unemployment must aim at bringing people back into the labour market as quickly as possible. To this end integration programmes try to offer their clients a ‘realistic’ work experience, so that participation may serve as a surrogate reference and evidence of a person’s ability and willingness to work. Furthermore, they offer various forms of coaching regarding job search and the application process. In this respect programmes follow the logic of the market and stress employability. On the other hand, referring unemployed people to an integration programme implies the recognition that they need some support, i.e. that in some way they do not fully meet the demands of the labour market. Therefore programmes have to take these ‘deficits’ into account and adjust their design accordingly. Moreover, AVIG rules forbid the programmes to compete with the for-profit economy. Thus, the ban on market competition and the contradiction between the market and the support logic lead to an unrealistic or, as in the case of Mercator, even to an outright virtual working world with concomitant problems of meaning, motivation and cooperation. The very existence of special programmes for the integration of unemployed people shows that there is at least an implicit recognition of the need for support within the AVIG. Yet, because the AVIG is based on a reductionist concept of the person – the disembodied worker, who is at the same time a homo oeconomicus – the market logic dominates the logic of care. Care is reduced to assistance with the job search.10 However, our findings demonstrate that being out of work may not be the most important worry unemployed people have. Often they are faced with additional problems (health, finances, family, etc.), which may be more urgent for them and which may actually incapacitate them in finding and holding a job. If, for ideological reasons, these problems are neglected, the politics of activation merely aggravate the social vulnerability of the unemployed instead of empowering them. Even the market logic is not pursued in a consequential way. The explicit goal of integration programmes is to enhance the clients’ employability. Many participants indeed lack formal credentials, sometimes even the most basic 10 Even this form of support is limited and must not extend to actually placing someone with an employer.

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educational, occupational and social skills – especially the clients of Packworks and Kickstart. In spite of such obvious deficits, providing vocational training is subordinate to the preoccupation with marketing the self: ‘marketability’ seems to be more important than ‘employability’. Training people to sell themselves in the labour market may help some of them to overcome the first obstacle, namely to be considered at all in the selection process. It cannot make up for the lack of skills in a labour market that more and more is eradicating unskilled jobs. Moreover, stressing endless self-improvement implicitly induces the unemployed exposed to such programmes to perceive themselves as deficient. If they still cannot find a job, it must be their own fault: they simply have not worked hard enough at improving their employability. Insofar as employability is conflated with actually having a job, not having a job is equated with not being employable. In this way the strategy of activation individualizes structural economic causes of workforce demand and conceptualizes them as the problem of the unemployed person. Because structural causes of unemployment are hard to manipulate by the state, the individual unemployed man or woman becomes the target of labour market politics. If they then fail the goals of activation, they are held responsible and are stigmatized as unwilling or unable to live up to the demands of employers. The politics of activation presents itself in the guise of a contract between two equal partners. Society supports its needy members by means of financial aid and integration measures. In return the recipients of this assistance are expected to reciprocate by making an effort to overcome their dependency on financial assistance. In the context of the AVIG this effort consists of an intense job search and of enhancing one’s employability in accordance with AVIG rules and RAV counsellors’ directives. Yet, the contract model has three major flaws. First, as Magnin (2005) notes, in the case of the unemployment insurance the state is not really the legitimate partner in this contract because, unlike welfare benefits, unemployment benefits do not stem from taxes, but from the insurance premiums of the social partners (employers and employees). Second, the contract is not based on negotiations between equals: the unemployed are neither free to enter or refuse the contract at all, nor can they set the goals according to their own needs. The objectives of integration measures are always preset, namely to find and accept a job, no matter how attractive or unattractive this job may be and irrespective of any other more pressing problems the person may have (Maeder and Nadai 2005). Finally, the contract is unequal insofar as the unemployed can be sanctioned for non-compliance, whereas the state cannot be held responsible if the insured person does not find a job.11 As mentioned before, sanctions are used frequently, and in comparison with fines for other minor infractions (e.g. parking fines), these financial sanctions seem out of all proportion (Duvanel 2002). In particular, the 11 Organizations such as Switch that run integration programmes as contractors of the unemployment insurance can lose their contract if their success rates do not match the targets set by the contracting body. However, they cannot be held responsible, if individual participants do not find a job.

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frequency and severity of sanctions exceed the means necessary to deal with the problem of moral hazard. Comparative empirical research on activating policies (especially on workfare programmes) in several countries draws the conclusion that these policies are generally a failure (Opielka 2005, Handler 2003). Thus, this policy can only be understood in a moral framework: it is used to discipline the unemployed, who are seen as violating the norm of having to earn one’s living by gainful employment. As ILO expert Guy Standing (cited in Opielka 2005: 39) states, ‘workfare is the ultimate policy of labour control’. If activation is supposed to be more than coercive social policy and a ‘silent surrender of public responsibility’ (Gilbert 2002), these policies need major adjustments. Most of all the concerns and the needs of the unemployed must be taken into account. Instead of enforcing an abstract and highly ideological conception of the autonomous person, organizations working within the AVIG framework have to acknowledge a realistic perspective of their clients’ situation. Therefore, regional employment centres and integration programmes must first, integrate the logic of care and the logic of the market, i.e. integration measures must include the treatment of possible personal and social problems, if need be. We do not advocate a mechanical application of social work or therapeutic measures in all cases – this would only add to stigmatization. Of course not every unemployed person needs help, but as relevant research shows, (long-term) unemployment often leads to problems. Second, the people subject to activation must have a say in defining the goals, priorities and forms of integration measures. Active cooperation of clients is the cornerstone of any successful help and this can only be obtained if they are involved in the decisions concerning their lives. Finally, activation measures must include investments in the human capital of the unemployed. It is not enough to teach them how to apply for jobs, if they lack the necessary occupational skills. To summarize our argument: in the context of current activation politics in Switzerland the unemployed people, who need assistance, instead encounter idling cycles, recipes for self marketing, disciplinary action, stigmatization and unequal contracts. This way they have to take the burden of individual responsibility for phenomena that usually transcend their capabilities. Put the other way around: the costs of a very ambivalent handling of the unemployed are accumulated individually. We therefore conclude that activating strategies lead to a displacement of responsibility from the welfare state to the unemployed at the expense of those, who – for whatever reasons – cannot persist in the endless trials of an idealized labour market. This system favours work and self-responsibility over protection by the state. We seriously doubt that under the conditions described in this paper the basic function of integrating the unemployed into the labour market is achieved in a sustainable way.

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Chapter 5

Trade Unions and the Unemployed in the Interwar Period and the 1980s in Britain Andrew Richards

Introduction High unemployment presents trade unions with grave problems, sapping their bargaining power and depriving them of members. Unemployed workers represent a potential source of cheap labour and strikebreaking. Recognizing these threats, unions invariably claim to speak for and represent the unemployed. Theoretically, they may attempt to devise inclusive strategies with which to incorporate the needs and interests of the unemployed, thereby bridging, in the name of working class solidarity, the divide between employed and unemployed workers. Yet historically, the role of unions as agents of working class solidarity has been ambiguous. Unions have usually struggled to maintain the unity of the employed workforce, while their relationship with the unemployed has been uneasy. To a large extent, unemployed workers tend to move, and then remain, beyond the ambit of trade unionism (Richards 2001, 1995: 29–35). Two periods of high unemployment in Britain, the 1920–1930s and 1980s, which are the focus of this chapter, demonstrate the problematic relationship between trade unions and unemployed workers. While the interwar period witnessed the emergence of a powerful organized movement of the unemployed, the 1980s were notable for the absence of such a movement. Yet in both periods, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) was wary of any kind of independent organization of the unemployed threatening its leadership of the labour movement. In the first part, I analyse the emergence of the unemployed movement in the interwar period. Structural conditions for collective action of the unemployed were much more propitious than they would be in the 1980s, lending the unemployed resources sufficiently powerful to overcome the general hostility of the unions. The movement’s demise in the late 1930s resulted from declining unemployment itself, rather than any decisive demobilizing role played by the unions. In the second part, I examine the TUC’s response to the renewed threat of high unemployment in the 1980s. Fearing any kind of unemployed movement akin to that of the interwar period, the TUC opted to provide services for, rather than mobilize, the unemployed. In this, there is a historical irony: structural conditions, compared with the 1930s, were far less favourable for collective mobilization of the unemployed and the need for an external mobilizer consequently that much greater. As such, the

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unions’ wariness of independent collective action of the unemployed played a much more decisive demobilizing role in the 1980s than in the interwar period. I conclude by reflecting on the unions’ priorities with respect to the unemployed in the 1990s, a period marked by much lower unemployment. The Unemployed Movement in the Interwar Period Protest Action of the Unemployed The context for collective protest in the interwar period was one of mass unemployment. The unemployment rate rose from 0.8 per cent in April 1920 to 23.0 per cent in May 1921. With 1.5 million jobless, unemployment did not fall below 1 million until the onset of World War Two. During the Great Depression, with some 3 million officially unemployed, approximately half the national workforce was personally touched by unemployment. Mass unemployment also emerged in a context of totally inadequate welfare provision. The relief system in 1919 was basically that established by the 1834 Poor Law, ensuring that the majority of the unemployed and their dependents lived in absolute poverty in the interwar period, suffering poor housing, malnutrition and ill health. Such deprivation determined the nature of their demands: while persistently calling for bold programmes of job creation, they were mostly concerned with the alleviation of immediate hardship. Their battles therefore centred largely on ameliorating, rather than escaping from, the condition of unemployment (Croucher 1987: 13–14, 17, 27, 106, Flanagan 1991: 117–19). Two major protest waves marked the interwar period, both in contexts of rapidly rising unemployment. The first occurred during the post-World War One recession; the second after the 1929 stock market crash and the onset of the Great Depression. Conversely, in the mid/late 1920s and the mid/late 1930s, when unemployment rates fell, protest levels declined significantly. Protest therefore ebbed and flowed with fluctuations in the unemployment rate. Between 1919 and 1922, Britain was engulfed by protest. By February 1919, during postwar demobilization, unemployment was rising by 70,000 per week. While prices rose between 1913 and 1920 by more than 200 per cent, unemployment benefits remained at their 1913 level, until being raised in December 1919. Much of the discontent centred on ex-servicemen, of whom 408,000 were unemployed by May 1919. From April to July 1919, they campaigned in many industrial centres. In April 1920, a large demonstration in London called for the formation of a ‘Red Army’. Rising unemployment in 1920 and 1921 provoked further protest, particularly in London, where the unemployment rate doubled between September and November 1920. Police brutality was an important catalyst for the increasingly organized nature of protest. A government decision in July 1921 to cut the level and eligibility period of unemployment benefit provoked   This is a condensed version of Richards (2002).

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widespread protests demanding ‘work or full maintenance’. By November 1921, approximately 500,000 unemployed workers lacked any benefit. The summer of 1921 witnessed massive and violent clashes between police and the unemployed throughout Britain, culminating, in 1922, in the first organized ‘Hunger March’ and a 70,000-strong demonstration in London in November 1922 (Croucher 1987: 27, 29, 39, 43, 54, Flanagan 1991: 93, 95, 101, 106, 112, 128, 138–9, 154–5). The unemployment rate again increased steadily after the 1929 stock market collapse, from 10.3 per cent in October 1929 to an interwar peak of 23.0 per cent in August 1932. Widespread protest ensued. In March 1929, almost 1,000 unemployed workers joined the second National Hunger March; a third took place in late 1930. Late 1931 and 1932 saw the worst social upheaval and violence of the interwar period. Large demonstrations were common in major towns in October 1931, while the government’s reduction of unemployment benefits and introduction of the means test caused popular outrage in 1932, a ‘year of bloody violence’. A National Day of Struggle took place in February 1932, while further revolt engulfed numerous towns in September 1932, culminating in the fourth National Hunger March, in which 1,500 participants delivered a petition to London of more than 1 million signatures protesting unemployment. They were treated particularly brutally by the police (Croucher 1987: 95, 100, 112, 121, 124, 133–4, 140, Flanagan 1991: 171, 184, 185, 186, 188). While collective protest was most intense in these two specific periods, it remained a recurrent feature of the 1930s. Further National Hunger Marches took place in 1934 (with unemployment at 17.7 per cent) and in 1936 (14.3 per cent); the latter was, in fact, the largest of the interwar period. The introduction of the Unemployment Insurance Act in June 1934 and January 1935, which established compulsory ‘training camps’ for benefit claimants and restricted eligibility for means-tested benefits, provoked the largest protests of the entire period. In January 1935, 100,000 marched in the South Wales coalfield and 150,000 marched in various demonstrations throughout Britain. In February 1935, 300,000 again demonstrated in South Wales (Croucher 1987: 160, 169, 170, 179, Flanagan 1991: 26). In general, though, protest tended to recede with declining unemployment. Economic recovery in 1922, when unemployment rates fell from 17.7 to 12.8 per cent, heralded five years of quiescence on the part of the unemployed. Similarly, declining rates of unemployment from 1934 onwards were associated with much less protest (Croucher 1987: 58–9, 183, Flanagan 1991: 148–9, 157–8, 160, 177). The Emergence of the Unemployed Movement Interwar unemployment was concentrated amongst manual workers in the old staple industries of coal, shipbuilding, iron and steel, engineering and textiles. Their concentration in certain regions meant the latter were devastated in a manner not experienced elsewhere. From 1920 onwards, a ‘new phenomenon of long-term, heavy, structural unemployment persisting through all stages of the trade cycle emerged in the traditional industrial areas’ (Flanagan 1991: 117–19). In the coal

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industry, the unemployment rate rose from 3 per cent in 1923 to 29.7 per cent in 1934. In South Wales, many mining communities, by the mid-1930s, suffered neartotal unemployment (Richards 1996: 11, 28, Croucher 1987: 14, 15, 87, Flanagan 1991: 117–19, 160). The concentrated profile of unemployment lent the unemployed certain resources. Displaced workforces could often draw on pre-existing traditions of trade unionism or strong occupational identities; jobless engineers, boilermakers and miners formed the mainstay of unemployed protest and leadership. Moreover, mass unemployment meant that it was experienced collectively, not individually, thereby promoting the laying of blame at the feet of wider, uncontrollable forces, rather than individual shortcomings. Increasing demands were therefore made on the state to at least ameliorate the conditions of the unemployed, while the state recognized, grudgingly, that it bore some responsibility (Flanagan 1991: 119, 149, Croucher 1987: 15, 16, 20–21, 26, 92, 148, 198–9). Initially, mobilization was generated and sustained by the unemployed themselves. Some activity was uncoordinated and apparently lacked clear objectives, thereby conforming to the unemployed’s allegedly ‘rootless volatility’. Yet most activity, even when spontaneous, was notable for the degree to which the unemployed, organizing themselves in a spirit of ‘collective self-help’, engaged continually in local-level direct actions to extract or improve unemployed assistance. Nonetheless, the unemployed movement proper, in the form of the National Unemployed Workers’ Committee Movement (NUWCM) (1921–29) and its successor, the National Unemployed Workers’ Movement (NUWM) (1929–39) (see Table 5.1), emerged through the interplay of local action by the unemployed and the organizing initiatives of various radical groupings. Immediately after World War One, socialist militants were key in organizing the National Union of Ex-Servicemen (NUX) whose membership expanded from 50 in May 1919 to 300,000 in July 1920. Shop stewards from skilled organized labour radicalized the NUX by advocating the common interests of demobilized soldiers and unemployed workers. They thereby laid the foundations for the NUWCM and assumed an important leadership role. However, the key organizer of the unemployed was the Communist Party (CPGB). Bringing discipline and centralization to unemployed activity, the ‘movement owed its very existence to the CPGB’. The party, whose members were predominantly working class, played a critical role in establishing the NUWCM, and figured prominently throughout the 1920s and early 1930s in much of the unemployed’s activity (Bagguley 1991: 140, Croucher 1987: 12, 15, 21, 26–7, 30, 31, 76, 87, 90, 119, 151, 198–9, 202, Flanagan 1991: 23, 93, 96–116, 122, 124–5, 127–8, 131, 132, 149, 160).   Until the 1930s, locally elected officials retained some control over benefit levels; consequently, they were ‘open’ to pressure from local social movements. However, after the establishment in the mid-1930s of the Unemployment Assistance Board, which effectively centralized decision-making, political organizations of the unemployed lacked clear access to the institutions with which the unemployed were in daily contact: ‘this centralization and insulation from democratic processes occurred in part through the successes of the struggles of the unemployed themselves’ (Bagguley 1991: 139, 203, 1992: 445, 446, 447, 452).

Trade Unions and the Unemployed in the Interwar Period and the 1980s

Table 5.1

Formal organizations of the unemployed movement, Britain 1921–1935

January 1921

April 1921

November 1921 March 1923 1925 March 1926 June 1928 December 1928 September 1929 October 1929 1929 1929 December 1929 1930 August 1931 December 1931 October 1932 February 1933 February 1934 December 1934 Spring 1935

87

London District Council claims representation of 250,000 unemployed Delegates of unemployed committees meet at International Socialist Club, London; 81 representatives from 50 committees, at least half delegates from London. Meeting, dominated by CPGB, elects National Action Committee and subsequently announces formation of NUWCM First full national conference of NUWCM; 150 delegates, with 219 affiliated committees: 66 from northeast, 60 from Wales, 48 from London. Establishment of paid national organizer, NUWCM divided into seven divisions NUWCM membership of 100,000 NUWCM national conference establishes Councils of Action (to support striking miners) NUWCM membership of 10,000 Conference of Scottish NUWCM branches. NUWCM ‘strongest in mining areas’ NUWCM membership of 10,000 Sixth national conference of NUWCM NUWCM becomes NUWM Establishment by NUWM of National Legal Department and Women’s Department. Strengthening of national headquarters NUWM Conference; 33 branches in Northern England, seven in south Wales, two in Scotland, two in London. ‘Not national in scope’ NUWM membership of 20,000 NUWM membership of 39,000 NUWM membership of 20,000 NUWM membership of 37,000 NUWM membership of 50,000 ‘Organizational highpoint of NUWM’. 100,000 members in 349 branches, 36 District Councils and 34 Women’s Sections National Congress of NUWM attended by nearly 1,500 delegates Ninth National Conference of NUWM organizes ‘mass action’ against Unemployment Insurance Bill NUWM membership of more than 100,000

Source: Croucher 1987: 38, 48, 58, 76, 92, 102, 148, 168, 173, Flanagan 1991: 165, 167, 170, 180.

The Movement and its Membership The scale and longevity of the unemployed movement were notable; approximately 1 million people passed through its ranks, reflecting the latent discontent generated

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by mass unemployment and the movement’s considerable mobilizational capacity (Croucher 1987: 11, 202, 206, Flanagan 1991: 180, 190–91, 195). Yet the unemployed constituted a problematic constituency. First, their militancy was sporadic rather than consistent; more typically, their ‘apathy and despair’ constrained potential organizers (Croucher 1987: 21). Second, the consciousness and identity of being unemployed were by no means propitious for collective organization: ‘it was a consciousness that the unemployed worker was determined to get rid of, not to perpetuate’ (Croucher 1987: 21, see also Bagguley 1992: 448). Third, the attempt to escape unemployment meant that the unemployed population was relatively transient: ‘the average member of the NUWM had only a fleeting association with the movement … before he or she fell out of touch, found work … or moved’ (Croucher 1987: 148–9). A perennial problem for the movement was therefore how to mobilize the unemployed continuously. Ultimately, this problem was insurmountable. Just as protest ebbed and flowed with fluctuations in the unemployment rate, so too did the movement’s membership. With unemployment declining in 1924, ‘the times were unpropitious for any organization of the unemployed’ (Flanagan 1991: 158). The NUWCM survived the relative economic boom of the mid-1920s ‘in an attenuated and ossified form’ (Croucher 1987: 76, 58–9). Conversely, from 1929 onwards, with unemployment rising again, the NUWM enjoyed a slow but steady increase in membership levels, but even when unemployment peaked, few actually entered the movement. In 1933, with 3 million unemployed, the NUWM’s membership numbered 100,000. Overall, the movement probably never reached more than 10 per cent of the unemployed at any given time (Croucher 1987: 87, 148, 203, Flanagan 1991: 172). As Anuerin Bevan reflected, ‘it is not easy to give organizational expression to circumstances from which men are trying desperately to escape’ (Flanagan 1991: 123). Movement–External Agent Relations The relationship between the unemployed movement and external agents with potentially valuable resources was equally difficult. Throughout the period, hostile political forces charged that unemployed protest was highly vulnerable to manipulation by the CPGB. Yet accusations of communist domination of the unemployed were generally highly inaccurate. The party recruited from amongst the unemployed, and many of the latter’s leaders were communists, but the unemployed movement was never controlled by, much less synonymous with, the party (Flanagan 1991: 121, 153–4, 161, 167–8, 174, 178, Croucher 1987: 60, 104, 115). Instead, it was the official trade union movement that sought to curtail any independent organized activity of the unemployed.  �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� An added consequence was instability of income for the movement (Croucher 1987: 53, 62, 148–9, 182, 202), although this gave the NUWM a strong incentive for ‘mass activity’ amongst the unemployed merely to reproduce itself financially (Bagguley 1992: 453).

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As early as 1921, the NUWCM sought affiliation with the TUC. Yet the latter believed that unemployment resulted from a series of economic dislocations that would eventually rectify themselves. When unemployment persisted, they assumed that it simply could not be solved: ‘their primary concern remained for those in work, not for those out of it’ (Flanagan 1991: 121). This divide solidified in the 1930s. While the employed majority enjoyed rising living standards, the plight of the unemployed deteriorated. Consequently, ‘the workless struggled in isolation. This gulf between those in and out of work was a major limiting factor in the potential gains which could be made by the agitations of the unemployed … the “unity of the employed and unemployed” so often called for by the leaders of the NUWM remained a rhetorical device rather than a reality’ (Croucher 1987: 108–109, 48). To an astonishing degree, the unemployed movement acted consistently to assuage trade union fears of the unemployed as a source of downward pressure on wages and of strikebreaking. Despite their rejection by the 1921 Labour Party conference, the London unemployed pledged to prevent its members from scabbing. In 1922, the NUWCM steadfastly supported the AEU in a national lockout in the engineering industry, providing thousands of unemployed workers for picket lines, and later played an important role in the 1926 General Strike in trying to prevent strikebreaking. Such remarkable behaviour, then and later, did not succeed in cementing its relationship with organized labour. First, the unemployed movement was too effective in eliminating mass strikebreaking: ‘in this sense the movement … defeated itself’ (Croucher 1987: 69). Second, with the defeats of the AEU in 1922, the General Strike in 1926 and that of the miners soon thereafter, the TUC rejected industrial militancy and increasingly viewed the NUWCM as an embarrassment. Industrial conflict subsequently diminished significantly, thereby limiting the unemployed movement’s opportunities to stand alongside striking workers (Croucher 1987: 52–3, 78–9, 83, 108, Flanagan 1991: 136, 151). Consequently, ‘the only impulse driving the TUC towards collaboration with the NUWCM was its rather weak general sense of social concern’ (Croucher 1987: 69). Yet even this was subordinate to the TUC’s priority of maintaining leadership of the labour movement. In 1923, the TUC General Council agreed, unenthusiastically, to establish a Joint Advisory Committee with the NUWCM on unemployment, only to abolish it, unilaterally, soon after the 1926 General Strike defeat. Moreover, the TUC suspected any organization associated with the CPGB, and feared the latter’s radical politics. The unions’ relationship with the unemployed was thus marked by mutual suspicion and hostility. The TUC refused to support the interwar Hunger Marches and rebuffed the unemployed movement’s requests for affiliation to its ranks and cooperation in fighting hostile legislation. Its  ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Though in certain localities, individual unions and the Labour Party often allied themselves with the unemployed movement. The South Wales Miners’ Federation, for example, was practically synonymous with the unemployed movement (Croucher 1987: 30–31, 42, 76–7, 88, 95, 137–9, 159–61, 168–70, 175–6).

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conciliatory role in the government-sponsored 1927 Blanesburgh Report – which threatened to eliminate the benefits of 250,000 unemployed workers – infuriated the NUWM. The TUC rejected the NUWM’s pleas for help in mounting ‘mass action’ against the equally draconian 1934 Unemployment Insurance Bill. In 1932, the TUC itself attempted to organize the unemployed by establishing associations providing educational and recreational facilities for the jobless. Unofficially, this represented an attack on ‘Communistic control of the unemployed’ (Croucher 1987: 198, 83, 168), though the associations, whose membership never exceeded 20,000, were a failure. In sum, the NUWM emerged despite the opposition of the TUC. Where concentrated mass unemployment fused with the radicalizing role of agents such as the CPGB, the unemployed gained a set of cultural and organizational resources (Bagguley 1991: 21, 203, 1992: 459) sufficiently powerful to overcome trade union hostility and establish an independent movement for themselves. Such resources would be notably lacking in the 1980s. Movement Transformation A key issue in the study of social movements is how their organizational evolution affects the success with which they achieve their objectives. For Piven and Cloward (1977, 1992), poor people’s movements are especially vulnerable to the effects of organization and cooptation by external agents. They show how spontaneous local militant protest, with radical objectives, gradually gives way to more organized and less militant forms of protest, with greatly moderated objectives and demands. Growing organization and cooptation, as the result of resources accepted from without, entail deradicalization and demobilization. The unemployed movement did emerge via local, militant, direct action and then gradually acquired more formal and centralized organization marked by more routine bureaucratic activity. Yet the effects of these changes are unclear. To begin with, the process of centralization was ambiguous. Despite establishing a paid national organizer in 1921, the NUWCM ‘remained nothing more than a hopeful umbrella term for a loose federation of local committees’. At its 1924 national conference, there was ‘a serious step away from democracy’, whereby movement officials ‘were, in effect, to become the leadership’ (Croucher 1987: 75, 42, 46, 48). At its 1929 national conference, the movement adopted a new constitution and became the NUWM, deleting ‘the word “committee” and with it all the old syndicalist dreams of establishing a new order based on workers’ committees’ (Flanagan 1991: 167). Its national headquarters were strengthened. Yet there were limits to this transformation. Though local branches now retained little constitutional power, the national headquarters remained, in practice, ‘in thrall to the pulse of the branches, being compelled to follow the leads of the rank and file activists, rather than the inverse’ (Flanagan 1991: 166). After the Wall Street crash, the national headquarters struggled ‘to bring order and co-ordination to an already volcanic series of local eruptions’ (Croucher 1987: 104). Only by the late 1930s

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had the balance of power tipped unambiguously in favour of the national level, but this was essentially by default, since unemployment was falling significantly. In the last two years before World War Two, movement activists returned steadily to employment, with the domination of the movement’s headquarters accelerated by the diminution of local branches. A weakened NUWM was now very much led from the centre, with its later conferences relatively formal, stage-managed and platform-led (Croucher 1987: 190–1, Flanagan 1991: 177–8). Did increased organization and centralization deradicalize the British movement? Certainly, ‘conflict … conferred benefits’ (Flanagan 1991: 187). In 1921, unemployed organizations in London forced local Boards of Guardians to increase unemployment relief. A massive national campaign by the NUWM enabled sympathetic Labour-controlled local authorities to justify concessions to the unemployed. Workhouse invasions forced Boards of Guardians to concede further, while national agitation by the NUWCM forced the government to raise unemployment benefits. The First and Second National Hunger Marches of 1922– 1923 and 1929 forced government concessions on health and unemployment benefits. The results of such action were ‘not inconsiderable’: between 1920 and 1931, the real value of unemployment benefit increased by 92 per cent for a single man and by 240 per cent for a family of four. By 1930, such benefit was paid continuously, with the amount determined by social considerations rather than actuarial principles (Flanagan 1991: 133, 139, 143–4, 146, 161, 162, Croucher 1987: 54, 95). However, such direct protest action survived well into the 1930s; there was nothing inherently ‘deradicalizing’ about an increasingly formal and centralized apparatus. Indeed, given that the ‘unemployed had to agitate to secure improvements’, the use of conflict was central to the NUWM’s success in transforming individual discontent into effective protest. In 1932, the peak year for unemployment, NUWM protests forced the government to relax the administration of the means test. The 1934 National Hunger March achieved the restoration of previous cuts in unemployment benefits, while the 1936 National Hunger March forced important government concessions on unemployment relief, ‘clearly the result of militant action by the NUWM’ (Croucher 1987: 181). Above all, the massive, militant campaign waged by the NUWM in early 1935 against the government’s Unemployment Insurance Bill forced the government to suspend new scales of unemployment relief and marked, in retrospect, the ‘high-water mark for the unemployed movement. The NUWM had never won a clearer victory for the unemployed’ (Croucher 1987: 170–71, 161, 169, 181, Flanagan 1991: 184–5). Nor are the implications of the movement’s more routine activities in the 1930s clear. At its 1929 conference, its earlier revolutionary rhetoric was dropped; the NUWM now ‘sought incorporation and representation within the existing welfare structure’ (Flanagan 1991: 166), establishing a National Legal Department to confront the increasingly complicated structure of benefit provision. Its work expanded enormously as unemployment increased rapidly and government legislation became more complex. The NUWM proved far more effective than

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the unions in processing cases and by the end of the 1930s had fought hundreds of thousands of individual cases concerning dole payments, its expertise acknowledged by union, official and academic circles alike (Croucher 1987: 113–15, 206). The CPGB derided such ‘legalism’, yet not only was such activity compatible with more direct forms of protest, but was itself informed by radical objectives, especially in the adverse political circumstances prevailing. With the Labour Party’s collapse in 1931, and the election of a hostile government, there was nothing inherently moderate about the NUWM’s ‘grim desire to see the dole administered with a measure of humanity’ (Flanagan 1991: 181). ‘Incorporation’ actually represented a hard-fought victory. When, in 1928, the NUWCM’s right to represent unemployed claimants at the Courts of Referees was recognized, an important principle was conceded by the state and a severe blow dealt to the notion that the unemployed merited only charity. Moreover, the NUWM argued that it had an all-or-nothing choice: to represent the unemployed or not. Hannington, the NUWM leader, argued that such representational work ‘provided the basis for agitation both in terms of building relationships with those represented and … of providing cases for propaganda purposes’. It also provided the movement with a ‘major recruiting argument’, a ‘continuous basis for its activity’ and thereby greater stability: ‘in periods without any mass agitation, there was still an important reason for joining the NUWM’ (Croucher 1987: 115, 117). Even in 1941, when unemployment had fallen to 0.2 million, local NUWM branches still functioned effectively as representative agencies of the jobless (Croucher 1987: 94, 113–15, 117, 197–8, 206, Flanagan 1991: 166, 167, 170, 181). Finally, radical longer-term developments in welfare provision for the unemployed must be at least partially credited to NUWM activity. The 1942 Beveridge Report’s proposal for the creation of a social security system without a means test reflected the NUWM’s influence, while NUWM pressure generated two broad shifts in political thinking. First, the unemployed’s right to representation within the welfare system ‘unquestionably came from the NUWM’s persistent advocacy and practice of that right between the wars’ (Croucher 1987: 210). The NUWM thereby helped change the ‘ideological construction of “unemployed”’ (Flanagan 1991: 225) from that equated with personal failure to that of the product of wider economic forces. Effecting the transformation of the unemployed worker into an economic casualty with compensation rights was, and remains, a notable achievement of the NUWM. Second, while the NUWM never convinced hostile governments to implement major job creation schemes, most politicians recognized the need to accommodate popular demands for full employment after the war: it was ‘the extra-parliamentary activity of the NUWM that had made the human problems of unemployment visible … the NUWM ensured that the failure of governments to provide either work or adequate maintenance was publicly made painfully apparent’ (Croucher 1987: 207). The NUWM thereby helped build one of the cornerstones of the postwar consensus in Britain: the commitment of successive governments to full employment (Croucher 1987: 204–207, 209–210, Flanagan 1991: 182, 225, 227). This commitment would be withdrawn after 1979.

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Trade Unions and the Unemployed in the 1980s Following the Conservatives’ victory in the 1979 General Election, unemployment rose dramatically from 1.161 million (4.9 per cent of the labour force) in May 1979 to 2.663 million (11.6 per cent) in December 1981: ‘Britain, traditionally a country with little unemployment, now had one of the highest rates of unemployment in the industrial world’ (King 1985: 12). During Thatcher’s second term (1983–1987), unemployment remained between 3.1 and 3.3 million, peaking at a rate of 11.7 per cent in 1986 (Butler and Kavanagh 1988: 18). Yet while unemployment in the mid-1980s was quantitatively comparable to that of the 1930s, the nature of the unemployed as a collectivity was qualitatively different. The demoralizing effects of unemployment certainly remained as powerful as ever, even though welfare provision greatly exceeded that for the interwar period. Many contemporary studies continue to emphasize the deleterious effects of unemployment in terms of economic, physical and psychological well-being, social exclusion and political alienation (Burnett 1994, Gallie 1999, Lawless, Martin and Hardy 1998, Pappas 1989). Unemployment during the 1980s and 1990s sharply increased the risks of falling into poverty (Haataja 1999). Prolonged unemployment undermines the life-chances and economic independence of the individual (Morris 1992). Yet conditions for collective protest action of the unemployed were decidedly less propitious in the 1980s than they had been in the interwar period. In the past, when unemployment relief was locally controlled under conditions of some degree of democratic accountability, local collective action by the unemployed succeeded in raising benefit levels. In the 1980s, with centralized state provision of welfare immune to such protest, most of the unemployed were pessimistic regarding the efficacy of collective action. Moreover, the material and cultural bases underpinning the NUWM in the 1930s had been subsequently undermined by four decades of deindustrialization and economic restructuring (Bagguley 1991: 139, 203). In response, a white-collar leader’s remarks to the 1980 TUC certainly demonstrated that the unions remained acutely aware of the historic threats posed by mass unemployment: ‘Why should we want to organize the unemployed? I start with a political point. The Government would like to drive a wedge between those who are in work and those who are not … We want to look after all those who would like to work. We must ensure that we establish a community of interest between all those who have to work for their livelihood or who want to do so’ (cited in Bagguley 1991: 116–17). Consequently, the TUC appealed constantly for broad and active measures to reduce unemployment and boost job creation, through macroeconomic expansion, reducing overtime, promoting worksharing and reducing the working week. In 1983, it called for a £10 billion spending package to fight unemployment and in 1984 urged the government to change its economic policy in the interests of the unemployed (Moon and Richardson 1985: 110). Its appeals were largely ignored by a hostile government. However, regarding the fate of the unemployed themselves, the unions were more circumspect. Miners’ leader Arthur Scargill – an otherwise divisive figure in

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the union movement – undoubtedly spoke for most union leaders when he declared in 1982 that ‘protection of the industry is my first priority, because without jobs all our other claims lack substance and become mere shadows. Without jobs our members are nothing – they have no power or means of subsistence, because we live in a society which penalizes people who have no jobs’ (cited in Richards 1996: 76). Yet the monumental strike which he led in 1984–1985, though notable for being waged on the question of employment levels, was nonetheless fundamentally a defence of employed workers, rather than those who had become unemployed. Moreover, the mixed support for the strike reflected a growing moderation and defensiveness on the part of most unions in an increasingly hostile political and economic climate. Ultimately, such defensiveness would characterize the unions’ stance towards the unemployed. Up until 1979, the unions’ strategy had managed to incorporate, to a certain degree, the needs and interests of the marginally employed and unemployed. Both trade union and government policy were to extend or generalize the minimum conditions established in the labour market to the low-paid, while by the 1970s, the unemployment benefit system reduced pressures on workers to take low-wage jobs. In addition, unions sought to protect adult workers from competition from young people willing to work at very low wages rather than remain unemployed. True to their historic commitment to link youth wages to adult wages, unions succeeded by the 1970s in setting youth wages at relatively high percentages of adult rates. With measures such as these, competition at the bottom of the labour market was reduced (Rubery 1995: 552, 557–8). This changed dramatically in the 1980s. Higher unemployment, and a series of structural, economic and industrial changes undercut union membership and bargaining strength. Union power was further undermined by legislation introduced by the Thatcher government in the 1980s which deregulated the labour market and restricted union influence and collective bargaining (Rubery 1995: 563, Richards 1995). Such changes increased competition from the bottom end of the labour market, thereby accentuating the division between, on the one hand, the unionized workforce, and on the other, the marginalized and nonunionized ranks of the precariously employed and unemployed. Government legislation prevented unions from taking action against firms that refused to recognize unions, operate closed shops or respect industry-level agreements, while anti-secondary picketing and anti-‘blacking’ measures limited the unions’ ability to prevent the entry of non-union firms into the labour market. Furthermore, government policy after 1979 sought to reduce the level of individual employment rights and increase labour market competition based on low wages (for example, by removing youths from the scope of wages councils). Much greater pressure was exerted on the unemployed to take low-wage jobs at the same time as the cushion provided by earnings-related supplements was removed. Above all, the surge in unemployment in the early 1980s (and again in the 1990s) increased pressure on wages at the bottom of the labour market. In sum, ‘the scale of the unorganized sector of the

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labour market expanded such that the unorganized outnumbered the organized’ (Rubery 1995: 543, 561–2). In this generally adverse situation, the TUC refrained from mobilizing the unemployed as part of its ongoing battle with the Thatcher government. In 1983, it backed, with reservations, two organized protests against government policy – the Jobs for Youth Campaign which, using the slogan ‘Give us a future’, transported unemployed teenagers around the country in the ‘Jobs Express’ and the People’s Marches for Jobs, the first in 1981 and the second converging on London one week before the 1983 General Election (Moon and Richardson 1985: 110). Yet while the latter were organized by local and regional labour movements and involved the unemployed as marchers, they were not in any sense political organizations of the unemployed. Unlike the interwar Hunger Marches of the NUWM, they were not organized by the unemployed themselves, and had no clear, definable, goals (Bagguley 1991: 115). Instead, and more typically, the TUC opted in the 1980s to provide services for, rather than mobilize, the unemployed (Bagguley 1991: 4). While relations between the government and the TUC disintegrated elsewhere, the TUC remained a loyal partner in the state-funded Manpower Services Commission (MSC), campaigning for the virtues of its Youth Opportunities Programmes and Youth Training Schemes. This was not unjustified – in areas of high youth unemployment, for example, unions pressed employers to participate, as a means of reducing unemployment levels and of recruiting new union members to compensate for those lost through redundancies. Moreover, the union movement was keen to retain influence in one of the few neo-corporatist institutions to survive the early Thatcher years, especially an organization of which it had been a co-founder. Nonetheless, its attempts to remain an actor lobbying for change within the MSC was to have critical implications for the nature of its relationship with the unemployed. This was seen clearly in the evolution of the Unemployed Workers’ Centres (UWCs) during the 1980s. The first UWC was established in 1977 by Newcastle Trades Council, the result of ongoing attempts to oppose local redundancies and, more controversially, construct an ‘unemployed workers’ union’. However, when the TUC decided in 1980 to support UWCs, concerns were voiced that the local, grass roots, campaigning potential of such centres should not be stifled by national TUC decisions. From the outset, therefore, tensions existed over the form of unemployed organization in which the TUC should participate. Some wished to see the UWCs become the focus of opposition to government policies, while others viewed them as primarily centres for advice, counselling, education and recreation. Further divisions arose over whether or not to accept MSC funding for the centres, given the severe restrictions placed by the MSC on political activity (Bagguley 1991: 115–18, 1992: 455–8, Barker, Lewis and McCann 1984: 400-402, Forrester and Ward 1986: 46–8, 52, Forrester 1990: 388).

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In the event, the TUC’s ‘two-pronged strategy’ of encouraging unions to enable the unemployed to become union members and of facilitating the development of ‘services for the unemployed’ through a national network of locally run TUCsponsored UWCs prevailed, and largely on its own terms. Many UWCs were indeed funded by the MSC, which ensured that they had to follow a particular organizational model, the main component of which was a joint management committee comprising local trade unionists and local authority appointees. The consequence of this was a peripheral role for the unemployed themselves, and a centralization of authority, with the Regional TUCs functioning as institutions of surveillance over the UWCs. Contrary to its earlier pronouncements regarding the need to work with the unemployed, the TUC, in practice, saw the UWCs’ success largely in terms of providing services for the unemployed: ‘the rationale appears to be “charitable” rather than political with centres “teaching” the unemployed about work and trade unions … [c]ollective action by the unemployed themselves was clearly not a goal of the TUC’ (Bagguley 1991: 118–22). With an overriding interest in the provision of services, the resulting forms of action were characteristically bureaucratic. This resulted from the imposition by the TUC of its own ‘microcorporatist’ model of organization, and partly from the involvement of the MSC (Bagguley 1991: 122, 1992: 458). In sum, when compared with the interwar unemployed movement, which was built and sustained by the unemployed themselves with critical help from radical political groupings beyond the mainstream labour movement, the UWCs of the 1980s were firmly anchored within the mainstream labour movement, dedicated to providing services for the unemployed rather than organizing them for collective action (Bagguley 1991: 21, 140, Barker, Lewis and McCann 1984: 391). Forrester and Ward (1986: 53) note that the UWCs were ‘never intended to provide a “mobilising vehicle” for the unemployed’ and consequently evolved as ‘a halfway house between trade union organizations of the unemployed and the provision of “public welfare” services’. Key to the demobilization and depoliticization of a potential movement of the unemployed was, it seems, the role of public funding, via the MSC, in supporting the UWCs (Barker, Lewis and McCann 1984: 401). In   This met with only limited success, given t�������������������������������� h������������������������������� at the substantial increase in unemployment between 1980 and 1982 was accompanied by an equally substantial loss of union membership, strongly suggesting that unions were failing both to retain unemployed members and to recruit new members from amongst the unemployed (Barker, Lewis and McCann 1984: 397, 391–400, Lewis 1989).  In 1983, a majority of the 210 existing UWCs were funded by the MSC; by 1985, of the more than 200 existing UWCs, 42 per cent were funded by the MSC, 37 per cent exclusively or mainly by local authorities and 21 per cent by volunteers. Approximately £6–7 million of public funds, evenly divided between the MSC and local authorities, were provided for the centres. In 1988, the TUC estimated that approximately £7–8 million were provided to the 180 existing UWCs, with 44 per cent of centres funded by local authorities, 39 per cent by the MSC and 17 per cent ‘voluntary’ (Forrester and Ward 1986: 48, Forrester 1990: 391).

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contrast, only in those relatively rare cases of local UWCs rejecting the support and participation of the MSC did anything resembling an independent movement of the unemployed, engaging in radical forms of collective protest, actually emerge. For the most part, the dominant role of UWCs as providers of services, rather than mobilizers, did little, if anything, to bridge the gap between unemployed and employed workers: as centre workers and users reiterate, an effective and national response to the problems faced by unemployed people will only develop when trade unions and their members seriously and systematically involve themselves in joint projects of understanding and activity with ‘their’ Centres. There is no automatic awareness of any ‘community of interests’; possibly there is the opposite (Forrester and Ward 1986: 55).

Overall, while the TUC campaigned in the 1980s for government measures to reduce unemployment, it stood apart – as in the interwar period – from the unemployed themselves. Yet given the problematic nature of the unemployed as a collectivity in the 1980s, a strategy of genuine mobilization on the part of the unions, instead of the consciously demobilizing strategy it actually adopted, may well have played a critical role in a way that it did not in the interwar period, when the unemployed possessed significantly greater resources with which to mobilize. Conclusions Reflecting on relations between the unions and the unemployed in the 1980s, Forrester (1990: 394) notes that ‘the central strategic ambiguity inherent within organizations representing the interests of waged workers additionally attempting to encompass the interests of the unwaged remains a crucial strategic issue facing the trade unions in the 1990s’. Yet in the event this was not the case. Overall unemployment trends in Britain were generally positive from the early 1990s onwards. After peaking at 3 million in the mid-1980s, unemployment fell below 2 million in 1990, and though rising again to more than 2.8 million in 1993, declined steadily thereafter. By June 2002, it had fallen to its lowest level (5.2 per cent) for   Bagguley (1991: 124–40, 202) presents the case of Brighton UWC, where the rejection of MSC funding, the presence of a radical local trade union movement and a vibrant local Unemployed Workers’ Union led to the emergence of an autonomous local movement of the unemployed. Even here, though, its successes were limited. Bagguley concludes that the political character of the local labour movement was crucial in shaping organizations of the unemployed. Conversely, Forrester and Ward (Forrester and Ward 1986: 52–3, Forrester 1990: 392) cite the cases of Sheffield, Newcastle and Bristol UWCs, all of which had their MSC funding withdrawn in the 1983–85 period for engaging in overly ‘political’ activities.

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more than 25 years (Heery, Kelly and Waddington 2003: 80, 91). After exceeding the EU average in 1980 (6.1 vs 5.0 per cent), Britain’s unemployment rate remained consistently below the EU average between 1990 (5.9 vs 7.4 per cent) and 2000 (6.0 vs 8.4 per cent) and, indeed, into the twenty-first century (Saint-Paul 2004: 50), leading some to label Britain, at least in terms of cutting unemployment and boosting job creation, as a European ‘success story’ (Pissarides 2003). As in the past, declining unemployment was generally favourable for organized labour. Union membership in Britain increased in 1998 for the first time in 19 years (by 50,600), and again in 1999 (by 45,600, before falling by 118,900 in 2000). Yet union density rates of 29.5 per cent in 2000 and 29.1 per cent in 2001 still remained well below the peak of just over 50 per cent in 1978–1979 (Pissarides 2003, Heery, Kelly and Waddington 2003: 79), reflecting how massive job loss in the first half of the 1980s (concentrated overwhelmingly in sectors of traditional union strength) and employment recovery in the 1990s (concentrated overwhelmingly in sectors of union weakness or absence) had undermined the foundations of trade unionism. In these circumstances, the emerging priority of the unions has been to dedicate increased resources to organizing the nonunionized sections of the workforce located in areas of employment growth. This strategic, albeit tentative, shift by the TUC towards an ‘organizing model’ similar to that adopted by the AFL-CIO and Change to Win in the United States was remarkably slow to crystallize, especially given the continuation in power of the Conservatives up to 1997 (Frege and Kelly 2003). The establishment by the TUC of an Organizing Academy in 1997 coincided with the return to power of the Labour Party (Heery, Kelly and Waddington 2003: 91). The new government’s Employment Relations Act of 1999 certainly encouraged union recognition and growth, thereby contributing to at least a halt in (though not reversal of) union membership decline. Yet this aside, the change of government did not produce significant pro-union changes in the legal framework, as Labour retained (as, indeed, it had pledged to do) much of the restrictive legislation introduced by the previous Conservative governments. Consequently, rather than seeking political salvation as a means of regaining power and influence, ‘British union leaders are well aware that organizing new members is a necessary precondition for union revitalization’ (Baccaro, Hamman, and Turner 2003: 123). There is now a substantial body of research examining the various incentives, problems and dilemmas that unions face in organizing the growing swathe of workers who until now have remained beyond their reach: from youths, women and immigrants located in temporary, part-time, unskilled, poorly paid subcontracted jobs to highly skilled technical and professional employees in greenfield worksites. In contrast, the unemployed – a diminished constituency anyway, in conditions of generally lower employment – may well have ceased to be an object of explicit concern for the unions. In his 1989 survey of the   See, for example, Badigannavar and Kelly (2005), Charlwood (2002, 2004), Heery (2002), Tomlinson (2005) and Waddington and Whitson (1997).

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limited success with which unions had retained or recruited members amongst the unemployed, Lewis (1989: 278) concluded that ‘unions are not perceived as having anything to do with the unemployed. They are organizations for people at work … the unemployed do not see any good reason for staying on in a union.’ It is highly unlikely that this situation has changed at the start of the twenty-first century. I have described in this chapter how the resources of the unemployed in the interwar period were sufficiently powerful to underpin the emergence of a powerful movement which, independently of the TUC, helped shape subsequent economic and social policy including, notably, the commitment of successive postwar governments to full employment. This commitment was the foundation for consistently rising levels of unionization, while its explicit withdrawal after 1979 drastically undermined union strength and membership. The resources enjoyed by the unemployed in the 1980s were not sufficient to underpin the emergence of an independent movement as in the interwar period, although unemployment was high enough to be perceived as a very significant threat to union interests, and to ensure that the fate of the jobless was an object of union concern. This led to various non-mobilizing initiatives on the part of the TUC including, above all, the establishment of the UWCs. Yet unlike the long postwar period of economic recovery following the interwar depression, employment growth since the 1980s has not led to an automatic revival of union fortunes. Declining density levels in the last two decades of the twentieth century, which only now have been possibly arrested, mean, inevitably, that the unions’ priority is that of boosting their presence amongst those in work. The fate of those seeking work – a problematic issue, at the best of times, for the unions – may now be of less concern than ever before.

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Chapter 6

Belgian Trade Unions, the Unemployed and the Growth of Unemployment Jean Faniel

Since the early 1970s, most of the Western European countries have been experiencing serious economic transformations, a so-called ‘crisis’, and high unemployment. The impact of those developments on trade unions has been a major issue in the academic literature for several years. Scholars have tried to examine the ways local, national and international unions faced those challenges and the answers those organizations gave to the problems brought up by the new context. Belgium was also affected by major economic changes and by a dramatic growth in unemployment in the aftermath of the two OPEC oil shocks of the 1970s. However, the position of the Belgian trade unions towards unemployment is quite peculiar. Indeed, along with Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Sweden (Lind 1996: 116), Belgium is roughly characterized by the so-called ‘Ghent system’ of unemployment insurance, involving trade unions not only in the management of unemployment insurance, but also in the payment of unemployment benefits. It thus seems interesting to look at the standpoint Belgian unions adopted facing the growth of unemployment and at the effects this increasing joblessness had on the strength, the actions and the organization of the Belgian trade unions. This chapter also aims to explore the specific features of the relationship between the Belgian unions and the unemployed. The first part develops theoretical reflections on the characteristics of trade union movements and their effects on the relationship between unions, unemployment and the unemployed. I then briefly describe the Belgian system of unemployment indemnification and present the role unions play in that scheme. The third section deals with the evolution of unemployment rates in Western Europe since the 1960s,   Some book titles at this period are particularly revealing of this new context: Les syndicats européens et la crise (Armingeon et al. 1981), Le syndicalisme face à la crise (Mouriaux 1986), Industrial Relations in the New Europe (Ferner and Hyman (eds) 1992), The Future of Labour Movements (Regini (ed.) 1992), The Challenges to Trade Unions in Europe. Innovation ������������������������ or Adaptation (Leisink, Van Leemput and Vilrokx (eds) 1996) and Syndicats: lendemains de crise? �������������� (Pernot 2005).   Further information on this kind of unemployment in���������������������������� su�������������������������� rance system can be found in Western (1997), Scruggs (2002) and Vandaele (2006).

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focusing on the case of Belgium. I then explore the evolution of Belgian unions’ discourse and practice before and after the dramatic growth of unemployment started in the 1970s. The final section turns back to the attitude of the Belgian unions towards their unemployed members and towards contentious action by the jobless. The evidence I point out is that the Belgian unions pay specific attention to the problem of unemployment, especially since the 1970s. However they leave few space for their unemployed members within their structures, although the numbers jobless have dramatically increased in the last three decades. Moreover, the attitude of the unions towards the mobilization of the jobless is ambiguous. I argue that the reasons for that situation are to be found both in the specific features of trade unionism, and in the difficulties the unemployed face when they try to organize collectively. Trade Unions, Unemployment and the Unemployed Unions and the Unemployed Historically, trade unions were created by people at work in order to improve and defend their workers’ situation. The main issues at stake have been related to wage increases, reduction of the working week or improvement of working conditions. The ‘classical’ definition of a trade union expressed by Webb and Webb (1894) reflects those preoccupations. Job security – especially that of their members – has also been an important element of unions’ priorities. Progressively, many unions developed an encompassing discourse based on solidarity. In one of the very few studies specifically dedicated to the relationship between trade unions and the unemployed, Richards points out that ‘unions have presented themselves … as inclusive working-class institutions, fighting for the rights and interests of workers as a whole’ (Richards 2000: 154), including the unemployed. However, he adds that ‘the language of trade unionism in capitalist countries has been complex and often contradictory’ (p.154) since unions aim at representing and defending a wider class solidarity but, in fact, frequently promote the interests of their ‘core’ rank and file, i.e. full-time, manual, skilled, white, male workers, employed in large plants with job stability (Hyman 1998: 135). In such a frame, the place of the unemployed in the unions has usually been marginal. They are a priori less concerned by salary increase or improvement of working conditions, they feel excluded from union activities most often based on the professional sections located at plant level and their reduced income does not encourage them to pay union subscriptions. These elements can explain why most  In the Webbs’s view, a trade union is ‘a continuous association of wage-earners for the purpose of maintaining or improving the conditions of their working lives’ (Webbs and Webbs 1894: Ch.1).

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of the unemployed remain outside of labour organizations and why they leave their unions when they lose their jobs, since they no longer see the necessity or the interest to be affiliated and because their contacts with their colleagues fade away (Visser 1994: 87). Besides the fact that the unions are ‘dominated’ by active workers, they are also bureaucratic organizations. Union leaders and experts usefully sustain and develop union action of the workers, but they also moderate it or even put a brake on the mobilization of the workers in order to make the protest more manageable (Mills 1948) and to preserve the stability of ‘their’ organizations. Through collective bargaining, union ‘bureaucracy’ is also influenced by the viewpoints of the employers and the state representatives (Hyman 1971, 1975). In order to present themselves as ‘responsible’ actors, they can be driven to accept important concessions. Moreover, since the leaders mainly come from the above-mentioned ‘core’ rank and file, they are more likely to preserve the interests of the latter to the detriment of the jobless. Many unions historically developed close links with political parties, especially in the social-democratic tradition (Valenzuela 1992, Slomp 1996). When the sisterparties are in office, such a relationship is likely to enable the unions to obtain improvements by the legislative route, but at the same time, unions can become the channel used by the government to impose unpopular reforms without enduring protests. One can expect to find such examples relating to the management of the unemployment scheme. Turning to the jobless side, one must acknowledge that the unemployed represent a difficult group to organize. There are several reasons for this (see Lazarsfeld, Jahoda and Zeisel 1933, Galland and Louis 1981, Demazière and Pignoni 1998, Fillieule 2000, Maurer 2001): the divergent profiles of the jobless, the lack of a shared identity stemming from that heterogeneity, their lack of resources and the difficulty of identifying a target to be opposed to, in comparison to an employee facing his employer. These two kinds of elements form a kind of vicious circle. As unions do not really manage or do not even really try to involve the unemployed in their activities or to add the claims of the jobless to their agenda, the latter feel ill at ease in those organizations and/or unsatisfied by the (in)action of the unions towards their situation of joblessness. In addition, as few unemployed workers are (active) members of unions, the latter do not seek to, or cannot, develop actions targeted on the problems related to unemployment. Even if they claim ‘to speak for and represent the interests of the unemployed’ (Richards 2000: 153), unions have thus adopted a more ambiguous attitude towards the real problems of that segment of the working class.

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Unions and Unemployment, Unemployment and the Unions One should not conclude that trade unions do not feel concerned by the problem of unemployment. The situation in the last three decades has raised important questions for the unions in a period of economic change and high unemployment. Important transformations have affected industrial relations in Western Europe since the late 1960s, with major consequences for trade unions. Hyman (1994) details the main factors that have modified that context. Among other elements, he points out the transformation and diversification of employment. The growing fragmentation of the working class also enhanced the internal tensions due to the enlargement of the range of different, even contradictory, interests (Bundervoet 1986: 20). Nevertheless, as Hyman (1992: 166) and Richards (2000: 154) insist, unions have never been homogenous organizations and always had to deal with divergent interests. This diversity only increased in recent decades. The growth in unemployment that started in the 1970s had different and even contradictory effects on unions’ attitudes. It induced trade unions to modify their discourse and their actions and to put the issue of employment forward (Slomp 1996). Several reasons may explain those evolutions. First, unions know that the existence of a large ‘reserve army’ (Marx 1867: Ch. 25) pulls down the general level of salaries and restrains union capacity to mobilize the workers, since they fear for their jobs. Second, those movements aim at ‘fighting for the rights and interests of workers as a whole – the employed, the precariously employed and the unemployed’ (Richards 2000: 154). Third, at least after a couple of lasting years of unemployment increase, even the unions’ core rank and file have been affected by shut-downs and joblessness. The significant and enduring level of unemployment not only affected union actions and discourse. It also raised two kinds of interrelated consequences for union strength. Besides the aforementioned loss of mobilizing capacity, the high level of joblessness influenced union density. This moved downwards in most countries, but upwards in those where unions are involved in the administration and payment of unemployment benefits, known as ‘Ghent system’ countries (Western 1997, Scruggs and Lange 2001, Scruggs 2002). In the first set of countries, this evolution led many unions to ‘retrea(t) to, and defen(d) the interests of, their core constituencies’ (Richards 2000: 161) and to move further away from the unemployed. Although the growth of unemployment increased the distance between unions and the unemployed, it has also generated some new experiences of union work with and/or for jobless people. An example is the creation of services dedicated to job hunting, which is the main task of the huge majority of the British TUC

 For detailed case studies of the increasing distance between ‘insiders’ (highly unionized stable workers) and ‘outsiders’ (mostly non-unionized precarious or unemployed workers), see Richards (2000) and Polavieja and Richards (2001).

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Unemployed Workers’ Centres. This can also take the form of (small) groups of jobless workers, where they can maintain or find new social contacts and help one another to solve daily problems. Those groups can also develop analysis about unemployment and give the other sections of the union confederations their standpoint on issues relating to their concerns. They can eventually try to organize the unemployed in order to fight for the creation of new jobs and for better living conditions and higher benefits. However, these attempts to develop union work with and/or for the unemployed remain limited, for the reasons pointed out in the previous section. Such experiences have different purposes. They seek to help the jobless, and to offer them the possibility of keeping in touch with union activities even after they have lost their jobs. They also aim at retaining union members who have become unemployed, in order to minimize their loss of membership and to prevent the unemployed from accepting low-paid jobs and thus endangering the active workers (Barker, Lewis and McCann 1984: 392–3). However, the purpose of such initiatives is also to keep the unemployed from organizing outside the unions and, possibly, on a more radicalized basis than some union leaders can accept. Looking at British, French and Spanish cases, Richards (2000: 176) observes that ‘whether or not movements of the unemployed have actually emerged, all major unions in all three countries have reacted warily to any potential independent threat posed by the unemployed to the unions’ cherished position as chief working-class lobbyists with respect to policies on employment and unemployment’. This brief overview shows that, even if trade unions claim to represent the whole working-class, including the unemployed, their relationship with the jobless is clearly an uneasy one. On the one hand, trade unions (at least at the interprofessional level) feel particularly concerned by the high level of unemployment, but on the other hand, their specific features, as well as the characteristics of the jobless, explain why trade unions largely remain organizations managed by and for active and stable workers, and why trade unions are reluctant to organize the unemployed and to engage into contentious actions with and for the jobless. The following sections aim to illustrate these theoretical reflections through the analysis of the Belgian case.

  Those centres could also have been used by the unions and/or the unemployed to mobilize the latter in order to improve their living conditions and the amount of their benefits, but this has hardly ever happened. For further information on those centres, see Barker, Lewis and McCann (1984), Forrester and Ward (1986), Forrester (1990), Lewis (1989) and Bagguley (1991: Ch. 5, 1992).   For further information about those activities, see among others Barker, Lewis and McCann (1984), Forrester and Ward (1986), Forrester (1990), Lewis (1989, 1990) and Bagguley (1991, 1992) for the UK; Ness (1998) for the US; Royall (1997, 2000) for Ireland; Béroud and Mouriaux (1998) and Demazière and Pignoni (1998: Ch. 2 and 4) for France; Richards (2000) and Polavieja and Richards (2001) for Spain; Raes (1986), and Faniel (2006a, b) for Belgium; and Chabanet (2002: 472–3) for an example at the European Union level.

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Belgian Unions and Unemployment Insurance Before examining the impact of the growth of unemployment on Belgian trade unions, it is necessary to present the unemployment scheme of the country. Indeed, unions play an important and peculiar part in the administration and indemnification of unemployment. In Belgium, since the end of World War Two, jobless workers can receive their unemployment benefits either via one of the three trade union confederations (Christian, socialist and liberal) or through a specific public institution called the CAPAC. However, few unemployed people choose the latter possibility and 85 per cent of the jobless are members of a trade union. The foundations of this particular10 system date back to the nineteenth century, when the early unions created mutual aid funds to help their members who were without jobs because of sickness, accident, old age or unemployment. Based on solidarity, these funds aimed to enable the workers to go on living, but also sought to keep the unemployed from working for a lower wage than their colleagues, with the consequent danger described above for the level of salaries. Belgium is a typical ‘pillarized country’, as defined by Lorwin (1971) and Lijphart (1981; also see Seiler 1997). In such a consociational democracy, political parties and trade unions of the same family are narrowly linked to each other. Hence several unions managed to consolidate their unemployment funds by asking public authorities to subsidize them (Vanthemsche 1985, 1994: 32–5). In 1900, the city of Ghent (where unions were strong) decided to complement the unemployment savings of the workers with a small sum of money. For the unionized unemployed, this benefit would be paid via the unions. Unions moreover participated in the management of those grants (Vanthemsche 1985, Van Daele 2002). This system spread very quickly and became known as the ‘Ghent system’. After World War One, a socialist became Minister of Employment for the first time. His actions were clearly influenced by the unions. He developed a system of state aids to the union funds, extending the advantages of being unionized when   Namely the Confédération des Syndicats Chrétiens/Algemene Christelijk Vakverbond (CSC/ACV) or ‘Confederation of Christian Trade Unions’, the socialist Fédération Générale du Travail de Belgique/Algemeen Belgisch Vakverbond (FGTB/ ABVV) or ‘General Labour Federation of Belgium’ and the Centrale Générale des Syndicats Libéraux de Belgique/Algemene Centrale der Liberale Vakbonden van België (CGSLB/ ACLVB) or ‘General Confederation of Liberal Trade Unions in Belgium’. In this chapter, I will use the French acronyms.   As its name reflects, the Caisse Auxiliaire de Paiement des Allocations de Chômage (‘Auxiliary Fund for the Payment of the Unemployment Benefits’) has only been created for the people who do not wish to be members of a union.   This figure has been quite constant in recent decades. See Vilrokx and Senden (1986: 25), Arcq (1993: 15) and Arcq and Aussems (2002: 22). 10  As already pointed out, only Danish, Finnish and Swedish unions also pay unemployment benefits.

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unemployed (Vanthemsche 1994: 35–8). Finally, in 1944, secret negotiations between unionists and employers’ delegates laid down the principles of the future compulsory unemployment insurance that is still in use. Part of the wages and the contributions of the employers are automatically levied and transferred to a division of the welfare system managed by the state and by representatives of the unions and employers. The socialist Minister of Employment decided that jobless people would still receive their unemployment benefits either via one of the three unions or via the CAPAC. In a situation of full employment, such a system should just enable the unions to control the evolution of unemployment insurance rules and to keep in touch with members who lose their jobs until they find new ones. However, a rapid and dramatic increase of joblessness can seriously change the situation. Evolution of Unemployment Rate A brief overview of the evolution of unemployment in Western Europe indicates some clear trends (Cameron 2001). First and foremost was the shift from a situation of full employment (with an average of 2.3 per cent for the 15 countries of the EU, p. 16) to high levels of unemployment after the oil shock of 1973–1974. This tendency not only remained clear, but intensified as the average unemployment rate climbed higher after each of the recessions of the mid-1970s, early 1980s and early 1990s (p. 12). All in all, the EU ‘experienced an average rate of unemployment of about 10 per cent, an almost fivefold increase from the average for the fifteen states in the 1960s’ (p. 7). Not every country, nor each region, has been affected in the same way, and not all categories of workers suffered in an identical measure. Cameron stresses the gender gap, as ‘the rate of unemployment among women in the EU was roughly … 33 per cent higher than that among men’ (Cameron 2001: 24). The youth has also been heavily affected, and young women are most afflicted by joblessness. A final observation shows an important and long-lasting increase in long-term unemployment (p. 24–8). In Belgium, the general unemployment curve has been roughly the same as that just described since the 1970s (Ministère fédéral de l’Emploi et du Travail 1998 and Institut national de Statistique 2002), and the other trends are quite similar as far as gender, age and unemployment duration are concerned. However, if we look at the period before 1970, things are more complex. Although the 1960s can be considered as quite prosperous years, the preceding decade was a more troubled one as far as economic development and unemployment are concerned. Yet the following decades were to be even worse. Right from 1974, unemployment grew very rapidly, doubling between the beginning and the end of 1975 and reaching an unprecedented level two years later (Ministère fédéral de l’Emploi et du Travail 1998: 12). This increase went on and Belgium passed the figure of 500,000 unemployed workers (11.8 per cent) at the

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end of 1983 (Ministère de l’Emploi et du Travail 1992: part two, 1).11 Joblessness fell back to 350,000 in 1989 (7.7 per cent) before starting to increase again. The new decline that had started in 1993 reversed in 2001. Unfortunately, several changes in the method of counting unemployment make the comparison difficult from the second part of the 1980s and one has to be content with examining the general trends.12 The youth were among the first to suffer from the economic recession and the growth of unemployment. In the second part of the 1970s this was because they were largely affected by economic restructuring and from the early 1980s it was because new workers arriving on the employment market suffered from a lack of jobs. Women were also very much affected by the growth of unemployment, and they have had far less access than male workers to institutional possibilities of leaving joblessness such as early retirement (Ministère fédéral de l’Emploi et du Travail 1998: 85–93). These two categories do not form the usual ‘core membership’ of the unions, but male workers of the industrial sectors also contributed to unemployment and the increasing service sector could not absorb that kind of insufficiently skilled workforce. Later, therefore, the traditional union constituency was hit by increasing levels of joblessness as well. However, the older blue-collar male workers benefited more than other groups from early retirement schemes. Evolution of Belgian Union Membership As mentioned above, the growth in unemployment that started in the 1970s caused a serious decrease in union density in most western European countries (Western 1997, Scruggs and Lange 2001, Scruggs 2002). However, an inverse trend was observed in the countries where unions were involved in the administration and payment of unemployment benefits. Belgium fits this model particularly well.13 In the 1980s, Belgian union density stagnated. The socialist FGTB even endured a loss of membership between 1981 and 198814 (Ebbinghaus and Visser 2000: CDROM). However, they were certainly in a better situation than the French, British, German and Dutch unions,15 and the 1990s showed an undeniable increase in the membership of all three Belgian confederations (Arcq and Aussems 2002). 11  The total population of Belgium is around 10,000,000 inhabitants. 12  In 2004, official figures ranged from 435,000 (8.8 per cent) to 710,000 (14.4 per cent), depending on the definitions of ‘joblessness’. 13  This was already so in the 1920s and in the 1930s. See Vanthemsche (1994). 14  The FGTB reported about 1,127,000 members in 1981, 1,005,000 in 1988 and 1,117,000 in 1993 (Ebbinghaus and Visser 2000: CD-ROM). 15  Between 1970 and 1995, union density fell from 21 to less than 9 per cent in France; from 48 to 32 per cent in the UK and from 40 to 30 per cent in the Netherlands. In Germany, the decrease was much more limited, going from 37.7 to 35.5 per cent (Ebbinghaus and Visser 2000: CD-ROM).

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More detailed figures show that the growing number of unemployed in the 1980s and their significant union density greatly contributed to maintaining the level of union membership. Setting aside the jobless affiliates makes the decrease in the active workers (or ‘net’) union density apparent (Ebbinghaus and Visser 2000: 14, Vandaele 2005). Such a phenomenon was no longer observable in the 1990s, mainly because unemployment decreased in the second part of the decade. However the important role played by the unions in the unemployment scheme still influenced their membership growth. This was firstly because many people no longer included in the official unemployment statistics were still (at least partly) remunerated through their unions, e.g. when they entered the ‘old jobless’ specific status, and also because some active workers joined their unions when they were unemployed and kept their affiliations afterwards. Finally, it was due to the increased precariousness of jobs increasing the number of people moving between employment and unemployment. Union Discourse: A Strong Emphasis on Employment I have argued that unemployment is an important concern for the trade unions. Indeed, the level of (un)employment is carefully analysed in the congress reports of the Belgian unions. Joblessness was clearly a subject of concern in the 1950s, and even in the ‘golden 1960s’ full employment did not completely disappear from union claims, although the two main Belgian confederations focused instead on wage increases and some qualitative demands (Faniel 2006a: Ch. 7). More specifically, the situation of the unemployed was presented in the union reports of both decades, but discussed in a changing manner throughout that period. Union claims insisting on unemployment benefits increased in the periods of economic growth (CSC 1962: 14, FGTB 1962: 128–9, 1965: 143, 1968: 11), but during years of high level of unemployment Belgian trade unions instead called for an enlargement of the indemnification conditions and opposed so-called government ‘jobless hunting’ (CSC 1953: 576–7, FGTB 1951: 35, 1953: 63–4, 1956: 249–57). Within this general picture, some differences appear between the two confederations, relating mainly to the presence of their sister-parties in office or in opposition (Faniel 2006a: Ch. 7). Since 1975, union reports have reflected the concern with the growth in unemployment. The April 1975 FGTB congress still dealt with the improvements and wage increases obtained, but it also put forward the issue of full employment (FGTB 1975: 36–8). In 1975, the level of unemployment doubled in Belgium. The CSC congress held in December clearly made full employment its priority and accepted wage restraints (CSC 1975: VI); it also promoted working time reduction. This position was confirmed in 1980 (CSC 1980). The socialist union centred its 1978 and 1981 statutory congresses on employment, but firmly rejected wage restraints (FGTB 1981: 116), calling for a large working time reduction without

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loss of income, which is a major difference from the CSC’s position (Beaupain 1985a: 14). If both unions thus clearly insisted on the necessity of reducing unemployment, the FGTB refused to swap wages for jobs. The last two decades have confirmed the link between the evolution of unemployment and union stress on the reduction of joblessness. The early 1980s and early 1990s experienced a new growth in joblessness. In its activity report of 1986 (focusing on the previous years) and its extraordinary congress of 1994, the FGTB paid particular attention to the issue of employment. However, the 1986 resolutions (adopted in an improving context) instead dealt with wage claims and some demands centred on union activities at plant level (Beaupain 1986: 62–3). More recent congresses of both the CSC and the FGTB have considered unemployment to be of secondary importance (CSC 2002b, FGTB 2001). Joblessness indeed greatly decreased in Belgium in the second part of the 1990s. There nevertheless remained more than 350,000 unemployed in the 2001 official statistics (Institut national de Statistique 2002: 14). Thus, it is clear that during recent years the active workers have managed to impose their wage priorities on their confederations, much more effectively than the unemployed members have done with their own priorities. It is also probable that a kind of weariness is affecting the unions after nearly three decades of struggle for the defence of employment. Nonetheless, the issue of solidarity between the active workers and those in unemployment has been reasserted by every congress of both confederations. Through the years, unions have also paid more and more attention to increased job precariousness, flexibility, part-time work and so on (FGTB 1989: 100, 1997: 9–10, CSC 2002a: 5). This evidently reflects the evolution of employment itself, since a full-time, well-paid and stable job is less and less easy to find. Unions clearly became aware of the internal tensions that the increasing differences between stable and precarious workers (and their respective interests) could cause. They regularly reassert the necessity of solidarity between all parts of the workforce and recommend developing differentiated actions for, and paying specific attention to, the outlying segments of the workforce (Faniel 2006a: Ch. 10). However, concrete actions have contrasted with that discourse. Union Actions and the Growth of Unemployment The explosion in joblessness that Belgium experienced from the second part of the 1970s onwards not only had consequences for union discourse, but also for the action and the structures of the trade unions. Although Belgian union density remained at a high level in spite of the growth of unemployment, the jobless members do not present the same features as those at work. This is important in the balance of power between the employers and the state and it meant that the Belgian unions were not protected from being weakened by the increase in unemployment.

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The large number of people in search of a job put pressure on the wage demands of the active workers. The salaries not only grew very slowly after 1974, but they even decreased in a large proportion in the early 1980s, when the government imposed wage restraints (Van Ruysseveldt and Visser 1996: 215). In the field of collective bargaining, the so-called ‘social partners’ could no longer reach national multi-industry agreements between 1976 and 1986 (with the exception of a minimal agreement in 1981), as they completely disagreed on the necessary measures to overcome the recession, on the level of wages and on the distribution of wealth. The unions could also not impose their views to the employers, among other reasons because of the pressure of the high level of unemployment, but also because it became more difficult for them to mobilize their rank and file as the number of traditional male, blue-collar, full-time and stable workers was decreasing and they were being replaced by new categories of employees who were difficult to organize, i.e. female, young, white-collar workers, those in a precarious job situations or working in small and mediumsized enterprises (Beaupain 1985b: 27). The growing number of closing firms also had an impact on unions, as they lost many active and well-trained militants. These people most often remained union members, but as they no longer had their jobs, they very frequently had to give up their delegate’s mandates in their sectional unions. Some felt angry with, and abandoned by, their unions (Colicchio 1992: 12). At plant level, unions and their members have often been confronted with difficult situations. In many cases, even those affiliated to the FGTB chose to defend employment at the expense of wages, in contradiction with the official position of the socialist union presented above. This sometimes led to important loss of income for the workers (Lisein-Norman 1984: 51–3), and in some cases this was useless as the firms closed down a few months later. These are some of the effects the high level of joblessness had on the unions, and principally their members at work. Indeed, as Richards (2000: 162) puts it, ‘when (industrial conflict) has been undertaken in resistance to job losses and/or factory closures …, it is, again, of primary concern to those still in work, rather than those already out of work’. Nevertheless, Belgian unions also set up large mobilizations in favour of employment in the late 1970s and the early 1980s (CSC 1986: 143, and Peiren et al. 1997: 93), and for an improvement in the living conditions of the retired, the unemployed and all other people receiving a social benefit, in 1998, 2001, 2003 and 2004. Those demonstrations gathered in jobless as well as active workers. On the other hand, the persistent importance of unemployment led the unions to be especially attentive, in the collective bargaining (when it took place; Peiren et al. 1997: 97, 101) or through the various semi-public organs in which union officials are represented, to the creation of jobs and to the situation of the unemployed. However, union leaders and experts representing the jobless in state bodies dealing with the situation of the unemployed are subject to pressures from the employers and government representatives. This led them to accept reforms

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restricting access to unemployment insurance and operating cuts in benefits, as they prefer to accommodate and limit such reforms rather than spending time and energy in the organization of groups of unemployed whose claims would probably be more radical than union leaders can accept.16 The high level of unemployment also modified the relationship between the Belgian trade unions and their unemployed rank and file. This concerned, on the one hand, the services the former provided to the latter and, on the other hand, the way the union organization and mobilization of the jobless evolved. Union Services for the Unemployed As the number of unemployed people increased, the administrative workload of the unions increased, due to their function of paying the unemployment benefits. Consequently, their number administrative employees grew as well17 (Faniel 2006a: Ch. 9). Although these people are remunerated from grants from the National Office of Employment, and not from union subscriptions, this evolution nevertheless illustrates the growing importance that the management of unemployment benefits took in the daily union activities. In the late 1970s, it slowly became apparent that the employment crisis was not transient. It was them vital to improve the situation of the unemployed and not only to help them to find jobs. However, trade unions were clearly ill-prepared for such a situation (Colicchio 1992: 12). Some regional union sections consequently developed new services for their unemployed members in order to inform them, to assist them in their administrative difficulties or to accompany and defend them when they were summoned to appear before the inspectors of the National Office of Employment. However, this evolution has been quite uneven and differs very much from one regional section to the other, even in the same confederation. This is partly related to the uneven development, at regional level, of unemployment as well. Union Organization of the Unemployed A final point relates to the organization and mobilization of the unemployed inside the Belgian union confederations.18 As mentioned above, the growing level of unemployment induced an increase in the number of jobless in union membership, but the relationship between the unemp��������������������������������������� l�������������������������������������� oyed and their unions is rather of an administrative nature. Some small groups of jobless rank and file nevertheless 16  As an example, see Faniel (2005). 17  Precise data about union staff are very hard to find. As an example, the figure I could obtain for the FGTB concerning the area of Liège – an important, early industrialized city in Wallonia, first struck by coalmine shut-downs and then by the restructuring of the iron and steel industry – indicate an almost threefold increase in the number of employees appointed to the unemployment indemnification department between 1972 and 1993. 18  I examine this issue more in the detail in Faniel (2006b).

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emerged from the late 1970s, especially in large cities enduring a very high unemployment rate, like Charleroi (Caroyez 1981, and Colicchio 1992: 12–13). In the early 1980s, the young and female unemployed were particularly numerous and then became targets of the restrictions applied to the unemployment insurance access (Colicchio 1992: 12, Delvaux 1994: 114–15). Not surprisingly, those two groups were among the first inside the unions to deal with the problems of the unemployed. They informed the unemployed (e.g. the youth leaving school and applying for unemployment benefits), organized them and set up actions for employment creation or against government reforms of the unemployment scheme. Subsequently, some jobless union rank and file gathered in specific groups called ‘Comités de travailleurs sans emploi’ (‘Workers without jobs Committees’). That name, preferred to the expression ‘Comité de chômeurs’, clearly indicates their attachment to their identity as workers and their transient condition of joblessness. Those committees gradually formed at regional and national level. In the early 1980s, both the CSC and the FGTB created ‘Commissions de travailleurs sans emploi’ and gave their regional structures the responsibility of ensuring their smooth running, but it quickly became apparent that those organs did not receive sufficient means to fulfil their purpose. The few officials assigned to the organization of those commissions were moreover very often taken up with administrative tasks and the daily individual defence of unemployed affiliates. The role of those commissions inside union confederations decision-making process is also very limited. At CSC 2002 congress, the national official in charge of the organization of the unemployed asked for a kind of internal franchise for the jobless rank and file, but the power clearly remains in the hands of the professional unions. Those organizations focus on the defence of their active militants, i.e. those at work. This also explains why they are not very prone to allocating resources to the confederations in order to organize the unemployed. On the other hand, however, confirming Richards’ (2000: 176) assertion, Belgian unions dread the jobless organizing on their own, outside the unions, and potentially in a too radical way. This can partly explain why union leadership nevertheless slowly embraced the unemployed groups most often set up by the rank and file themselves. In spite of their limited development, their restricted place in union structures, their divisions between CSC and FGTB groups and even between the regional parts of a same confederation (Colicchio 1992: 15), those committees obtained some important improvements in the situation of the jobless. As an example, the particular status created for the older unemployed is partly the result of the campaigns those people carried out themselves, progressively taken up by union confederations at large (Faniel 2006b). This case points out the transformation of those groups’ members through the years, in relation to the changing face of unemployment itself. If the young unemployed were among the most active in the late 1970s and the early 1980s, the militant jobless of the late 1980s rather were previous workers, laid off from closing firms and too young to get early retirement.

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This heterogeneity illustrates one of the many difficulties in organizing the unemployed. Coupled with the aforementioned obstacles to developing structures for the unemployed inside unions set up by and for employees at work, and with the reluctance of the union representatives to organize the unemployed for contentious action, these elements explain why union groups of the unemployed have emerged in the Belgian unions but still remain of limited importance, despite a high level of joblessness and a high union density of the unemployed. Conclusion Trade unions are organizations historically established by active workers, in order to defend their interests and improve their situation. Their relationship with unemployment and the jobless workers has always been an uneasy one, as shown in the first section of this chapter. As they aim to be the representatives of the working class as a whole, the interprofessional unions have often adopted an encompassing discourse, including the unemployed, frequently based on the value of solidarity. Moreover, the downward pressure of unemployment on the general level of salaries has also concerned the unions, which sought to keep the jobless from working for starvation wages. On the other hand, union priorities are mostly defined by their core members, i.e. people at work. Most of the time, the unemployed thus see unions as organizations for the workers with jobs, not for them. Moreover, the specific options of the union bureaucracy, as well as the close links with unions’ sister-parties, push trade unions to accept reforms worsening the condition of the unemployed rather than choosing to oppose them and reinforcing the collective organization of the unemployed. In some cases, unions have nevertheless developed particular ties with the jobless. In Belgium and some Scandinavian countries, those links remain up to the present day, and unions are still involved in the administration and payment of unemployment benefits. The purpose of this chapter was to discuss the impact that the dramatic increase of unemployment starting in the 1970s has had on unions in such a ‘Ghent system’ country. It was shown that the union membership of the unemployed maintained the gross union density at a very high level during the 1980s. However, this did not keep Belgian unions from being largely weakened by the high level of unemployment reached in the last two decades, and the workers endured serious wage restrictions and development of flexibility. However, union discourse also altered and the issue of employment became central in most congresses of the CSC and the FGTB in the last 30 years, although topics like wages or some qualitative demands sometimes come forward again when the economic situation seems to improve. This partly reflects tensions between the interests of active workers looking for better salaries and working conditions and those of the unemployed in search of jobs.

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Union organization of the unemployed developed as well from the late 1970s onwards, but it remained limited and the influence of the unemployed in the union decision-making process is still very restricted today, compared with their important presence among the affiliates.19 The consequence is that Belgian unions are often viewed as rather ‘administrative’ organs, and many jobless (or even active workers) consider their union membership as a kind of insurance more than an act of solidarity (Vilrokx and Senden 1986: 30–35). This survey indicates that the growth of unemployment undeniably modified the Belgian trade unions in the last three decades. Those organizations faced new problems and had to find new solutions. They also developed new tasks and had to adapt their existing services. They eventually set up commissions of the unemployed, though those groups have remained marginal. However, Belgian trade unions largely remain organizations led by their core members, i.e. the workers with jobs. They thus roughly fit into the model of the relationship between trade unions and the unemployed described in the theoretical framework, although their peculiar and ancient links with the jobless have also caused the Belgian unions to be more attentive to the situation and concerns of the unemployed than most of the other trade unions in western Europe, described by Richards (2000) and Polavieja and Richards (2001). Belgian unions still face many challenges. The rate of unemployment remains at a high level. Flexibility and job precariousness have seriously increased in recent decades, with all the problems they involve for union strength. Small and mediumsized enterprises, where unionization is so difficult, represent an increasing proportion of the economic activity and of the workforce. And globalization, as well as the path followed by the European construction on economic and social issues, threatens the living conditions of workers and weakens their unions, restricting the number of stable workers on which unions are set up. Although the Belgian unions generally survived the dramatic increase in unemployment, all their difficulties thus have not been settled yet.

19 In recent years, they have represented about 20 per cent of the Belgian union membership (Arcq and Aussems 2002), but in some occupational unions and in some regions, this proportion is sometimes much higher for historical, s����������������� ocio-economic or opportunity reasons.

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Chapter 7

Political Challengers, Service Providers or Service Recipients? Participants in Irish Pro-unemployed Organizations Frédéric Royall

This chapter reflects on the roles, status and motivations of people associated with Irish organizations in aid of the unemployed and discusses key issues concerning the ways these organizations function. My main argument is that a state-driven approach to community development has taken place in Ireland. This situation has had major implications for organizations in aid of the unemployed and for the people involved in them. One consequence has been the development of better conditions for service delivery to the disadvantaged/marginalized, including the unemployed. Another result, however, is that the unemployed themselves have become marginalized actors within the very structures that act in their name or on their behalf. As in many other European countries, unemployment has become a major political issue in the Republic of Ireland and, in turn, a key area of academic interest. Research on unemployment in Ireland can be categorized as falling within one of five broad areas. In the first case, a number of studies have focused on government policies and considered the position of unemployed people in terms of age, gender, social class, geographical distribution, etc. (Browne and McGettigan 1993, Clark and Kavanagh 1998, Conniffe and Kennedy 1984, Fitzgerald 2005, Kennedy 1993, Layte and O’Connell 2001, O’Casaide 1983, Walsh 1974). In the second research area, political and economic reasons for historically high rates of unemployment have been analysed and factors attributed to – amongst others – inefficiencies of state and semi-state bodies (Lee 1989), rigidities in domestic labour market policies (Fest, 1990), prevalent traits of the Irish political culture (O’Toole, 1993); ad hoc decision-making tendencies of central public authorities (Bond 1988, Royall 1993); the lack of economic competitiveness (Bradley 1989, Barry and Bradley 1990); or inappropriate policy orientations (Crotty 1986). In a third area, many studies focused on the ways that unemployment affects people ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   In recent years, one key research project analysed the political mobilization of the unemployed in a European context (see http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/eurpolcom/unempol/index. cfm) (accessed 9 January 2007). See also a special issue of Mobilization: An International Journal on the contentious politics of unemployment (volume 13, no. 3).

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socially, economically and/or psychologically (Callan et al. 1996, Stewart 1999, Whelan, Hannon and Creighton 1991b, Whelan 1992, World Health Organization 1985). Also included in this category are various analyses that sought to assess the views of the unemployed regarding their experience of unemployment (Council for Social Welfare 1996, McCann and Roynane 1992, Roynane and Creedon 1991). Fourth, since the mid-1990s some researchers have tried to determine the reasons for and the social and economic consequences of Ireland’s falling rate of unemployment. For example, Cédric Tille and Kei-Mu Yi (2001) compared Ireland’s economic performance with that of other small open economies. Other studies in this area concentrated on the social and economic measures that could be taken to improve labour market flexibility so as to maintain growth and prosperity (O’Connell and McGinnity 1997, Tansey 1998) or on the measures needed to encourage young, long-term unemployed people in particular to access the reenergized and liberalized labour market (Layte and O’Connell 2005). Also included in this category are various practical guides published to help the unemployed to understand their rights and entitlements at a time of sustained economic growth and prosperity (Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed 2008). A final category – focusing on the issue of the collective action of unemployed people – has only recently begun to be the subject of research, despite the fact that particularly since the mid-1980s unemployed people in Ireland as those in other European countries have overcome various obstacles to collective action and organized (Chabanet and Faniel, forthcoming). Some studies have reviewed historical examples of the mobilization of unemployed people (Darndale/Belcamp Centre for the Unemployed 1986, Kearns 1987, Kilmurray 1988). Other research initiatives looked at the political and institutional constraints and opportunities facing unemployed people in their endeavour to act collectively (Royall 2005: 35–60). Others still attempted to uncover how unemployed people overcame the various obstacles to mobilization and reviewed unemployed people’s mobilization of resources (McGinn and Allen 1991, O’Neill 1994) and their alliance-building strategies with other low-resourced groups at national or international levels (Rafferty 1990, Royall 2002) or with trade union organizations (Bond 1989, Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed 1990, Monks 1994). Other studies described how protest activities were initiated and identified the various types of actions which were used (Royall 2000), and Mike Allen (1993, 1998) in particular gave a personal account of and reflected on activism on behalf of the unemployed. The examples drawn from this fifth category show a growing interest in and an awareness of issues concerning the collective action of the unemployed. However, contrary to recent research initiatives in France, for example, little attention has been paid in Ireland to the reasons that account for how and why people participate in low-resourced groups such as organizations in aid of the unemployed. Similarly, no study has discussed the various types of relationships that exist between these people and the organizations in which they work, of which they are members or to which they turn for help. Why do people become involved in or turn to

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organizations in aid of the unemployed? What types of people become involved in or turn to these organizations? Does participation in these organizations inevitably lead to collective action? Recent research from around Europe has attempted to answer such questions. For instance, in looking at the reasons why some French unemployed people participated in the renowned social movement of the winter of 1997–1998, Sophie Maurer (2001) assessed their motivations and expectations. For his part, Ndongo Samba Sylla (2004) looked at what motivates of unemployed people to become involved in unemployment organizations and analysed their relationships with the organizations. Marie-Françoise Loubet-Grosjean (2005) focused her research on unemployed people who volunteer their services. She tried to assess whether volunteering is a social activity similar to paid employment, if it is viable as an alternative and if it encourages people to forge closer ties with each other. These studies form part of a burgeoning literature that looks at the actors who provide support for or take up issues on behalf of weaker members of society. Many more such studies look at the motives and patterns of activism aimed at helping others. Generally encompassed under the heading of ‘solidarity actions’ (Zorn 2007) and/or of ‘political altruism’ (Giugni and Passy 2001), the literature is most relevant for this study and theoretically underpins some of its findings. In short, the object of this chapter is a modest attempt to answer some of these questions and to consider some of the implications of people’s involvement in prounemployed organizations. To do this the chapter is divided into two parts. Firstly, some organizational and social issues that may be particular to the Irish case and helpful in understanding it are reviewed. Next, I discuss some of the empirical findings that emerged from a research project that is the subject of this chapter. This part offers an exploratory snapshot of the people that are associated with Irish organizations in aid of the unemployed.  ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Empirical research was carried out between August and December 2005. A first part entailed a series of 40 semi-structured face-to-face and telephone interviews with people associated with organizations in aid of the unemployed throughout the Republic of Ireland (15 with full-time and part-time staff, 25 with unemployed people). A general ‘interview guide’ formed the basis of the interviews. The ‘interview guide’ drew on the following categories: personal details (age, gender, marital status, etc.); expectations and desires; type of organization; work carried out; changes in the work carried out over the past ten years; ways unemployed people are involved in the organization, etc. Next, I circulated 910 questionnaires by post to 70 pro-unemployed organizations throughout the Republic of Ireland during October/November 2005. These organizations were selected because they are affiliated to the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed (INOU). A few of these organizations work solely with unemployed people, but most simply deal with unemployed people as part of their general brief. Nonetheless, all of these organizations – as part of the wider social and community sector – are involved in one way or another in issues of concern to the unemployed. The questionnaires targeted both ‘staff/activists’ and unemployed people within the organizations. By the end of 2005, 280 questionnaires were returned from 28 organizations throughout the country (154 from ‘staff/activists’ and 126 from unemployed people).

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Preliminary Remarks and Observations Although in the following pages I put forward a tentative sketch of the people involved in Irish organizations in aid of the unemployed and offer some explanations for their involvement, I do not review examples of the mobilization of the unemployed in recent years as this issue has been addressed abundantly elsewhere (e.g. Royall 2007, forthcoming). Nonetheless, it is clear that the economic context in which the unemployed mobilized in Ireland in the mid-2000s is vastly different from that of the 1980s or of the early 1990s and the country is no longer characterized by widespread poverty, emigration and chronic unemployment. For example, when the INOU was established in 1985, the rate of unemployment stood at 17 per cent and there was a negative net migration rate of approximately 30,000 people in the 1980s. Since the late 1990s, Ireland has been noted for its dynamic economy, low unemployment rate, inward migration flows and rising levels of employment, even if the economic situation has deteriorated very rapidly in recent years (Barry 1999, Department of Finance 2004). Economic prosperity since the mid-1990s has also ensured that the issue of unemployment is no longer as politically salient as it was in the previous decades and that the unemployed no longer mobilize to the same extent and in the same ways (Royall 2007). However, despite major social and economic changes, some sectors of Irish society continue to suffer from high rates of unemployment, poverty and social exclusion and so a major challenge facing public authorities is to adopt appropriate policies to address these issues (Allen 2000, Ireland 2005, Kirby 2002).  ���� See http://www.cso.ie/qnhs/default.htm, various years (accessed on 29 May 2007).  ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� The mean growth rate of the economy was 9 per cent from 1994 to 2002. Gross national product averaged 5.8 per cent from 1997 to 2003 and the gross domestic product averaged 7.6 per cent. The rate of unemployment fell from a high of 15.5 per cent in 1995 to 3.7 per cent in 2001, and rose slightly to 4.4 per cent by February 2007. The employment rate increased from 45.4 per cent in 1994 to 68.1 per cent in 2006. See http://epp.eurostat. cec.eu.int/portal/page?_pageid=1090,30070682,1090_33076576&_dad=portal&_ schema=PORTAL (accessed 24 April 2007). See also various Central Statistics Office publications including its annual Measuring Ireland’s Progress, issued on 30 April 2007, at http://www.cso.ie/releasespublications/documents/other_releases/2006/progress2006/ measuringirelandsprogress.pdf (accessed on 3 May 2007).  �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� According to Irish 2006 census figures, the two social categories of persistent unemployment are members of the traveling community and the disabled (see http://www. cso.ie/census/Census2006Results.htm (accessed 23 April 2007). A number of people in specific geographical areas also experience social and economic deprivation due to sustained high rates of unemployment (e.g. near or above 40 per cent): in isolated rural settings (e.g. Knocknalower, Co. Mayo), in inner-city areas or in some of the newer suburban public housing estates (such as in Cork’s Knocknaheny, Dublin’s Ballyfermot or Clondalkin, Limerick’s Southill or Moyross or Waterford’s Ballybeg). In addition, almost one-fifth of the country’s population is at risk of poverty according to latest research. This was one of the highest rates in the EU 27. See the Central Statistics Office’s Measuring Ireland’s

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Economic change has also had an influence on civil society actors and organizations in terms of their participation in the management of labour market affairs and in the provision of services to disadvantaged/marginalized people such as the unemployed. This is because since the early 1980s there has been a phenomenal growth in the number of community and voluntary sector organizations as well as major changes in the functions they carry out (Duggan and Roynane 1992, Faughan and Kelleher 1993, O’Sullivan 1999). Some authors have argued that this development has been encouraged by public authorities as a means by which to divest themselves of responsibility for the provision of a host of social and economic services and for the implementation of many policy measures at a time of major economic and social change and uncertainty (Kooiman 1993: 249–62). Thus, it is argued, public authorities maintain ultimate decision-making control but increasingly devolve responsibility for the implementation of many labour market measures to non-governmental organizations. In the Irish case, such an argument also underlines the fact that, although community and voluntary sector organizations provide more and more goods and services to the wider community, they do so under the strict guidelines and control of public authorities, thereby undermining their own autonomy and independence (Peillon 2001: 40–44). As Rosie Meade (2005: 361) states: [The state in Ireland] envisages itself as ‘nurturing’, ‘strengthening’ and ‘developing’ civil society … [but] state intervention is designed to generate a particular kind of civil society – one that bolsters the neo-liberal consensus, compensates for public sector withdrawal and studiously avoids critical assaults on state power [leading to] an increasingly ‘manufactured civil society’ and the hegemonization of a top-down model of active citizenship (ibid.: 360).

State control and the use of discretionary power are recurrent sources of worry for community and voluntary organizations that should not be understated, particularly since many organizations depend increasingly on state-sponsored programmes for short-term or on-going funding. My research findings confirm this trend. I note that public authorities have allowed some organizations in aid of the unemployed – as members of the wider community and voluntary sector – to become actively involved in the unemployment policy sector and to play a key role in dealing with issues of poverty, social exclusion and/or unemployment. My findings also show that devolution in the unemployment policy sector has had a profound impact on these organizations in two other key areas: from the point of view of the activities they carry out and at the level of the roles of individuals within these structures.

Progress, issued on 30 April 2007, at http://www.cso.ie/releasespublications/documents/ other_releases/2006/progress2006/measuringirelandsprogress.pdf (accessed on 3 May 2007).

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In the first case, although this study focuses on the 70-odd community-based organizations that were identified as being active on the issue of unemployment by late 2005, a number of them simply cannot be described as organizations of the unemployed. None of the organizations is predominantly composed of unemployed people and very few indeed focus strictly on the issue of unemployment. Rather, they are organizations that belong to the wider community and voluntary sector and that address the issue of unemployment as one of their many briefs. For example, few of the organizations under review here deal solely with unemployed people. A number of them are concerned principally with the disabled, whereas others focus above all on former prisoners, members of the travelling community, lone parents, AIDS sufferers, drug addicts, the homeless, asylum seekers and/or refugees. All of these organizations strive to help – and/or to act on behalf of – constituents of their various target groups, many of whom may be unemployed. In other words, it is rather difficult to classify these various organizations along clearly prescribed and predetermined lines – i.e. those that are unemployment organizations and those that are not. In addition, many of the organizations that would have dealt almost exclusively with or acted solely on behalf of unemployed people in the mid to late 1980s have branched out and now deal with many different types of disadvantaged/ marginalized people and concentrate on a host of general, community-based issues such as homelessness, educational disadvantage or drug use. Other organizations amalgamated and some simply no longer exist. In any event, since the late 1980s few organizations would describe themselves as solely of the unemployed. This is why I prefer to refer to them all as either pro-unemployed organizations or as organizations in aid of the unemployed. Change has also taken place in the range of activities that these various pro-unemployed organizations carry out. Over time, many of the organizations seem to have moved steadily away from campaigning or advocacy in favour of service provision/delivery. One reason for this change is the fact that in the mid to late 1980s many of them had severe problems of funding and so concentrated most of their energies on cheap-to-run, campaign-oriented activities while at times providing skeletal services to unemployed people such as welfare rights information. However, many of them also became very much involved in the provision of various types of welfare services from the early 1990s. This situation arose following the creation of a number of mainly European Community-funded programmes – managed and ultimately controlled by central public authorities – that encouraged service provision/delivery by community-based organizations.  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� I use these terms in the interest of brevity although I do acknowledge that they may be subject to debate. See also Zorn (2007).  ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� This trend is not unlike what some authors have observed in other movements, such as the feminist movement. For an example of the shift in feminist movements from political activism to the provision of professional services see R. Amy Elman (2003).  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� The main state agencies and the Department of Health and Children, the Department of Social and Family Affairs and the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs.

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In truth, welfare delivery by voluntary – most often religious – organizations has existed in Ireland for many decades, although in recent years there has been an increased blurring of the boundary between the provision/delivery of services by the state and by community and voluntary organizations. Thus, by the early 1990s, many organizations in aid of the unemployed seized the opportunity to apply for available public funds and began to participate in the various programmes as community-based service providers. Today, many of these organizations offer a very wide range of services to the unemployed and to other disadvantaged/ marginalized people such as information technology training courses, literacy and communication courses, recruitment, guidance and job placement services, welfare rights information, etc. Another example of change towards service provision/delivery is that, since the early 1990s, successive Irish governments have encouraged the development of service-oriented, community-based partnership companies throughout the country to coordinate local responses to the intractable problem of long-term unemployment.10 The community-focused service-provision partnership companies had a social-inclusion focus and prioritized a number of key issues such as unemployment, educational disadvantage, poor quality of local amenities and urban/rural regeneration. In short, social and economic change since the early 1990s has led to some uncertainty of definition with regard to the organizations that deal with unemployed people. In addition, most community and voluntary organizations diversified their activities and moved progressively away from advocacy and campaigning and towards service provision/delivery. The second impact of devolution in the unemployment policy sector has been at the level of the roles and status of individuals within these structures. My research results indicate that – contrary to the situation of the mid-1980s (see Allen 1998: 131–42) – the vast majority of the unemployed people currently involved in organizations in aid of unemployment are service recipients. They are not ‘unemployed activists’ per se. This is a trend that appears to have been reinforced in recent years. For example, many of the members and/or activists of the very few unemployment organizations that existed in the mid to late 1980s were either unemployed themselves or trade unionists who sympathized with the cause of the unemployed and who campaigned actively on their behalf.11 A key example in this respect is the career path of Mike Allen, the first General  �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� For a very brief historical account of the Irish income maintenance system, see Rehill and Mills (2005). 10 ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Delegates to these partnership companies include representatives from state, trade union, employer and community organizations. 11 �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Though space here does not allow me to discuss this matter in full, the relative drop in the number of resource-rich people who carry out activities on behalf of unemployed people does raise important issues with regard to the role of political altruism in the Irish case. Further research on this matter is required. For a very good discussion of the issue of political altruism in unemployment matters in a wider European context, see Zorn (2007).

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Secretary of the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed. It was only when he became unemployed that Mike Allen came to be associated with an unemployment organization in Galway, as did many other unemployed people in Dublin and elsewhere. When the company I worked for in Galway got into trouble we were all brought together to try to save our jobs. Ideas were proposed and people got very hopeful and excited […] Six months – and six bright ideas later – the situation had seriously deteriorated […] In Galway in 1985, I and a hundred others ended up on the dole, some of us for a long time. (Allen 1993: 52). [At one of the first meetings to form a national organization]: speaker after speaker took to the platform […] the audience cheered and said that a national organization was what we needed to bring the voice of the unemployed into the heart of Irish politics […] in the noise and optimism of the first conference I put my name down for the steering committee and was elected (Allen 1998: 131 and 133).

Mike Allen’s situation was not uncommon either in the 1980s or even in the 1950s when some unemployment organizations were also set up (Kilmurray 1988). In both periods many if not most of the participants, leaders, activists and/or members were drawn from the ranks of the unemployed. Today, on the contrary, my research results show that, aside from the many unemployed who are linked to pro-unemployed organizations as service recipients, most other people associated with these organizations are either part- or full-time employees. Few unemployed people seem to play an active role within the structures of these organizations. This is not to say that unemployed people do not participate in any capacity, but rather that their roles seem to be limited above all to that of service recipients. This situation is perhaps the end result of a combination of developments in two key areas. Social and Economic Developments Firstly, social and economic developments played a vital role. As the country became prosperous in the 1990s, it may be argued that many people with the required social and economic skills progressed socially and economically, whereas those that were not able to avail of them became increasingly disadvantaged/ marginalized. Many of today’s long-term unemployed, for example, are to be found in areas characterized by severe social and economic deprivation (Layte and O’Connell 2005). Some authors also point out that the country has become more and more polarized along distinct social-class lines (Allen 2003, Breathnach 2002) and that Irish society is also increasingly represented by a growth in individualism and a decline in societal and social participation (Donoghue 2001: 6–10). In addition, research carried out for the Combat Poverty Agency (2001) identified

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Ireland as the most unequal country in the European Union.12 For example, in 2001, 21.9 per cent of the country’s population had incomes that fell below 60 per cent of the median income that put them in the category of ‘at risk of poverty’. Of the 9.4 per cent in ‘consistent poverty’, 26.4 per cent were unemployed and 20.9 per cent were disabled.13 A tentative conclusion that may be drawn from these two types of developments is that fewer people commonly described as ‘volunteers’ participate in communitybased organizations on the one hand, and that this disengagement process is arguably a common trait among people from a background of disadvantage/marginalization and, as such, has a greater effect in areas experiencing poverty and social exclusion, on the other. The research findings described below tend to confirm this assessment in that these social and economic developments have contributed to the decline in the involvement of the unemployed as active participants in organizations in aid of the unemployed. Indeed, many organization leaders have indicated to me the difficulty in getting disadvantaged/marginalized people – and especially the longterm unemployed – involved in community-based organizations in any capacity other than as service recipients.14 Institutional Influences The second reason for the prevailing service-recipient status of unemployed people is more institutional in origin but is intimately linked to the social and economic developments. The increase in the number of active and passive labour market schemes in Ireland over the past number of years would appear to have contributed to strengthening the service-provision role of community and voluntary sector organizations by providing them with a short-term workforce drawn – perhaps in large part – from the ranks of disadvantaged/marginalized people, including the long-term unemployed. Since many community-based 12 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ According to the July 2004 United Nation’s Human Development Report, in spite of rising prosperity, Ireland continues to have the second-highest level of poverty in the Western world. The report found that 15.3 per cent of Irish people live in poverty. Only the United States, with a score of 15.8 per cent, had a worse record of the 17 Western countries surveyed. See The Irish Times, 16 July 2004. However, Miroslav Bebalvy and Kalman Mizsel (2006) claim that the concept on which the poverty figures are based – relative poverty – is flawed and distorts the extent of poverty in Ireland. They propose that usual poverty measures have not accurately recorded a general rise in the standard of living or recognized that thousands of people have been lifted out of poverty. See also http://hdr. undp.org/statistics/indices/ (accessed 16 August 2006). This is also the position of Ireland’s Minister for Social Affairs, see The Irish Times 31 August 2006. 13 ������������������������������������� See the Central Statistic’s Office’s Quarterly National Household Surveys at http:// www.cso.ie/statistics/LabourForce.htm (accessed 16 August 2006). 14 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ To be sure, this is not necessarily an uncommon trend for many ‘poor people’s movements’. For a general discussion of the issue of the links between individuals and organizations, see della Porta and Diani (1999: 118–24).

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organizations avail themselves of the services of unemployed people as part of many short-term active labour market schemes, the participants are not considered to be officially unemployed and, understandably, do not see themselves as such. Indeed, the vast majority of the organizations under review here depend to a greater or lesser extent on these types of short-term, officially sanctioned, contractual arrangements with disadvantaged/marginalized people, including the unemployed. One active labour market scheme in particular seems to have had a profound effect on the participation of disadvantaged and/or unemployed people in the workings of community and voluntary sector organizations. The Community Employment scheme (CE) was established in 1994 to replace the 1982 Social Employment scheme and to help the long-term unemployed and other disadvantaged people to get back to work by offering part-time and temporary placements in jobs based within local communities.15 The scheme is managed by Foras Áiseanna Saothair, Ireland’s training and employment authority. There are two categories of community employment: the part-time integration option and the part-time job option. In the integration option, candidates are placed in mainly community or voluntary organizations for one year normally but extensions can be arranged. Generally, participants complete their one-year placement and then seek a permanent full- or part-time job elsewhere based on the experience they gained in the placement, the good reputation developed with local employers and any new skills acquired over the course of the placement. The job option provides participants with part-time work placements of up to six years for participants over 55 years of age and up to three years for participants under 55. This option is designed to give extended access to employment to older people who may have been unable to secure regular employment for some time. Participants can seek other part-time work during their placement. After the placement, participants are encouraged to seek permanent part-time and full-time jobs elsewhere based on the experience and new skills they acquired while in the scheme. The object here is not to dispute the undoubted importance of the CE scheme – or of other labour market schemes of this type – as a possible way to integrate and to empower disadvantaged/marginalized people economically, socially and possibly even politically.16 On the contrary, my intention is simply to highlight the fact that many people who in the past would have participated in organizations in aid of the unemployed on a voluntary basis and who would have been generally 15 ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� There is also the whole-time Job Initiative (launched in 1996) which offers temporary (full-time) work on community projects for those aged over 35 who have been five years out of work. 16 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ Eithne Fitzgerald (2005: 129) suggests that ‘programmes such as the CE scheme “form the backbone of thousands of voluntary organisations and community groups right across the country”’. For a critique of schemes of this type, see Meade (2005: 363–7). She argues that the participation of community or voluntary organization in measures of this type does not necessarily improve the lot of the disadvantaged/marginalized but rather that they protect them against further immiseration.

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described as ‘activists’ or ‘volunteers’ should now in fact be more readily referred to as either ‘full-time employees’ or as ‘short-term and/or part-time employees’. Perhaps because of this development, most of the organizations that participated in this study had no volunteers, although this is not unique to pro-unemployed organizations. However tempting it is to portray the voluntary/non-profit sector as at last emerging from the state-imposed cold into the warmth of social partnership, closer examination of this sector reveals substantial problems […] such accounts gloss over the decline in voluntarism and the increase in full-time paid employees in voluntary/community agencies. Less than 20 per cent of those involved in such agencies are unpaid volunteers, the remainder are paid employees (often poorly paid). Thus, the rhetoric surrounding the ‘voluntary’ nature of such agencies needs to be acknowledged and a new vocabulary or discourse devised to reflect this reality (O’Sullivan 1999: 61).

Indeed, one leading activist confided in me that, ‘unemployed people are only involved in our organization because they feel that it is a route to a job’. Another claimed that, ‘payment is the only attraction’. A third stated that, ‘if it were not for the CE scheme, we would be out of business’. A fourth indicated that, ‘volunteering as we once knew it is dead’. As a result, the majority of the people associated with the organizations under review fall mainly under one of the following categories. The first category includes people that are in paid employment either on a fulltime or on a part-time basis but who do not participate in one of the various statesponsored employment schemes. For example, they may be regular full- or parttime employees of trade unions, religious organizations or other non-governmental organizations. Another category regroups people who may be in paid employment as short-term and/or part-time staff within the ambit of the CE scheme, in particular, or of similar state-sponsored programmes. A third category concerns the people who may be classified under various other headings: volunteers, retired persons, paid or unpaid appointed board members, etc. The vast majority of the unemployed fall within the ambit of a final category: service recipients. This situation is vastly different to what seems to be the case in France, as highlighted by Maurer (2001), Samba Sylla (2004), and Loubet-Grosjean (2005). Many French unemployed people are involved in unemployment organizations under various guises. A number are service recipients, of course, but many others are simply unpaid ‘volunteers’ or ‘activists’ and are still intimately involved in the daily workings of the unemployment organizations. These people joined or became involved in their organization for a variety of reasons: to follow their religious teachings, to abide by their ideological leanings, because they got caught up in the spirit of the moment, or simply because they were looking for companionship. Of course, French organizations in aid of the unemployed are embedded in a very different social and political context when compared with their Irish counterparts (Royall 2000). Most French unemployment organizations

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are also extremely poorly funded and they have very different sets of interactions and relations-of-power arrangements with public authorities. In addition, the two countries have different types of welfare regimes leading to a different set of expectations and demands which social actors place on public authorities (see Berclaz, Füglister and Giugni 2004, Peillon 2001: 143–72). So who are the people that participate in such Irish civil society organizations and why are they involved in the organizations? It is to these points that I now turn. A Brief Pro.le of Staff/Activists

17

and of Unemployed People

As alluded to above, many Irish organizations in aid of the unemployed have overcome a number of obstacles and become state-recognized actors in the unemployment policy sector. However, Meade (2005: 360) argues against the view that ‘community development [offers] “new opportunities for those lacking choice, power and resources” and [creates] a space within which the excluded can be involved’. On the contrary, she considers that, ‘within the past thirty years, values such as voluntarism and autonomous struggle have been superseded by an emphasis on professional standards, a movement towards regularized organizational structures and a willingness to engage in partnership’ (ibid.). This observation holds true for many of the organizations under review here. Not only have most of the Irish pro-unemployed organizations embraced state-sponsored development for a variety of reasons, but also most of them are run and staffed by seasoned professionals. Indeed, my research indicates that more than 80 per cent of regular, full-time staff and 50 per cent of part-time staff have been involved in their respective organization for more than two years. Full-time staff are mainly employed as managers, supervisors, trainers, etc. Some part-time employees also hold managerial positions, but most of them are employed as secretaries or receptionists, or are in jobs of a similar rank. So Meade (2005: 358–60) is correct to highlight that there has been a rise in the number of community organizations and that many of them have become well organized and professional establishments. Eoin O’Sullivan (1999: 61–4) is equally correct to point out that there has been a rise in the number of paid employees working in this sector and that many of these people should now be regarded as professionals and not as volunteers. For my purposes, it is on this second point that I would like to focus attention, especially since the issue of professionalization highlights a set of differences which is emerging between the full-time paid staff, on the one hand, and the part-time paid staff and the unemployed, on the other. I reckon that, allied to improvements in professional standards throughout the Irish community and voluntary sector, the distinct social and economic backgrounds and trajectories of the people associated 17 �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� For purposes of brevity and clarity, I will refer to all people involved in the organizations – other than the unemployed – as ‘staff’ or ‘activists’ whether they be fulltime employees, part-time employees, volunteers, etc.

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with the organizations are leading to major differences in their roles and status within them. In other words, it would appear that class-led dynamics are creating a gulf – in social and economic status and in organizational roles and functions – between the ‘professionals’ that provide services for – or act on behalf of – the unemployed and the unemployed themselves as service recipients. Let me consider this point briefly. Compared with part-time staff and the unemployed, many of the full-time staff have the essential middle-class values and attributes which enable them to pursue relatively successful personal social and professional trajectories. These full-time staff are people who have acquired the essential economic, social and cultural capital.18 For example, nine out of ten have a secondary school qualification and one-third have an undergraduate degree from a third-level institution. One-third of full-time staff are over the age of 50. Two in three are in a stable relationship (married or in partnership) and have a relatively modest number of dependants. However, three-quarters of full-time staff are women. The profile of full-time staff is, therefore, one of a generally well-educated, female workforce over the age of 50. However, as in other sectors of Irish society, gender-based income discrepancies also exist in the organizations. Many of the organizations’ fulltime female employees are relatively poorly paid and a majority state that they have on-going budgeting problems. As O’Sullivan (1999: 61) observes, full-time employment does not necessarily guarantee financial security. Difficult as the financial standing may be for some full-time staff, they are generally in a more favourable social and economic position than the parttime employed. For example, well over 80 per cent of the part-time employed are women and a considerable number of them are poorly paid and experience on-going financial difficulties. One person in four has money problems on a day-to-day basis and two in three feel that they need to be careful with their finances. In addition, whereas most part-time paid staff are younger on average than their full-time counterparts, they have more atypical personal and/or family backgrounds. Compared with full-time staff, they have a higher rate of divorce and of separation, a higher incidence of single-parent families and a greater average number of dependants. The issue of acquired social capital is here again of vital importance. Whereas the majority of full-time paid employees are relatively well educated, many part-time staff have a history of educational disadvantage, with only a minority having completed secondary school. Therefore, the profile of parttime staff that emerges is that of an educationally and economically disadvantaged female workforce. Given these general observations, it should be borne in mind nonetheless that many part-time staff are employed under the auspices of various state-financed active labour market employment schemes. By their very nature, these schemes focus on people who live in disadvantaged areas or who strive to overcome severe social and economic deprivation.

18 �������������������������������������������������������������������������� On the notion of activists’ social capital see Matonti and Poupeau (2004).

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The situation of the unemployed is more complex. As discussed above, a major challenge facing public authorities in Ireland today is to address long-term unemployment and, in particular, to deal with the two main age groups of the longterm unemployed – the over 55 and the under 25. Perhaps not surprisingly, members of these two age groups form the bulk of the unemployed linked to the organizations, but again, the vast majority of these unemployed people play no active role within the organizations either as ‘paid’ staff or as volunteers. They are mainly service recipients. As one activist observed: ‘it is extremely difficult to get anyone involved in our association, but it is especially difficult in the case of the long-term unemployed’. As service recipients, many unemployed people avail themselves of the services offered by the organizations on a one-off basis (for welfare information, for example). These transient clients are very often unemployed people who are looking for information on how to deal with a specific problem they are encountering (e.g. access to social housing, information on unemployment benefits or on employment rights). In addition, since the accession of ten new European Union member states in May 2004 and Bulgaria and Romania in January 2007, there has been a marked increase in the number of migrant workers who have turned to some of the organizations to find out how to deal with issues specific to their new-found status and situation (e.g. employment rights, child-benefit provisions or redundancy entitlements).19 One activist noted somewhat bitterly that, ‘EU accession-state immigrants only come to see us to find out about their employment rights. They feel that we serve no other purpose.’20 In comparison, the long-term unemployed tend to be more intimately linked to the organizations through their participation in the various service provision programmes on offer, such as literacy courses or work-skill programmes. These unemployed service recipients also share certain characteristics. Two in three are women. Eighty per cent have been unemployed for well over two years. Most are either over 55 years of age or under the age of 25. In addition, these are people who must deal with a number of personal and/or family issues aside from being unemployed. For example, quite a number of them are single or divorced/separated. Six out of ten experience on-going financial difficulties and an equal number have no secondary school qualification.

19 �������������������������������������������������������������������������� Figures compiled by the Department of Social and Family Affairs show that 251,032 people from the ten EU accession states were issued with personal public service (PPS) numbers from 1 May 2004 to 31 July 2006. A PPS number is required for a person to take up a job. See The Irish Times, 10 August 2006. 20 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ The government introduced a number of restrictions on entitlements to welfare benefits in May 2004. Migrant workers from EU accession states must prove that they have ‘resided habitually’ in Ireland as a qualifying requirement for all social assistance benefits. The restrictions assume that a person is not habitually resident if they have been living in Ireland for less than two years. Recent reports indicate a significant rise in the incidence of poverty, homelessness and social exclusion among many recently arrived eastern European immigrants. See The Irish Times, 7 August 2006.

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Research results also point to differences in terms of the ways full-time staff and part-time staff/unemployed people participate in community affairs in general. Full-time paid staff would appear to be more closely involved in community matters and participate in various social, cultural, religious and/or political activities to a relatively high degree. Arguably, this could be one of the reasons why some of the full-time staff choose to work in pro-unemployed organizations. In comparison, part-time staff and the unemployed do not seem to harbour such a strong desire for community involvement. This can be seen, for example, in the way members of the three categories participate in ‘political’ events. The vast majority of those involved in the organizations place themselves to the left of the political spectrum and there are also no differences in the ways members of the three groups pledge allegiance to the two political parties which they feel best promote policies of social integration – Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin.21 However, many part-time staff (32 per cent) and most unemployed people (57 per cent) disengage from active participation in political affairs or at least have not engaged in various forms of political activity for some time. For example, when asked to indicate whether they had voted in an election or engaged in various types of collective action in the past five years, major differences emerged between full-time staff, on the one hand, and part-time staff and the unemployed, on the other.22 Most of full-time staff had voted or had engaged in collective action even if ‘passive’ measures – such a casting a vote or signing a petition – were generally preferred to ‘active’ measures such as participating in protest marches. Overall, however, part-time staff and the unemployed were far less willing to engage in either ‘passive’ or ‘active’ measures. In fact, a vast majority had taken no part in any type of political activity. As Samuel Barnes and Max Kaas (1979) observe, political activity including participation in contentious events is closely linked to various social characteristics such as educational and income levels. Compared with full-time staff, therefore, these general characteristics of the long-term unemployed as service recipients point to issues of on-going social and economic disadvantage and to a shortage of relevant social capital. Both aspects militate against the long-term unemployed in particular participating as active ‘volunteers’ in the increasingly professionalized structures of the organizations. So in this sense and contrary to state policy discourses, community development has not truly created a space within which disadvantaged/marginalized people such as the unemployed are involved, at least with respect to the organizations under observation here (Department of Social Welfare, 2000). 21 ����������������������������������������������������������������������������� However, we must bear in mind that the Irish do not have the same conception of the political ‘left’ and ‘right’ compared with most other western Europeans. To a great extent, political cleavages in Ireland are not based on class-based issues but rather on the ‘national question’. For a discussion of this point see Breen et al. (1990: 218). 22 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� These include casting a vote (at local, regional, national or European level or in a referendum), lobbying a politician, participating in a protest march, taking part in a sit-in or signing a petition.

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Conclusion This chapter has reviewed a number of contextual factors that account for the increasing presence of community and voluntary organizations in the unemployment policy sector. I have argued that such a phenomenon has arisen out of a genuine societal concern for the disadvantaged/marginalized. A number of various state-led initiatives have also been developed parallel to – and perhaps fostering – the rise in the community and voluntary sector organizations. However, such developments have also allowed public authorities to divest themselves of responsibility for the provision of a number of social and economic services and for the implementation of many policy decisions but to keep ultimate decisionmaking and financial control. I have argued that, by complying with a statedriven view of community development, organizations in aid of the unemployed have unwittingly allowed a two-tiered situation to arise. On the one hand, these organizations have become much more present and active at a local level as they address the immediate concerns of disadvantaged and/or marginalized people, but on the other hand, these organizations have come to depend to a greater extent on access to state-controlled funding in order to carry out their service-delivery functions. This situation appears to have had a severe impact on the roles and status of participants in community and voluntary organizations including those acting on behalf of the unemployed. At one level, full-time staff have become increasingly professional in their status and performance. These are the people who provide/deliver services for – or act on behalf of – the unemployed. At another level are part-time staff and the unemployed themselves. Part-time staff are involved in organizations principally by virtue of their participation in various state-sponsored programmes. The unemployed, however, are increasingly associated with the organizations not as active participants but rather as service recipients. Two consequences arise from this situation. Firstly, there has been an undoubted improvement in the conditions for service delivery to the disadvantaged/marginalized, including the unemployed. However, at the ground level, is seems striking to note that the (longer-term) unemployed themselves have become marginalized actors within the very structures that act in their name or on their behalf.

Chapter 8

Welfare States, Labour Markets, and the Political Opportunities for Collective Action in the Field of Unemployment: A Theoretical Framework Marco Giugni, Michel Berclaz and Katharina Füglister

Prevailing Conceptions of the Welfare State as Political Opportunity Structures for Collective Action in the Unemployment Political Field As sociological neo-institutionalist theories have shown, social and political institutions are not only a set of rules, procedures, organizational routines and governance structures (see March and Olsen 1984), but they also provide norms and habits that determine individual choices and behaviours. In this chapter, we would like to apply this line of reasoning to propose a theoretical framework for the study of collective action in the field of unemployment politics. We propose a framework for analysis based on the idea that the form and content of political claim-making on issues relating to unemployment are influenced in important ways by the prevailing conceptions of the welfare state and the consequent institutional approaches to unemployment.

  This chapter draws in part on a previously published article (Berclaz et al. 2004). More generally, the line of reasoning followed in this paper is based on the UNEMPOL project (‘The Contentious Politics of Unemployment in Europe: Political Claim-making, Policy Deliberation and Exclusion from the Labour Market’). The project includes the following countries: the UK (Paul Statham, University of Leeds), Switzerland (Marco Giugni, University of Geneva), France (Didier Chabanet, University of Lyon), Italy (Donatella della Porta, University of Florence), Germany (Christian Lahusen, University of Bamberg) and Sweden (Anna Linders, University of Cincinnati and University of Karlstad). The project was financed by the European Commission (HPSE-CT2001-00053 UNEMPOL) and the Swiss Federal Office for Education and Science through the 5th Framework programme of research of the European Union. We thank all the members of the UNEMPOL research consortium for their contribution to the project. See the project’s web site for further information (http://www.leeds.ac.uk/ics/euro/unempol/). The project’s main findings are summarized in the final report (Giugni and Statham 2005). We thank Giuliano Bonoli for comments and suggestions on a previous draft.

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Our general argument combines two theoretical traditions that so far have followed quite separate tracks. First, we draw from the literature on social movements and contentious politics, in particular the works that have stressed the impact of political opportunity structures on social protest (see Kriesi 2004 and Meyer 2004 for reviews). Second, we look at the literature on the comparative political economy of the welfare state, in particular the works that have emphasized variations in the dominant discourses and institutional practices about social security (see Arts and Gelissen 2002, Green-Petersen and Haverland 2002, and Pierson 2000a for reviews). We aim to combine these two traditions in order to propose a theoretical framework for the study of the ‘contentious politics of unemployment’, that is, the public debates and collective mobilizations pertaining to unemployment (Giugni and Statham 2002). Our point of departure is represented by recent work on the interrelations between configurations of citizenship, political opportunities, and the claim-making in the political field of immigration and ethnic relations (e.g. Giugni and Passy 2004, 2006, Koopmans and Statham 1999b, 2000, Koopmans et al. 2005). Following this perspective, the collective definition of citizenship provides a set of institutional and discursive opportunities which affects the political claim-making and collective mobilization of actors when they take a stance on migration issues. Following a neoinstitutional perspective, the authors show that prevailing conceptions of the nation and citizenship, as well as their institutionalization in political practices and policies, shape in significant ways the political claim-making in the field of immigration and ethnic relations (Koopmans et al. 2005). In this perspective, such ‘configurations’ or ‘models’ of citizenship play a crucial role in defining and structuring the socially and politically contested field of immigration and ethnic relations. They form a political opportunity structure for the mobilization of collective actors in this field. These opportunities enlarge or constrain the margin of manoeuvre for the action of the collective actors who mobilize on issues pertaining to migration and channel their intervention in the public domain. In other words, they are a specific opportunity structure – which works both at the institutional and discursive level – that determines the option for action in this field and channels the claim-making bearing on these issues: who intervenes in this field, through which means, on which specific issues, through which discursive practices, and so forth. We think that this way of conceptualizing the relationship between collective action frames and political opportunities can be applied to other issue or policy fields as well (Berclaz and Giugni 2005). In particular, we suggest that it can be applied to another central issue field in contemporary Europe: unemployment. Like immigration, this is a highly contested issue and, like immigration, it is an issue whose regulation involves the state. If citizenship models form a specific opportunity structure in the field of immigration and ethnic relations politics, we suggest that, in order to find the institutional and discursive context influencing the claim-making on issues pertaining to unemployment, we look at the principal state institution in charge of the social and political regulation of unemployment: the welfare state.

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We argue that the prevailing view of the welfare state specific to a given country impinges in significant ways upon the ‘contentious politics of unemployment’, that is, the public debates and collective mobilizations pertaining to unemployment. Dominant conceptions of the welfare state define a political opportunity structure that enlarges or restricts the options for action by collective actors who intervene in this field. In particular, by leading to specific ways of framing issues relating to unemployment, cultural notions of social providence and dominant conceptions of the welfare state determine which demands concerning unemployment and the unemployed are considered as reasonable or acceptable, which constructions of the reality of unemployment are considered as realistic, and which claims and collective actors involved in this field are considered as legitimate within the political system. This, in turn, channels the claim-making of actors intervening in the public domain on these issues. Such prevailing views of the welfare state are reflected in institutional approaches to dealing with unemployment, mainly in state measures to fight unemployment. However, we should stress the fact that, when dealing with a political field such as unemployment, labour market regulations and policies should also be taken into account, in addition to unemployment legislation, as they have an important impact on the unemployment political field by the fact that they can be a functional equivalent to unemployment policies (Bonoli 2003). Therefore, in order not to miss an important piece of the story, our framework must also consider labour market regulations and policies. Institutional approaches to unemployment include both state measures directed to the target population of the unemployed (as a part of the welfare state) and those addressing the labour market. In other words, they have both a social and an economic dimension. In the remainder of this essay, we elaborate our argument that the prevailing conception of the welfare state represents an opportunity structure for the political claim-making of collective actors intervening in the field of unemployment politics. First, we propose a typology that we hope helps to identify cross-national variations in political opportunities as stemming from differences in dominant views of social security and in labour market regulations. Second, we propose a way to operationalize the typology so as to make it is useable for empirical research. Third, we advance a number of tentative hypotheses concerning the impact of dominant conceptions of the welfare state on collective action in the unemployment political field. Conceptualizing Prevailing Conceptions of the Welfare State and Institutional Approaches to Unemployment The comparative literature on the welfare state usually distinguishes between three broad models (see Arts and Gelissen 2002, Green-Petersen and Haverland 2002, and Pierson 2000a for reviews): the liberal or residual welfare state typical of the Anglo-Saxon countries, the bismarckian or insurance-based welfare state that

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characterizes continental Europe and the universalist or social-democratic welfare state found in the Scandinavian countries. This trilogy is present in numerous authors, although with some differences from one author to the other. The most well-known proponent of it is probably Esping-Andersen (1990), although he goes well beyond the framework of state intervention to define welfare state regimes as rather stable institutional arrangements between the private sphere, the market and the state. In his perspective, variations in welfare state regimes depend on the level of decommodification, the forms of social stratification and the public–private ratio in the provision of social goods (Merrien, Parchet and Kernen 2005). This three-fold typology is drawn from the more basic distinction between the bismarckian and beveridgean models. The former has a corporatist logic, while the latter follows a universalistic logic. Bonoli (1997) has suggested that classifications of welfare state should be based somewhere on a continuous line between these two ideal-typic models, on one side, but also the quantity of provided welfare on the other. Similarly, Ferrera (1993) proposed a classification based on the level of coverage of the social protection scheme: universal when the population is covered by a single scheme and occupational when different groups in society are covered by different schemes. Esping-Andersen’s (1990) approach has been criticized for various reasons. Some have pointed out that its typology puts too much emphasis on the role of the male breadwinner, hence neglecting the gendering of the welfare state and the changing division of gender roles in contemporary society (Lewis 1992, 1993, O’Connor 1993, 1996, Orloff 1993). Others have criticized the fact that his typology leaves out a major type of welfare state, namely the Mediterranean model including the southern European countries, in which the family plays an important role and can be a functional equivalent to the state when it comes to social security (Ferrera 1996). Focusing specifically on exclusion from the labour market, Gallie and Paugam (2000) have proposed a typology aimed at studying the impact of the welfare state’s type on the experience of unemployment. They consider three factors that may influence the experience of unemployment: the degree of coverage, the level of financial compensation and the importance of active measures for employment. Based on these three factors, they distinguish between four ‘unemploymentprovidence regimes’. The sub-protecting regime (examples: Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain) provides the unemployed with a protection below the subsistence level. The liberal/minimal regime (examples: UK and Ireland) offers a higher level of protection, but does not cover all the unemployed and the level of compensation is weak. The employment-centred regime (examples: France, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium) offers a much higher level of protection, but the coverage remains incomplete because of the eligibility principles for compensation. Finally, the universalist regime (examples: Denmark and Sweden) is characterized by the breadth of the coverage, a much higher compensation level and more developed active measures.

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It is important to stress that typologies are mainly heuristic tools and that each actual welfare state has its particularities. In particular, quite important nuances exist within the bismarckian type. For example, while France and Germany are generally classified together in the continental-corporatist model, Germany can be considered as a pure bismarckian model and France is a pluralist and segmented form of that model. Similarly, Switzerland is often classified differently according to different typologies and, although it is considered to be a continental welfare state, it displays strong liberal traits in some sectors, such as healthcare. Finally, Italy, another country often pictured as a continental type of welfare state, has certain characteristics of the Mediterranean model. Yet, typologies are helpful and capture certain common features of the ways in which social welfare is both collectively defined and institutionally approached in different contexts. We can certainly draw from them in our effort to delineate prevailing conceptions of the welfare state and how they provide different sets of opportunities for collective action in the field of unemployment politics. However, in order to do so, we have both to restrict and enlarge our perspective. On the one hand, the comparative literature on the welfare state and the typologies offered by it usually go beyond unemployment benefits to cover the various social policies, hence including pension systems, healthcare systems, and so on. We need to focus more specifically on unemployment, although one might expect a strong correlation between the prevailing view of the welfare state as a whole and collective definitions of how the state should deal with unemployment. In this sense, Gallie and Paugam’s (2000) approach is closer to our own purpose, as their typology is based on indicators of policies aimed at fighting unemployment. However, these authors have studied the effects of the degree and modalities of state protection on the experience of unemployment. The creation of a typology that allows us to link the forms of the institutional treatment of labour and unemployment to collective action in this field remains to be done. On the other hand, such an endeavour requires us to expand the definition beyond legislation addressing unemployment to cover labour market regulations and policies. As Esping-Andersen (1990, 1999) has pointed out, labour market regulations are central to an understanding of the modern welfare state. In addition, Sapir (2005) stresses the fact that different types of welfare state tend to have a different labour market organization. If we are interested in the specific opportunity structure for collective action in the field of unemployment politics, we need to consider that labour market regulations participate actively in the elaboration of such an opportunity structure. Labour market regulations and policies, in addition to unemployment legislation, can have an impact not only on unemployment itself, but also on the debate about unemployment and the unemployed. First of all, we need to take into account the type and level of active measures concerning the labour market, as such measures represent a strong link between unemployment legislation and labour market regulations. Furthermore, labour market regulations have a central influence because the level of flexibility of the labour market has become a major issue in the debate on

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unemployment. Depending on the ideological stance, flexibility can be viewed either as an effective means to fight unemployment or a as a path leading to social exclusion and job insecurity. Harsh labour regulations are accused in particular of contributing to rising unemployment because tougher dismissal laws tend to make employers hesitate to hire people and create a wall between those who are inside the ‘regular’ labour market and the others. They are also accused of keeping wages low and producing working poor. Thus, the legislation about the degree of flexibility, the rules concerning dismissals and the levels of regulation on minimum wages, for example, are all important factors that participate in the creation of the employment environment and therefore can have an important impact on the debate surrounding unemployment. The Specific Political Opportunity Structure for Collective Action in the Field of Unemployment Politics: A Typology As countries differ in the prevailing conception of the welfare state and in the institutional approach to unemployment, they also provide different political opportunity structures for collective action in the field of unemployment politics. Figure 8.1 illustrates graphically the relationship between prevailing definitions of the welfare state and collective action in this field. According to our argument, nations are characterized by a prevailing conception of the welfare state which, in turn, leads to country-specific institutional approaches to unemployment, concerning both unemployment and labour market regulations. The mix of regulations adopted and implemented to deal with the problem of unemployment forms the specific opportunity structure that, in the end, affects and channels collective action in the field. Unemployment and labour market regulations, of course, are to some extent interrelated. Finally, it should be remarked that opportunities stemming from the prevailing conception of the welfare state are both institutional and discursive, a distinction that we draw from the works mentioned earlier concerning the migration political field (Koopmans et al. 2005). We would like to propose a typology aimed at capturing such cross-national variations in the institutional and discursive opportunities for actors intervening in this field. Following the discussion above, such an attempt to define a specific political opportunity structure for collective action in this field has to take into account both the social and the economic dimensions of the institutional approaches to unemployment. The social dimension refers to state policies aimed at fighting unemployment and its negative social consequences. Gallie and Paugam’s (2000) approach mentioned earlier, which is based on the factors that may influence the  ����������������������������������������������������������������������������� Denmark has tried to solve the tension between protection and flexibility by developing a flexicurity approach that combines a flexible��������������������������������� labour�������������������������� market with a good level of protection for the unemployed.

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Figure 8.1

A simple model of the relationship between prevailing conceptions of the welfare state and collective action in the field of unemployment politics

experience of unemployment (degree of coverage, level of financial compensation and importance of active measures for employment), points in a similar direction, although it aims to explain a different phenomenon. Inspired by this approach, in a previous work (Berclaz et al. 2004) we proposed a typology of conceptions of the welfare state resulting from the combination of two analytical dimensions: the formal criteria of eligibility to social rights (in particular, the rights concerning the loss or lack of remunerated work) and the obligations relating to eligibility (in particular, the obligations for the recipients of the rights concerning unemployment). The first dimension refers to the criteria that define the conditions of access to social provisions for job-seekers as well as the quantity and quality of such rights. In other words, here we want to know who has the right to benefit from which social provisions in the field of unemployment and under what conditions. The criteria of eligibility can be more or less restrictive (exclusive) or loose (inclusive). The second dimension refers to the obligations attached to the condition of unemployed. In other words, here we want to know what are the constraints that weigh upon the unemployed who have the right to social provisions. The obligations relating to eligibility can be more or less heavy or light. The choice of these two indicators was justified by the fact that we were interested in particular in defining political opportunities for the mobilization of the unemployed deriving from the rights and obligations underlying the eligibility to social provisions. Yet, as we evoked earlier, the rights and obligations deriving from unemployment legislation and, more generally, from state-granted social security are only one side of the coin. In order to have a more complete picture, we need to take into account those stemming from state intervention in the labour market. Our earlier effort at finding a way to define a specific opportunity structure in the field of unemployment politics has not paid enough attention to this crucial aspect. This could be done by looking at country-specific levels of flexibility as measured, for example, through the existence and level of a minimum wage, the type of job contracts, regulations concerning dismissals and the overall level of

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protection of workers. In addition, the existence of a clear distinction between protected workers, precarious workers and unemployed can also be considered as a consequence of the type of labour market regulations. Taking into account this political-economic dimension, in addition to the social one, we would like to propose a new typology with unemployment regulations (welfare provisions for the unemployed) on one axis and labour market regulations on the other. Unemployment regulations can be defined either as exclusive or inclusive scale, taking both rights and obligations (which were distinct in the earlier typology) together. Labour market regulations can be defined either as rigid or flexible. Of course, this oversimplifies a more nuanced picture in reality, but such broad distinctions can work for analytical purposes.

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A typology of the specific political opportunity structure for collective action in the field of unemployment politics

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Figure 8.2 shows the four ideal-typical institutional approaches to unemployment resulting from the combination of these two analytical dimensions. Since these two dimensions are to be considered as continua rather than discrete categories, this typology represents a bidimensional space allowing us to locate actual conceptions of the welfare state. Those ideal types insist on the form of relationship between social partners that is created by the mix of labour and unemployment laws. Thus, the ideal-types yielded by the combination of the two dimensions are models having heuristic value rather than concrete empirical realities. The first type, full protection, characterizes by inclusive welfare provisions in the field of unemployment and rigid labour market regulations. This combination gives birth to a confrontational climate between employers and employees, with quite strong expectations on the state to deal with conflicts concerning employment and the labour market. Furthermore, it is likely to create a cleavage between protected employees, on one side, and precarious workers and unemployed, on the other. If we want to compare our typology with the ones mentioned earlier, this situation resembles that of the corporatist welfare state. Depending on the level of rigidity and protection, the Mediterranean welfare state would also fit in this model. The second type, economic protection, combines exclusive unemployment regulations (i.e. restrictive eligibility criteria and heavy obligations attached to the benefit of social provisions) and rigid labour market regulations that make it very difficult to proceed to dismissals. This situation puts strong pressure on both employers and employees/unemployed and gives an important role to state regulations. The third type, social protection, has both a flexible labour market and inclusive welfare provisions. This implies a willingness to negotiate between employers and employees. Employees enjoy rather a high level of power and security, even in the absence of job security. In this situation, the level of decommodification is high. Therefore, the social-democratic welfare state best corresponds to this model, which resembles what is often called flexicurity, or flexibility in security. The fourth type, precariousness, combines flexible labour market regulation and exclusive welfare provisions. In this situation, employers have more freedom, employees are less protected and the role of the state is less important. Wage inequalities are likely to be higher and unemployment lower. This situation is most likely to appear in a liberal welfare state. From Conceptions to Practices: A Proposal for an Operationalization of the Typology The typology outlined above lends itself to a comparative analysis of welfare states and their impact on the claim-making pertaining to unemployment. However, making a typology remains a purely academic exercise if it is not complemented by an operationalization that allows us to use it in empirical research. Here we would like to suggest some ways to do so. We identify a number of aspects allowing

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the differentiation of welfare states in their operating mode for each of the two dimensions of the typology. On the first dimension (unemployment regulations), we should find indicators for its two underlying components (eligibility rights and obligations), as they both contribute to defining the situation with regard to welfare provisions to face unemployment. Concerning the first component (the formal criteria of eligibility to social provisions), we look at the following five aspects: (1) the formal prerequisites for obtaining social provisions; (2) the level of coverage; (3) the extension of coverage; (4) the existence of differentiation among recipients; and (5) the existence of state structures and activation policies favouring the insertion of job-seekers into the labour market. Formal Prerequisites for Obtaining Social Provisions The first aspect relating to the formal eligibility criteria concerns the conditions that a jobless person must fulfil in order to be considered as unemployed and therefore have the right to receive unemployment insurance compensation or, depending on the country, compensation from another institution of social security. Among the possible indicators are the minimum duration of contribution to the unemployment insurance necessary to obtain the right to compensation and the amount of this contribution (for example, as a percentage of the salary). Level of Coverage It is necessary to determine to what extent the compensation allows the unemployed to maintain their living standard and for how long. The indicators of this aspect are the amount of the coverage (for example, as a percentage of the last salary), the duration of the coverage and the possible existence of a minimum compensation. Extension of Coverage Here we look at who is insured or compensated in the event of unemployment, who is not and more generally what the possibilities are for financial aid for people who have lost their job. Two indicators can be used to capture this aspect. First, we can look at the number of recipients of the unemployment insurance as a proportion of job-seekers (i.e. the coverage rate of the unemployment insurance). Second, we should also take into account the possible existence of one or several  ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� It should be noted that the indicators proposed here bear above all on the unemployment insurance. However, in order to have a broader picture of the social protection system in the case of loss of remunerated job, but above all in order to be able to compare the criteria of eligibility across countries that have different welfare-state regimes, it is important to take into account both the compensations of the unemployment insurance and the allocations coming from other social security institutions.

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state social institutions that cover the unemployed who have exhausted their rights or who do not fulfil the criteria for having a right to unemployment insurance compensation. Differentiation of Recipients The degree of openness or closedness of the social security system in a country is not only given by the formal conditions of access or the scope of the coverage, but it also depends on the presence of rules that open access to certain groups or individuals, while closing it for others. Here we therefore look at the existence of a differential treatment of recipients at the admission level and at the coverage level of the unemployment insurance or other social security institution. Such a differentiation could be applied to certain categories of unemployed, such as for example youngsters, women or people close to retirement age. State Structures and Activation Policies for Insertion into the Labour Market In the 1990s, many European countries have witnessed a trend towards shifting from a passive perspective of social allocations to more active measures in the labour market. The goal is no longer to simply compensate for a loss due to unemployment, but to provide the unemployed with structures aimed at favouring integration by giving them, for example, the possibility to attend vocational training courses, professional reorientation or aid allowing them to follow an independent activity. Therefore, this aspect includes the measures created by the state aimed at facilitating the reinsertion of the unemployed into the labour market (according to the rights that are granted to them). Among the possible indicators are the amount of public spending on active measures (showing the relative weight of active measures in the overall management of the unemployment), the obligation at the legislative level to create structures aimed at insertion and reinsertion into the labour market and the accessibility of such structures. Concerning the second component of unemployment regulations (the obligations relating to eligibility for social provisions), we will look at the following three aspects: (1) the general conditions for obtaining social provisions; (2) the existence and types of counter-provisions required of the recipients; and (3) the existence and types of sanctions in case of failure with respect to the conditions on the part of the recipients. General Conditions for Obtaining Social Provision The first aspect of the obligations relating to eligibility concerns the conditions that a person who has lost their job has to meet in order to belong to the category of the unemployed and therefore have the right to social provision. One of the first objectives of any policy in the field of unemployment is the reinsertion of jobless people into the labour market. Therefore, the search for a job remains

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the primary obligation for a recipient of unemployment insurance. Furthermore, the unemployed must accept a job considered as convenient or acceptable by the legislation in the field. On the basis of these elements, we may take into account the following indicators: the definition of a convenient or acceptable job as foreseen in the existing legislation (according to several criteria such as the salary level, the requirement for a professional reorientation or the geographical distance from the place of work), the obligation to apply and the quantity of applications that the jobless person must make to have the right to social provisions. Counter-provisions The second aspect is the obligations which the unemployed person must fulfil in order to remain a recipient of the social provisions. These include the obligation for the jobless person to attend occupational programmes in the context of the active measures of the labour market or vocational training. In both cases, the goal is to improve their employability. However, this kind of measure can also indicate the implementation of a workfare system. Here we need to determine the extent to which active measures include constraining elements for the unemployed, pointing to a workfare approach to unemployment. We also need to determine what kinds of incentives or pressures are associated with active measures. Clearly, active measures inspired by a workfare approach produce an unfavourable environment for the unemployed. Sanctions The last aspect of the obligations relating to eligibility concerns the rigidity of the system, and more precisely the measures and instruments created to control the abuses of the recipients. These may include the following indicators: the existence of financial sanctions if the unemployed person does not fulfil their obligations relating to obtaining the compensation; the frequency of the use of the sanctions; the restriction of access to training; and, as estrema ratio, the suppression of social provisions. On the second dimension of the typology (labour market regulations), the main aspect of state intervention in the labour market that may have implications for unemployment is the overall level of protection or exposure of employees. Although it does not refer directly to the status of unemployment, this is important to the extent that it defines the potential risks of becoming unemployed. Here we look at the following aspects: (1) the main types of job contract; (2) the regulations for dismissals; and (3) the existence and level of a minimum wage. Main Types of Job Contract This aspect provides information about the level of protection given to employees in terms of the most common types of job contracts. It also indicates the

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existence of different categories of employees with different levels of protection. Furthermore, the types and forms of guarantees included in job contracts can have an impact on the decision of an employer to hire someone and therefore on the level of unemployment. The more protected the workers are, the less flexible the labour market is. In addition, the existence of differentiated types of job contract in terms of protection and duration of employment may indicate the existence of a dual job market with important differences in the levels of security of employees. Furthermore, the existence of several types of job contracts can create a difference in the quality of employment and contribute to the emergence of an insiders/ outsiders cleavage among protected and precarious workers. Finally, protected and precarious workers face a different risk of unemployment in relation to the provision associated with the type of job contract. In addition, the level and type of unemployment compensation can also vary with the different forms of job contract. Regulations for Dismissal This aspect is a very important with regard to the level of flexibility of the labour market. The difficulty of dismissing workers for employers can have an impact on their decision to hire them. Here one should look for an example of resignation delay, at the kind of behaviour or condition that can justify a dismissal and at the compensation given to a worker who is made redundant. Existence and Level of a Minimum Wage The existence and level of a minimum wage has an impact on the general wage level and the type of employment. Furthermore, it affects the job-equality tradeoff. Minimum wages tend to limit the creation of a working poor, but make it very difficult for low-skilled workers to find a job and they thus create unemployment. Therefore, minimum wages lower the flexibility of the labour market. We should stress that this is not an exhaustive list. Our goal is to suggest a number of ways to operationalize the typology presented above rather than providing a definitive set of indicators, in the hope that this will be helpful to those wanting to study the institutional context for collective action in the field of unemployment politics more systematically. Explaining Cross-national Variations in Collective Action in the Field of Unemployment Politics: Some Hypotheses The indicators listed above should allow us to place countries within the typology and therefore to characterize specific opportunity structures for collective action in the field of unemployment politics on empirical grounds. Such an endeavour goes well beyond the scope of the present paper. However, for illustrative

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purposes, we can tentatively locate the six countries included in the UNEMPOL project mentioned earlier. On the first dimension (unemployment regulations), if we classify them following the exclusive/inclusive distinction, the UK, with its strong emphasis on both indicators (eligibility and obligations), represents the most exclusive system. Switzerland is also quite exclusive on both criteria, although the level of wage replacement is more generous. France and Italy should be more or less in the same position within the typology, having more inclusive eligibility criteria and the looser obligations typical of corporatist welfare states. Germany should be similar to these two countries, but perhaps a little closer to the exclusive end. Finally, Sweden, with its more inclusive eligibility criteria and weaker obligations, typical of the universalist welfare state, is the most inclusive country in terms of unemployment regulations. On the second dimension (labour market regulations) and in particular concerning the level of flexibility as well as the level of protection of employees, the UK and Switzerland have a very flexible labour market with relatively low levels of unemployment, but rather high levels of wage inequalities. France, Germany and Italy have developed a fairly rigid labour market legislation and a sort of dual corporatist labour market with protected insiders, exposed precarious workers, and relatively high levels of unemployment. Finally, Sweden represents an intermediate case, as it has a more flexible labour market, but at the same time people who have to leave it are more protected and the chances to enter or re-enter it are higher. How do these different institutional approaches towards unemployment reflect in variations in collective action in the field of unemployment politics? In the study on contentious politics in the field of immigration and ethnic relations that has inspired our approach, the authors could show how the collective definitions of the nation and citizenship determine a set of opportunities, both institutional and discursive, which facilitate or constrain the mobilization of certain actors and channel the claims toward certain issues rather than others (Koopmans et al. 2005). Thus, for example, a closed system, to the extent that it rests on an ethnic and monist (i.e. assimilationist) conception of citizenship, restricts the possibilities for action of migrants and tends to channel public debates towards issues concerning the regulation of migration flows (i.e. the criteria of entry into and exit from the nation), whereas a more open system, insofar as it rests on a civic and pluralist conception of citizenship, provides migrants with more opportunities and results in public debates that stress issues relating to minority integration. We suggest that, in order to study the impact of the specific opportunities stemming from the institutional approaches towards unemployment – in terms of unemployment regulations and labour market regulation – on collective action in the field, we can follow a similar line of reasoning. The four ideal-typical situations we have outlined provide different sets of political opportunities to collective actors mobilizing in this field, at both the institutional and discursive levels. At the institutional level, different combinations of state regulations concerning unemployment and the labour market provide different sets of ‘concrete

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opportunities’ (Kriesi et al. 1995), for example in terms of perceived chances of success of a given action, perceived repression or facilitation by the state, and perceived threats or reforms following state action. In other words, specific configurations of unemployment and labour market regulations give the social and political actors the motivation to mount collective action or, on the contrary, rob them of such motivation. For example, strongly inclusive unemployment regulations may discourage mobilization by organized groups defending the rights of unemployed, as the existing policy is favourable enough not to create further discontent with respect to the situation of the unemployed. Similarly, very rigid labour market regulations could also lower the motivations for action, as people could feel that the existing policy is favourable enough to protect the rights of the unemployed. Following the same logic, the reverse may be expected in the case of exclusive unemployment regulations and flexible labour market regulations. However, the most important effects perhaps occur at the discursive level. This line of reasoning is inspired by the literature on framing processes in social movement studies (see Benford and Snow 2000, Snow 2004 for reviews). On this level, specific combinations of unemployment and labour market regulations provide different sets of discursive opportunities (Koopmans et al. 2005, Marx, F. et al. 2002) to social and political actors intervening in this field. More specifically, the four ideal-typical situations lead to different degrees of public visibility and resonance as well as of political legitimacy of certain actors, identities and claims (Koopmans et al. 2005). For example, organized unemployed and pro-unemployed groups should be more visible and legitimate in acting in a context in which the dominant discourse stresses the rights and interests of the unemployed rather than those of the economy and the market. In contrast, employers’ organizations have more visibility and legitimacy where unemployment regulations are exclusive and labour market regulations are flexible, that is, in the context we have called precariousness. We may also expect certain claims to resonate better with and to be more visible within a given conception of the welfare state – and therefore with a given configuration of specific opportunities – than others. For example, we may expect claims focusing on the unemployed as a social category, rather than on unemployment as a social and economic problem, to be more resonant and visible where unemployment regulations are more inclusive. In contrast, in the presence of exclusive unemployment regulations, workers threatened with redundancy should be most often at the centre of claims. Also, we may expect the discursive climate to be more positive in the context of full protection, as this institutional approach is more open to the unemployed, while the context of precariousness forms a more hostile discursive climate which could lead collective actors to make negative statements concerning the unemployed. Discursive opportunities can also give rise to – or, conversely, deter – feelings of injustice among the population, provide social groups with cultural resources for identity-building and give them a sense of agency, that is, of being able to change things judged as unjust or unfavourable (Gamson 1995, see further Gamson 1992

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and Gamson, �������������������������������������������������������������������� Fireman and Rytina�������������������������������������������������� 1982). For example, it is more difficult for the unemployed to build a strong collective identity in a context in which they have few rights and the market is the main focus of debates and policies, while identity formation should be easier where the unemployed have rights and protection. These are only a few examples of how one may derive hypotheses from the general approach we have outlined. Generally speaking, if we look at this from the perspective of social movements, we can think of the four types (full protection, economic protection, social protection and precariousness) as representing more open or more closed situations for the mobilization of collective actors in the public domain to address issues relating to unemployment politics. In particular, the mobilization of the unemployed is likely to be affected not only by the general opportunity structures deriving from the institutional features of the political system such as the degree of openness or closedness of the institutionalize political system, the propensity and capacity for repression on the part of the state, the presence or absence of powerful allies and the configuration of political alignments (see McAdam 1996), but also – and perhaps mostly – by the specific opportunities stemming from state regulations in matters relating to unemployment. In this sense, the situation we have called precariousness is perhaps the most closed in terms of opportunities for the mobilization of the unemployed. In such a situation, both institutional and discursive opportunities are rather weak, as exclusive unemployment regulations and flexible labour market regulations tend to weaken the position of the unemployed as political actors. At the other end of the scale, the situation we have called full protection is probably the most open in this respect (the other two types representing intermediate situations). As a result, following the literature on political opportunity structures and their impact on the mobilization of social movements (Kitschelt 1986, Kriesi et al. 1995, Tarrow 1996, 1998), we may expect the unemployed to be more active in countries in which the precariousness type prevails and less active under a full protection type. The comparative works on political opportunities have also shown how closed opportunity structures tend to radicalize action, whereas open opportunity structures favour moderate types of action (see, for example, Kriesi et al. 1995). Therefore, always following this research tradition, we may expect the action repertoires of mobilized unemployed to be more radical in the former, more closed, situation and more moderate in the latter, more open, situation. Conclusion In this chapter, we wanted to suggest that collective action in the field of unemployment politics depends in important ways on the prevailing conceptions of the welfare state and, more specifically, on the dominant definitions of the role of the state with regard to unemployment and the unemployed. Such conceptions and definitions, which are culturally and historically anchored in the process

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of state formation, translate into country-specific institutional approaches to unemployment at both the social and economic levels. In other words, they lead to different state regulations to deal with unemployment and with the labour market. These institutional approaches, in turn, provide different sets of specific opportunity structures for collective action on unemployment politics. In this regard, we have distinguished between four ideal types of institutional approaches to unemployment, that is, four opportunity structures specific to this field, which we have called full protection, economic protection, social protection and precariousness, depending on which combination of unemployment regulation and labour market regulations prevails in a given context. We have then proposed a number of analytical dimensions as well as more concrete indicators that might help to operationalize the proposed typology. Finally, we have suggested a few linkages between the typology and collective action in this field. The proposed approach, however, is admittedly tentative and incomplete. In spite of our aim to be as systematic as possible, we could only give a taste of what we think could be done to proceed along the lines we have suggested. Most importantly, we have not shown any empirical evidence that might either support or undermine our entire approach. This was not our aim. Yet, analyses conducted elsewhere give some indications that the institutional approaches to unemployment have an impact on collective action in this field. For example, cross-national variations of the mobilization of the unemployed reflect more or less the institutional approaches to unemployment we have outlined (Chabanet and Giugni 2008, Giugni 2008). Furthermore, other characteristics of the claims dealing with unemployment are also at least in part influenced by the specific opportunity structures resulting from the prevailing conceptions of the welfare state and the institutional approaches that have inspired them (Giugni and Statham 2005). Much more theoretical and empirical work has to be done if we are to provide a satisfactory account of the relationship between welfare states, labour markets and the political opportunities stemming from them, on one hand, and collective action in the field of unemployment, on the other. The impact of these institutional and, especially, discursive approaches have already been shown to be effective in discussing the politics of immigration and ethnic relations but have just begun to be studied with regard to the politics of unemployment.

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Chapter 9

The Hidden Hand of the European Union and the Silent Europeanization of Public Debates on Unemployment: The Case of the European Employment Strategy Christian Lahusen

Introduction Unemployment holds a prominent position in public debates, since access to the labour market is an essential factor determining life chances and life forms in modern societies. Hence, fighting unemployment has been given high priority in the government programmes of most member states of the European Union (EU). At the same time, the EU has adopted a more active employment policy since 1997, above all through the European Employment Strategy (EES), which strives to coordinate and upgrade national policies by the member states by means of the Open Method of Coordination (OMC). The EES is thus a ‘soft’ governance tool that puts particular emphasis on political dialogue and policy learning amongst the European institutions and member states, and trusts in the ability of institutionalized policy deliberations and pan-European public debates to commit national governments voluntarily to a more coordinated and effective approach to problem solving. These policy initiatives thus raise questions as to the dynamics inherent in public debates on unemployment. Do public debates respond differently to European issues and policy initiatives and evolve separately within the various member states? Or can we witness European-wide discourses, which subject public debates in the member states to a process of denationalization and/ or Europeanization? These questions have been widely discussed by commentators and scholars because the emergence of mass-mediated public debates is considered as an integral precondition for the success of the OMC/EES in particular (e.g. de la Porte and Pochet 2004), and for a more transparent and democratically accountable form of European governance in general (Meyer 2005), given the need to inform the European citizenry about European politics, monitor and control EU institutions and contribute eventually to European governance through pan-European deliberations. While theoretical and normative reasoning on these issues is abundant, we still lack sufficient evidence to answer these questions empirically. In fact, both scenarios

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seem to be equally plausible, and this applies in particular to public debates on unemployment issues. On the one hand, we might expect that public debates on unemployment remain strongly embedded in nationally segmented public arenas, that they resonate quite differently to common policy initiatives and that they are thus badly equipped to play the functional role accorded to them. These limitations are probable, given the fact that unemployment and remedial public policies differ significantly between European countries, and that the EES is a purely voluntary process without hard sanctions that would allow the generation of public awareness for good or bad government performance in all European countries alike. Finally, the linguistic diversity of Europe and the national containment of the mass media (e.g. print, TV) speak for nationally distinct public debates. While these observations are true, there is, on the other hand, a growing potential for the Europeanization of public debates on unemployment, because EU institutions and national governments agree and publicly proclaim that unemployment is a common, pan-European problem awaiting coordinated solutions. In particular, the European Commission has pushed towards more integrated employment and social policies since Jacques Delors’s White Book on ‘Growth, Competitiveness and Employment’ of 1993 (Ferrera, Hemerijck and Rhodes 2000). Also, national governments have committed themselves to economic growth, more and better jobs and greater social cohesion at the European Council meetings of Essen (1993), Luxembourg (1997) and Lisbon (2000). They actively participate in the European Employment Strategy, which is a voluntary, yet orderly, procedure of benchmarking (de la Porte and Pochot 2004) that builds on constant monitoring, regular national action plans and recommendations by the EU institutions (Mosher and Trubek 2003, Zeitlin and Pochet 2005). It gears towards regulatory competition and thus towards the diffusion of problem definitions and solution strategies across the European continent. Consequently, denationalization and Europeanization of political agendas and public debates is actually intended as a means of developing a coordinated strategy amongst the European member states. In view of these diverging scenarios and propositions, it is necessary to empirically analyse and validate the assumption of an Europeanization of public debates. For this purpose, I will focus and assess the impact of the European Employment Strategy on mass-mediated public discussions on unemployment issues during its first term (1997–2002). Data will be drawn from a comparative research project, which conducted a content analysis of newspapers in France,   This paper uses data from a comparative project (‘The Contentious Politics of Unemployment in Europe: Political Claim-making, Policy Deliberation and Exclusion from the Labour Market’) that consisted of the following national research teams: UK (Paul Statham, project coordinator, University of Leeds), Germany (Christian Lahusen, University of Bamberg), France (Didier Chabanet, University of Lyon), Italy (Donatella della Porta, University of Florence), Sweden (Anna Linders, University of Cincinnati and University of Karlstad) and Switzerland (Marco Giugni, University of Geneva). Research was funded by the Swiss Federal Office for Education and Science and by the Commission

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Germany, the UK, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland and provides interesting insights into the question under analysis. It needs to be recalled that the purpose of this paper is primarily a descriptive one. Moreover, our evidence does not constitute proof for or against Europeanization in a strict sense, given the limitations of quantitative content analysis of newspaper data (see below). However, based on plausibility considerations, we will be able to expose a certain agenda-setting power of the EU in the case under analysis. Fur this purpose, the argument will evolve in three major steps. I will first address the primary research questions and assumptions to be dealt with and describe the data used and the methods applied. In a second step, I will present the main descriptive findings. Finally, I will conclude the paper with a discussion of the evidence gathered and its main implications for an understanding of the Europeanization of public debates. Research Questions and Data Research within the social sciences has addressed the issue of Europeanization of public debates quite prominently for more than one decade. For our purpose, we can refer to two strands of research, which focus on the Europeanization of public debates and of public policies respectively, and which provide valuable conceptual and empirical insights. On the one hand, scholarly debate has centred on the general question of whether public spheres and debates within the various member states are becoming more ‘European’ in regard to actors and arenas, issues and arguments, values and symbols. These studies centre predominantly on the mass media as an institutionalized arena of public (i.e. publicized) debates. In this context, a controversy emerged as to whether a European public sphere and European public debates are being formed. On the one side, we have a sceptical position supposing that there is only a very weak Europeanization of public debates underway (Downey and Koenig 2006, Gerhards 2000, in part Meyer 2005). These scholars validate their judgment by empirically demonstrating the poor presence of the European institutions and member states, and European issues and policies in national media coverage. Moreover, longitudinal analysis unveils no heightened attention to Europe over time, nor a convergence of national discussions. This weak Europeanization is attributed to the variety of languages, political cultures and traditions of public reasoning, the persistent importance of the nation state and the lack of pan-European mass media. The ongoing process of European integration and enlargement reduces even the potentials of a European public sphere by increasing internal heterogeneity and potential conflicts (Gerhards 2007).

of the EU (5th Framework Programme). I thank all members of the UNEMPOL-consortium for their contribution to the overarching project and for the allocation of the data. Further information is available at: http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/eurpolcom/unempol/.

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While this position tends to pay attention to ‘vertical’ Europeanization or denationalization (Beck and Grande 2007), arguing that national debates do not open towards or merge into an overarching, pan-European arena of public reasoning, there is a second position, which basically agrees with this observation, but sees more potential for a ‘horizontal’ Europeanization of public debates (Eder 2000, Eder and Trenz 2002, van de Steeg et al. 2003, Trenz 2004). The fact that public spheres are still primarily structured and organized institutionally along national borders does not, in Eder’s view, necessarily exclude the Europeanization of public debates. He considers it absolutely possible for common pan-European discourses to emerge on the basis of nationally segmented – and thematically pluralized – publics. What matters in this context is a discursive entanglement of the existing publics, as soon as the various national actors react to common events, address common issues and ponder similar facts or arguments. The European Union is not dependant on producing an independent public space and maintaining it against the established national publics. It is sufficient for the EU to provide a common stock of themes, communication events and deliberative processes, which create a common communication space on the grounds of institutionally separate, but discursively interrelated, national debates. This assumption has been validated by a number of case studies, e.g. with regard to public debates on security policies and campaigns against racism (Trenz, 2002: 63–144) and on the Euro (Risse 2003), bio-technology (Seifert 2006) or the Haider debate (van de Steeg et al. 2003, Berkel 2006). These case studies illustrate that Europeanization operates as a diffusion of issues and problem definitions, ideas and norms, which effectively synchronize national public debates (Seifert 2006). However, this does not mean convergence or fusion of national public spheres, because overarching problems and issues, ideas and arguments resonate quite differently in the various countries and are thus processed differently, as exemplified by the national debates on the Euro (Risse 2003). A second strand of research devotes its attention to the Europeanization of public policies. While these studies focus on a different research object, namely institutionalized policy-making and implementation, they do pay some attention to mass-mediated public debates, particularly because the latter are functionally tied into soft governance instruments. These scholars argue that policy change within member states can be attributed to the ‘vertical’ transfer of sovereignty to the EU. However, in a multi-level system of governance, within which nation states remain an important player and level of decision-making and implementation, policy change needs to be associated also with the ‘horizontal’ diffusion of ideas, norms, rules and practices (Radaelli 2000). This process is fuelled by common negotiations and deliberations within European institutions and policy networks, an observation that has been corroborated in a number of policy fields (Radaelli and Schmidt 2004), primarily in those where the Open Method of Coordination is used, given its emphasis on benchmarking and policy learning (de la Porte and Pochet 2004). However, even in these cases Europeanization is limited and not directed at convergence (Radaelli 2005). Moreover, it is not a top-down process of

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‘downloading’ European policy concepts and approaches, because it also builds on the attempts of member states to ‘upload’ national policies to the European level (Börzel 2002, Schmidt and Radaelli 2004), leading into interactive processes of regulatory competition and/or hybridization. Finally, it has been demonstrated that ‘European’ influences are less marked the more we move from policy deliberation and formulation to decision-making and implementation. More specifically, it is argued that the EES has had an impact on national politics in a cognitive dimension, rather than on the level of legal provisions, administrative structures and public policies (Zeitlin 2005, Heidenreich and Bischoff 2008). All these arguments underline the persistent importance of the nation state as policy player and as a filter of diffusion processes, given the specific institutional and legal structures, policy-processes and actor-constellations within each member state (Radaelli 2000). Cross-national diffusion processes are strong when policy ideas are coherent, yet well adaptable to the various discursive contexts of the member states, when transnational policy communities take ownership of the underlying policy ideas and when favourable institutional rules with clear goals, procedures and sanctions are in place (Radaelli and Schmidt 2004, Zeitlin 2005). These findings and propositions advise us to be cautious when assuming a Europeanization of public debates on unemployment. In fact, Meyer (2005) has demonstrated that press coverage on employment policy coordination is virtually absent, and that the higher attention to European Monetary Union is determined by the higher policy priority of this policy field, the unambiguous objectives defined and the harder sanctions negotiated in the Maastricht Treaty. However, Meyer’s study measures only literal and direct references to the European Employment Strategy, leaving it unclear whether a diffusion of underlying policy ideas, norms and rules has taken place. Some Europeanization of this sort should be expected, even though we are dealing with a voluntary process of cooperation (de la Porte and Pochet 2004). Indeed, it has been shown that the OMC is strong with regard to policy learning in a cognitive dimension: the iterative structure of the OMC has gradual and lasting effects on national policy deliberations due to the repetitive rhythm of constant monitoring, regular national plans and EU recommendations (Heidenreich and Bischoff 2008, Mosher and Trubek 2003). Can these learning processes be observed in the realm of mass-mediated public debates about unemployment issues? And on what kind of Europeanization do these possible effects reside? In order to answer these empirical questions, we need to specify our assumed scenarios. With regard to the research described above, I propose to distinguish between two possible processes. On the one hand, we might speak of a ‘vertical’ denationalization of public debates on unemployment, in the sense that national debates are less dominated by purely national actors and issues. This process should be traceable by demonstrating that more ‘European’ actors participate within publicized national debates, and that issues and policies discussed in the newspapers are framed more often in their ‘European’ dimension, i.e. by referring either to the supranational level of the EU or to the situation in other European

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member states. On the other hand, there might be a ‘horizontal’ Europeanization of public debates underway, which resides on the diffusion of issues, ideas and norms across the European member states. This scenario is analytically distinct from the first one, because in this case we would assume that public debates might even remain entirely committed to a national arena and frame of reference (e.g. with regard to participating actors, debated problems and issues, and proposed political measures), while becoming increasingly synchronized at the same time, owing to the spread of common themes, ideas and positions throughout the EU. In this sense, national debates would tend to reorient and restructure themselves in the light of European agendas without paying attention to (or being aware of) the European origin or authorship of the issues, ideas or arguments discussed. In a move to assess these assumptions, I shall use the claims-making data gathered by an international comparative research project that analysed the news coverage of national newspapers between 1995 and 2002. The research included one newspaper per country: in France Le Monde, in Germany the Süddeutsche Zeitung, in the UK the Guardian, in Italy La Repubblica, in Sweden the Dagens Nyheter and in Switzerland the Neue Züricher Zeitung. These print media were treated as an institutionalized public sphere or arena of policy-related debates, and thus as an archive of public claims and actions by policy-relevant actors (Franzosi 1987, Müller 1996). Following the approach of claims-making analysis (Koopmans and Statham 1999a), the unit of analysis was not the newspaper article, but the individual statements by the actors covered. News coverage was thus disaggregated into actor-specific claims, which were then coded and analysed according to the method of quantitative content analysis (see also Krippendorf 1980, Weber 1990). This standardized, quantitative approach had two important advantages for the research question under scrutiny. On the one hand, this claimsmaking analysis used a common coding book with a set of common variables (e.g. who said what, how, when, where, to whom and in reference to whom), which guarantee the comparability of the data across countries. On the other hand, the analysis of Europeanization processes requires a longitudinal approach based on quantifiable units of analysis. Our data set allows for such a longitudinal analysis, because it resides on the standardized retrieval of claims across time. Our study includes five EU members and Switzerland. The latter country provides us with an interesting case, because Switzerland is not a member of the EU, while it cooperated with the EU, Norway and Iceland in the context of the European Free Trade Association with regard to employment issues and is a member   The selectivity of news coverage, which is attributed to its gate-keeping role and the exigencies of news values, does not constitute a problem to our inquiry, because we are precisely interested in reconstructing national debates, which are structured in modern society predominantly by the mass media (Habermas, 1990, Luhmann, 1995). It was merely necessary to choose national newspapers in the six countries that represent a comparable spectrum of publicized debates. According to our opinion, the selected newspapers guarantee comparability, in spite of differences in styles and traditions of news reporting.

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of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which has played an important role as agenda-setter in the debates about policy reforms with regard to the labour market (OECD 1994). If it turns out that Switzerland is less clearly seized by trends of Europeanization than the other countries, this can be seen as evidence of the fact that EU membership matters. In particular, it would show that the ‘soft’ governance tools of the OMC/EES establish an institutionalized arena of communication and learning that has sensitive repercussions on public debates in its member states, more than institutionally unstructured and unguided diffusion processes such as globalization. In spite of the strengths of our data, we need to recall several limitations. First, our analysis is based on a non-random sample, which prohibits statistical testing. For this reason, the following analysis will be based primarily on explorative and descriptive statistics. Second, Europeanization is normally conceived of as a linear process, while mass-mediated public debates on specific issues usually follow a cyclical rhythm. The only way of uncovering an overall development across issue cycles is to analyse longer time frames, and thus to increase the work load substantially. However, even when analysing eight years of new coverage, as in our case, ‘Europeanization’ remains exposed to cycles of public attention, which complicates data interpretation. Finally, content analysis of public debates resides on ‘positive’ entries, i.e. on what is being said, although it might be as important to consider what is not being said. In fact, as we will show, debates on employability are stronger, for instance, in the UK than in Sweden, which does not imply that related policies are of minor importance in the latter case. A lower level of public debate might be also a sign of an implicit consensus about the importance of employability policies. Hence, what we measure is rather the degree of explicitness of public issues across countries and across news coverage cycles, in disregard of issue latency. In spite of these limitations, however, a quantitative content analysis remains a valuable (albeit restricted) instrument for empirically describing Europeanization processes. In fact, the objective of this chapter is to uncover whether the EU is able to set public agendas, i.e. whether it is able to influence across time what national actors speak explicitly about, and how they assess related policy measures publicly – even if we cannot determine the latent baseline from which these public debates depart.   The sampling strategy used by our research reflects our attempt to reconstruct public debates as systematically as possible from a claims-making perspective. For this reason, we opted to analyse only one newspaper per country, while raising the number of claims to be considered to a very high level. In fact, our sample consisted of all claims from articles dealing with unemployment in a direct or indirect way during January 1995 and December 2002. We considered all Monday, Wednesday and Friday issues, though restricting our data retrieval to those sections of relevance for national debates on unemployment, here, above all the first page, political and economic sections. For a general discussion of sampling strategies with regard to newspaper data see Baur and Lahusen (2005) and Lerg and Schmolke (1995).

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Europe – Talked about Everywhere? On the Assumption of Denationalization As a first step, we will deal with the assumption of a denationalization of public debates, with particular emphasis on what has been called ‘vertical’ Europeanization. This process can be examined with a view to actors, themes and addressees. This process should become evident, in the first instance, at the level of actors involved: we would expect an increasing number of statements from European actors (i.e. EU institutions and organizations from the other member states) within national debates. This would speak for an opening of public discourse arenas towards an extended, transnational public sphere. Second, we should be able to observe a thematic denationalization measured by the growing share of claims addressing the themes in question in a European dimension, for instance, when speaking of unemployment as a problem shared with other European countries and/or the EU at large. This would indicate a gradual European revaluation of previously nationally defined contents (i.e. problems of, reasons for and/or solutions to unemployment). Third, we might expect statements to refer more often to transnational or supranational responsibilities, measured by the number of European actors that are mentioned in the statement as the party responsible for the problem and its removal. Table 9.1 summarizes the results of these three items. It shows that mass mediated debates on unemployment are committed to a national frame of reference. Generally speaking, there are hardly any signs of a denationalization of public discourses, since nine out of ten statements are located in the national, regional or local context. If we look at the three variables separately, this picture is confirmed in each case. In regard to actors, for instance, we see that ‘global players’ are only rarely mentioned in national printed media (e.g. multinational companies or international organizations like the OECD). This goes for European actors as well; the significance of the EU itself is even lower, since only two-thirds of all claims being coded as European refer to EU institutions and state/non-state actors from member states.

 Our data also includes two other indicators: the reference to the object of the statement (here seen as the group of persons on whose behalf the actors give their statement in the newspaper), and the actor criticized in the statement. Denationalization should be recognizable on both levels as well. Since these variables do not deviate from the picture portrayed by the three above-stated indicators, we forego a representation here.  ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� The last row of the table exhibits quite different case numbers for the countries under analysis. This is due to the fact that the number of articles dealing with unemployment in each newspaper issue differed considerably between the countries – a fact that is well known in comparative print media analysis and can be attributed to the different traditions and formats of news coverage. These differences also generated variations in the number of claims: 1,461 (CH), 3,851 (D), 789 (F), 950 (I), 581 (S) and 743 (UK). The case numbers also differ between the three variables, because claims, for instance, enunciated more issues than addressees.

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Table 9.1

159

The spatial frame of reference of public debates (1995–2002) – Multiple answers: Percentage of claims

Levels Non-EU/global Germany France UK Italy Sweden Switzerland European Germany France UK Italy Sweden Switzerland National Germany France UK Italy Sweden Switzerland Regional/local Germany France UK Italy Sweden Switzerland Percentage/N Germany France UK Italy Sweden Switzerland

Actors

Themes

Addressees

4.4

1.5

2.1

6.3 1.3 7.6 2.7 1.2 2.3

1.7 1.3 3.1 0.2 0.9 1.1

3.3 1.6 5.9 0.0 0.2 1.6

3.1

4.7

5.6

2.5 5.3 4.7 3.5 4.5 1.7

3.6 9.8 6.0 8.3 4.8 1.7

2.9 6.3 7.0 10.4 5.1 4.0

79.9

77.0

85.6

80.1 88.2 78.6 84.3 79.1 73.3

79.8 84.8 66.6 71.8 83.0 72.4

89.4 89.0 80.6 83.3 87.0 67.3

12.6

16.8

6.7

11.1 5.2 9.1 9.5 15.2 22.7

14.9 4.1 24.3 19.7 11.3 24.8

4.4 3.1 6.5 6.3 7.7 27.1

100/9,721

100/1,2315

100/3,560

4,245 1,043 889 1,017 683 1,844

5,768 1,189 1,444 1,081 787 2,046

859 1,018 443 366 623 251

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The data on issues and addresses does not deviate from this insight. It is true that the European dimension of the themes discussed is slightly more emphasized than the global level. Likewise, there is a weak trend towards locating responsibility at the European level. Nevertheless, the national level still remains prominent for themes and addressees alike. Moreover, Europe is also insignificant when compared with discussions on regional and local problems, reasons for and possible solutions to unemployment. Consequently, our data clearly contradicts the assumption of a denationalization of public debates. As the time course does not show any sign of the supposed development either, we omit a longitudinal tabular breakdown of the data. In fact, a glance at the data shows that no trend towards a upvaluation of the European frame of reference is recognizable over the time period, and it is even less possible to speak of a parallel development in all countries at the same time. The only striking feature is that European actors, themes and addressees inch into the focus of public interest more strongly between 1997 and 1999 – in the UK, France and Sweden this concerns more than every tenth statement per year. This heightened presence is linked with European political debates covering the launch of the Euro, the establishing of a coordinated economic policy and the efforts concerning the joint European Employment Strategy. Yet these debates had no lasting impact on the sustained denationalization of public discussions on unemployment. If we finally look at the variance between the countries, we see that Switzerland is the least exposed to the denationalization and ‘vertical’ Europeanization of public debates on unemployment, which coincides with our expectation that membership in the EU and the participation in institutionalized learning processes, such as the OMC/EES, make a difference and thus have measurable effects on publicized debates within the nation states. However, differences between Switzerland and the EU member states are small, and in many instances also smaller than the variance amongst the EU countries. Moreover, the various levels (European, national and regional/local) seem to be interrelated conversely. For instance, we perceive that the least denationalized countries (Germany, Switzerland, and in part Sweden) are also those enunciating more often regional or local actors and addressees. This suggests that the institutional structure of a nation state has a structuring impact on public debates, given the federal structure of the German and Swiss state and the strong decentralization of labour market policies in Sweden. Interestingly enough, the regionalist orientation of federalist and/or decentralized states detracts public attention from the EU, which is different from unitarian countries, where this is not the case. In sum, little evidence of a denationalization can be unveiled. The small variations in time seem to indicate that the heightened presence of European actors, themes and addresses during 1997–1998 is a situational or cyclical phenomenon rather than a sign of a structured and sustained European reorganization of national debates. On the contrary, discussions on unemployment are still dominated by a highly institutionalized national public sphere that is strongly restricted to national actors and frames the debates in a primarily national or regional manner.

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National Debates – Basically European? On the Assumption of Europeanization Our data suggests no significant ‘vertical’ denationalization of national debates on unemployment. However, this does not principally rule out the possibility of arriving at a ‘horizontal’ Europeanization of national discourses. In fact, we can assume that institutionalized benchmarking and mutual learning processes established by the OMC/EES promote a cross-national diffusion of ideas, approaches and practices, which are adopted by national actors and (re-)introduced into public debates as part of their oratory. This diffusion would be particularly successful when paralleled by an adoption and internalization of the respective policy ideas and approaches, i.e. when national debates take ‘ownership’ of European inputs, possibly omitting or forgetting their European origin or authorship Hence, if we want to measure Europeanization, we cannot just count public statements explicitly referring to the European institutions, the OMC and EES, and more specific European benchmarks and policy recommendations. This option is used by many studies of mass-mediated public debates (e.g. Gerhards 2000, Meyer 2005), but omits a substantial share of public statements by national actors, who promote policy ideas, approaches and practices as their own that they have adopted and adapted directly or indirectly from others, e.g. from common policy deliberations within the EU institutions and/or role-model member states. If we want to empirically validate the cross-national diffusion of policy ideas, approaches and practices in this more encompassing manner, then we have to focus rather on the agenda setting capacity of the EES on national debates on unemployment. Yet how can we empirically measure this? On the one hand, we can validate whether there is an adjustment of the issue agendas of national debates to the EU’s theme priorities. We would expect that national actors will address themes more frequently in the course of time that are set by European documents and policies. On the other hand, Europeanization presumes that national debates take up the recommendations and guidelines of European policy. Hence, it would also be underway if national actors faced the themes and measures promoted by the EU more positively in the course of time. In the following, the European Employment Strategy will be used as a reference point for retrieving and assessing both agendasetting processes. We will restrict our attention to the first five-year term of the EES (1997–2002), because our objective is to trace back effects of the iterative structure of the EES on national public debates. During its first term, changes within these national discussions might be more pronounced and more clearly related to the EES. Our data allows for such an analysis, because it includes public statements made in the years between 1995 and 2002. The European Agenda: The European Employment Strategy The EES defines common European objectives and guidelines, and establishes them as a yardstick for the assessment of national policies and action plans. Next

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to the European Monetary Union, the EES is one of the most prominent fields of action for the Open Method of Coordination (Hodson and Maher 2001, de la Porte and Pochet 2004). The OMC/EES is not a ‘hard’ governance tool geared to implement policy directives in a top-down manner, given the fact that the EU does not have strict competences in the field of labour market and employment policies. It is rather a ‘soft’ instrument that depends on the voluntary participation of member states. According to the EES, the EU Commission and the Council of Ministers agree on broad goals (e.g. to raise employment rates in all countries to 70 per cent), they define common indicators that allow comparison of the performance of national governments, and they design a common monitoring and evaluation process that has the potential to name and shame (good or bad) performance. National governments still have to decide on how they are going to reach the set goals and what action plans they are going to submit to the EES assessment procedures, leaving them a wide area of discretion in the choice of policy instrument. Yet, the EES establishes a benchmarking process determined to identify ‘best practices’, thus bringing about a quite pronounced regulatory competition between the member states (Zeitlin 2005). The EES goes back to the White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment, launched by Jacques Delors in 1993. As early as in 1994, at the Essen Summit, a first attempt was made to commit member states to a coordinated employment strategy. While this first endeavour failed, a permanent commission for employment and labour market policy was established, which helped to push the initiatives further down. Three years later, the EES was finally put into action at the Amsterdam summit in 1997 for a five year period, at the end of which the first comprehensive evaluation was to be carried out. The benchmarking system of the EES was then launched stepwise from 1997 onwards. At the Luxembourg summit in 1998 common employment guidelines were formulated and a monitoring system was established. In 1999 the benchmarking process was introduced, and in 2000 the first retrospective assessment was carried out. At the same time, the annual country recommendations were agreed upon at the Lisbon summit, which were designed to commit member states to policy objectives and best practices. In 2002, a systematic stocktaking of results gathered during the five years of EES was carried out, in which both the Commission and the member states took part. Since then, the EES has gone into a second round and is now being coordinated with other OMC processes (e.g. in the realm of social exclusion). In sum, the EES/OMC is an open procedure promoting the self-commitment of member states through the competition of national action plans. Although it was started as a process leaving wide scope for the determination of their policies by the member states, the first EES process puts a focus on a regulative approach, including four central guidelines: •

improving employability (qualification and reinsertion, active/activating measures);

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• •

•

163

developing entrepreneurship (reduction of tax load, deregulation, simplification of the tax system); encouraging adaptability in businesses and their employees (modernization of work organization, liberalization and flexibilization of working hours and forms of employment); strengthening the policies for equal opportunities (anti-discrimination, harmonization of family and job, integration of disabled persons).

On the level of priorities we can observe that the first EES process supported above all a rising employment quota and the liberalization of labour markets. The struggle against poverty and social exclusion, which had gained in significance in the EU’s programmatic statements since the end of the 1980s (Abrahamson 1997, Atkinson and Davoudi 2000), only played a secondary role in this context, insofar as the priority was not to ameliorate the situation of the excluded directly, but to put all efforts into getting the marginalized into work again. In view of the favoured good practices, we can see that the EES was certainly a mixture of the various regulatory paradigms represented throughout Europe (Barbier 2005, Heidenreich and Bischoff 2008). Yet, neoliberal concepts of liberalization and activation had acquired particular importance, especially in view of the guidelines of employability and entrepreneurship. According to Conter (2004), the EES was therefore in reality more normative than cooperative. Consequently, we should be able to trace back the ‘agenda-setting’ effects of the first EES process on national debates on unemployment. European Agenda Setting: Issue Agendas in the Course of Time Our data allows observation of the first five-year term of the EES (1997–2002) and the accompanying developments on the national level. Did the EES have any effect on national debates? Can we speak of a ‘horizontal’ Europeanization in this case? In line with the EES’s dynamics, diffusion processes should have accentuated above all towards the end of that period, since the iterative benchmarking process gained in momentum from 2000, thus leading to an increasing attention on specific objectives and country recommendations. In order to respond to the above questions, it is necessary to examine the national debates with regard to their possible adaptation to the EES agenda. To this end, I shall exclusively deal with nationally ‘framed’ debates in the following, i.e. I shall only take those claims from our data into account that refer to nationally or regionally defined themes. By excluding all statements on European or global themes I want to avoid the (admittedly low) number of supranational references interfering with the results, given the fact that I want to validate the assumption of a ‘horizontal’ Europeanization of ‘national’ debates. Before unfolding developments over time, it seems advisable to provide a rough picture of the prominence of EES-related topics within national news coverage first. Table 9.2 mirrors the proportion of statements to be assigned to the

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Table 9.2

Themes of the EES in national debates (1995–2002) as a percentage of claims Germany

France

UK

Italy

Sweden

Switzerland

Employability

6.0

8.5

13.0

2.8

8.2

5.7

Development of entrepreneurship

11.8

15.3

6.7

9.0

7.8

13.1

Adaptability in business and their employees

5.7

12.0

0.6

7.5

2.6

8.5

Equal opportunities

1.4

1.9

3.8

0.0

2.9

0.1

Other themes

75.1

62.3

75.9

80.7

78.5

72.7

Percentage/N

100/5,467 100/1,062 100/1,326 100/991 100/1,626

100/1,986

four guidelines of the European Employment Strategy. We can observe that 20–35 per cent of all statements deal with issues to be associated with the EES. We need to point out, however, that discussions on unemployment are subdivided into a wealth of individual debates covering different aspects, causes, consequences and/ or solutions. In percentage terms, therefore, the individual theme groups that can  In order to calculate this table, I grouped all issues named by the actors in the newspapers according to the four guidelines of the EES. The following claims were assigned to the first guideline on employability: active ������������������������������������������������ reinsertion measures for the unemployed, workfare, administrative help, placing procedures, other group-specific (re)insertion measures, training and formation, vocational training, in-service training, education and lifelong learning. The following theme groups were, amongst others, allocated to the second guideline on the development of entrepreneurship: taxation and social expenses, employment costs, unemployment insurance and social assistance (access to, duration and amount of benefits), the financing of insurance and assistance schemes, self-employment. As far as the promotion of the adaptability of companies and staff is concerned, the following claims were taken into account: liberalization and flexibilization, part-time employment, job-sharing and reduction of collective labor time, retirement, work conditions and working hours. Finally, in the field of equal opportunities, statements on policies against discrimination and on equal opportunities for women, disabled and foreign workers were considered.

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be allocated to the EES represent as many claims as other central national debates, e.g. those on economic development and weekly working hours, company specific dismissals or relocations, investment programmes or moonlighting. Hence, issues related to the EES do play a considerable role within the national public spheres. Regarding theme priorities, we can also recognize that the ‘development of entrepreneurship’, the ‘promotion of the adaptability in business and their employees’ and the ‘improvement of employability’ assume far greater importance than ‘equal opportunities’. The latter is considered a merely marginal theme. Hence, Table 9.2 demonstrates that not all issues dealt with in the EES resonate alike on the national level. Moreover, even the three more prominent guidelines are not publicized and debated to the same extent in all the countries under analysis; neither does the importance accorded by national debates to each of the four guidelines mirror the EU’s proper agenda, here the policy recommendations enunciated by the EU institutions in the course of the EES-process. These observations point to the important ‘filtering’ role of nationally structured public debates, predicated already by the scholarly writing presented previously. Finally, these indications advise us not to take the proportions of claims indicated by Table 9.2 at face-value. If ‘employability’, for instance, is being discussed in Sweden less frequently than in the UK and almost as often as in France, then this should not be misunderstood as a sign of the weaker importance of employability policies in Sweden. Given the fact that Scandinavian countries are generally at the forefront of active policy measures, moderately weaker proportions of public claims might indicate merely that there is less need to debate publicly this policy approach, e.g. due to a stronger public consent. This observation will prevent us from comparing levels of issue intensity across countries, and undertaking that is in any case not the objective of this analysis. I am rather interested in tracing back ‘horizontal’ Europeanization, that is, in measuring whether the EU has had an effect on national policy debates, by promoting EES-relevant debates and/or by impinging on policy assessments by leading policy actors. For this purpose, it is sufficient to grasp and compare changes in national discussions across time, disregarding the baseline intensity of public debates across countries. To this end, I am going to focus on one of the four guidelines in order to trace the denationalization in a more systematic way: improving ‘employability’. Focussing on this topic is justified in as far as the EES’s first term most strongly propagated this theme and has therefore been most clearly associated with this concept. Furthermore – compared with the two other important guidelines – we face a more consistent debate as regards contents so that the course of the discussions can be categorized and traced more clearly in empirical terms. Figure 9.1 shows that employability issues have been more the focus of public interest in Germany, France and Sweden since 1999. While at the beginning of the research period only every twentieth statement covered employability, this number rose across issue cycles to every seventh or eighth claim in the countries mentioned above. In France, a debate in this respect was held as early as in 1995, although this was mainly due to a general concern about the necessity of integrating the

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The Politics of Unemployment in Europe

jobless. This early and very general debate has, therefore, little in common with the subsequent discussions on concrete employability measures. Consequently, for these countries a turn towards questions of employability can be discerned, which seems to be influenced by the development of the EES. In Switzerland, debates on this issue – apart from a climax in 1999 – abated continually, which lives up to the expectations of the differing situation in a non-EU member state. Italy, in contrast, contradicts this assumption, since there are hardly any statements dealing with this theme, but more importantly, no change can be discerned during the period under review. Last but not least, the UK case is rather interesting. Public discussions were prominent as early as in 1995, and especially in 1997, and gained a new momentum only in 2002. This is doubtless connected with the politics of New Labour, above all with Tony Blair’s electoral victory in 1997, which made the Third Way and thus an activating policy the official guideline of the UK government. We may therefore assume that the UK contributed actively to fixing themes to which the )UDQFH

*HUPDQ\ 

















 



       

       

*UHDW%ULWDLQ

,WDO\

























       

       

6ZHGHQ

6ZLW]HUODQG























        

Figure 9.1

       

Proportion of claims on employability issues per year (in %)

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EES turned from 1997 onwards. It is feasible that the UK took over a certain leadership in opinion-making within the EU as regards the debates about the integration of the unemployed into the labour market, concerning both the dominant concepts (employability) and the procedures (best practices). Hence, when the figure reconstructs thematic diffusion processes within the EU, this is also done in the sense that agenda setting does not only occur in a vertical direction, namely from the supranational level of EU institutions to the member states, but also in a horizontal direction between the different countries. In this sense, we can speak of a diffusion loop that acquired momentum in the UK and in Brussels and then seized the other member states. It is to be assumed that Sweden played a supportive role in this pan-European debate, although it did not stamp this development in a quantitatively traceable way. This diffusion, however, is no automatism, as is underlined by the Italian case, for here debates diverge from the developments to be expected. European Opinion-making: Employability in the Verdict of National Debates While the data features some ‘horizontal’ Europeanization of national debates – though not for all countries – it only does so with a view to thematic agendas. It consequently shows that employability is talked about more often. However, we do not know how the actors judge it. In a further and final step we therefore have to ask whether the countries not only discuss these issues more frequently, but also whether the acceptance of the related goals and measures rises. In this way, we could not only speak of Europeanization of public agendas, but also of a ‘horizontal’ Europeanization of policy ideas and regulatory approaches. Our data provides pertinent information in this respect, since we not only coded claims in view of the themes covered, but also with regard to the actors’ assessments: We differentiated between statements that rejected the goal or measure they were speaking about (−1), those that welcomed it (+1) and those that assessed it in a neutral way (0). Owing to these indications, we can compute and compare the average position of the countries and actors with regard to employability guidelines and measures. Table 9.3 shows the change in acceptance by comparing two time periods, the time before and after the Luxembourg summit in 1998. In the first row for each country, the changes of the overall debates on employability are indicated, measured by the average position of all national claims. We observe that the employability issues have been assessed more positively in the UK, Germany and Sweden after 1998 than before that date. Switzerland deviates from the picture of the other countries, since the debate on this group of issues not only declines in importance,  I calculated and compared means, in spite of the fact that this variable is not based on a metric scale; however, findings can be presented more concisely and clearly in this way. Statistical testing (e.g. standard deviations) was omitted, owing to the fact that our data results from a non-random sample.

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168

but also in acceptance in the course of time, thus conforming to our expectation. However, France does not comply with the trend of the other three member states, which is ubdoubtedly related to the massive protests of the unemployed and those in precarious employment, which have clearly spawned mass-mediated debates since 1997 (e.g. Maurer 2001, Chabanet 2002). It is also important to note in this context that the French discussions focus on the goals and measures of employability (i.e. vocational training and activation) ever more concretely over time. As a result, the initial agreement with the general goal of employability is dwindling, as actors deal with the specific measures and goals of activation policies. In Italy, finally, no reliable quantitative statement is possible in view of the low number of cases. Moreover, the considerably more positive assessment is attributable to the fact that the Italian debates refer primarily to the necessity of integration without concretely discussing the contested aspects of activation. If we move to governments and/or executive actors, we see that their opinion is far more uniform. The table shows that governments face employability more positively than the average of all statements. Moreover, acceptance increases more Table 9.3

Acceptance of employability (means) 1995–1998

Germany Executive/Government

0.38 0.48

SPD France Executive/Government

0.50

Labour Italy

Sweden Executive/Government

0.14

Executive/Government SPS Note: -1 = negative, +1 = positive.

(0.25) 0.39

0.17

0.64 0.73

0.82 (1.0)

2/20 48/68 42/49 7/7 13/4 64/69

0.48

0.24 0.86

17/26

16/12

(1.00)

0.54

SAP Switzerland

0.86 1.00

(0.60)

l’Ulivo

13/41

92/80

0.85

0.90 0.87

Executive/Government

0.60 0.61

0.65

56/102 36/54

0.50

(0.50) 0.51

Executive/Government

0.59 0.06

0.53

N 116/214

0.67

0.38

PS UK

1999–2002 0.53

35/46 17/11 72/41

0.69 (1.0)

27/21 7/5

The Hidden Hand of the European Union

169

clearly. Consequently, the governments and their administrations assume the role of supporters or sponsors most obviously within national debates. Switzerland is the only country to contradict this trend, living up to our expectations. France deviates somewhat from the general picture, although it is striking to note that the government remains loyal to the theme in the second period of time, in spite of the strikingly more negative public attitude and the extensive mobilizations since 1997. It is also interesting to note that the position of major political parties has changed in the course of time, i.e. when speaking about the assessment by socialdemocratic parties. This is significant as the establishment of the EES went hand in hand with a period of social-democratic governments. Interestingly enough, these parties became more evidently the supporters of employability across time. Indeed, after 1999 social democrats considered the guidelines and measures of employability far more positively than before, with the UK Labour Party being the strong leader, and the Swedish, French and German social democrats the followers. Italy and Switzerland deviate from this picture, although no clear statements can be made due to the low number of claims. Discussion The empirical data does not supply a univocal picture regarding the Europeanization of national debates on unemployment. It has been shown that public discourses are still primarily structured and framed in national terms. Under these circumstances, no Europeanization of national discussions is to be expected, especially if we look for a ‘vertical’ denationalization of public debates. In fact, our data has shown that there is a low – possibly even negligible – thematization of Europe (e.g. European actors, themes, addressees) within mass-mediated discussions. This argues for a weak denationalization of national discourse arenas, thus consolidating the sceptical scholars’ position (e.g. Downey and Koenig 2006, Gerhards 2000). However, the data seems to indicate that this is not the full truth. Indeed, there is evidence supporting the assumption of a ‘horizontal’ Europeanization of national debates – even in regard to a clearly nationally ‘controlled’ policy field. As is underlined by the example of the guidelines and measures of employability, issues pertaining to the European Employment Strategy have been more frequently discussed within national discussions since 1997–1998, without the European stamp or origin being thematized or reflected by the national actors themselves. It was also shown that national actors have faced employability issues more positively since 1999. Consequently, it can be assumed that there was a diffusion of issues, problem definitions and policy ideas across Europe. Apparently, this diffusion was fuelled by the UK discussions under New Labour and by the programmatic ideas of the European Employment Strategy. Data seems to point out that this process is in no way a merely vertical diffusion where the member states – and here mainly governments led by social-democratic parties – took over the positions of supranational actors. In view of the more intensive UK discussions

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The Politics of Unemployment in Europe

on employability issues since the mid-1990s, it can rather be assumed that the UK government – i.e. New Labour – demanded a leadership for itself within the panEuropean debates. In this way, it has possibly gained influence on the formation of the EES and has thus assisted in coining the national debates in the other member states both directly and indirectly. Sweden, which is a strong proponent of many of the issues debated within the EES and a country that was assessed positively year by year throughout the benchmarking process, was seemingly less involved as public opinion leader, thus apparently playing more the role of a supportive bystander. The Swiss case makes us aware of the fact that membership in the EU tends to have a positive effect on the Europeanization of national discussions, since the Swiss discussions did not only stay farther away from the emergence of European employability debates, but developed in part even anti-cyclical features. It should be added, however, that Italy feels less affected by the developments traced in the study. Finally, we do not see that all European guidelines – such as the one on equal opportunities – influence national agendas in a similar way. Consequently we need to underline that Europeanization of national debates does not occur automatically, as soon as the EU institutions (particularly Commission and Council of Ministers) decide to develop common positions or programmes. Public discourses in the field of employment and labour market policies unfold far too clearly in firmly established and institutionalized national discourse arenas. However, European agendas such as the EES can be understood as important stimuli for a readjustment of national debates. This will not necessarily lead to a conversion – or even a convergence – of national debates, as is proven by the case of Italy. However, the probability of such a development is rising the more clearly national actors participate actively within debates promoted and channelled by the European institutions. In fact, within the different countries there are more obvious trends towards Europeanization among governments and/or social-democratic parties that participated actively in developing the EES. With regard to countries, a core group formed by the UK, Germany, France and Sweden breaks away from Italy on the one hand and Switzerland on the other. This seems to suggest that Italian policy actors participated less actively in the EES process and thus exposed themselves less intensively to its agenda-setting influences. Conclusion Results suggest that the Europeanization thesis has to be assessed in a differentiated way. We can see, on the one hand, that national differences still exist in regard to public agendas. At the same time, there is no ‘vertical’ denationalization of public debates, because mass-media discussions within the member states do not tend to open themselves for European actors and do not frame problems and solutions in a ‘European’ way. A different picture is painted, on the other hand, when we change to the content level. Here, there seems to be a diffusion of

The Hidden Hand of the European Union

171

problem definitions, regulatory approaches and policy ideas. The case of the EES, and above all the guideline on employability, was illuminating, since it could be shown that national debates in most countries under review increasingly turned towards the targets, guidelines and measures propagated, although these debates presented themselves as genuinely national or regional discourses. In this case, there was a persistence of national discourse arenas and a simultaneous partial European revaluation of the contents of the discourses, or in other words, there is no ‘vertical’ denationalization, but evidence for a ‘horizontal’ Europeanization (or even synchronization) of public debates across national borders. In principle, this development has not necessarily to be interpreted as Europeanization (Downey and Koenig 2006). Other international organizations (above all the Organisation for Development and Cooperation in Europe) strongly supported policies that eventually were subsumed to employability from the early 1990s. Prior to this, policies of liberalization and activation had been pursued in the Anglo-Saxon region (Australia, the United States and the UK) since the 1980s, and the same is true for many Scandinavian countries as well. It can thus be assumed that the themes and concepts of employability came from different sources and simultaneously affected the debates of the countries under scrutiny. It would therefore be simplistic to regard the EU as the only source, and it would be far more appropriate to understand it as an ‘institutional broker or booster’ that takes up existing policy ideas, ties them up into its own programmatic concept and feeds it into cross-national discussions. This role must not be underestimated, since the cohesive pressures of the EU institutions are far stronger than those of other international regimes. The fact that discussions in the member states took a different course – compared with Switzerland – shows that the EU played its role as a supranational and intergovernmental space of policy deliberations rather efficiently. It was thus also responsible for the gradual changes in national debates that were interpreted as ‘horizontal’ Europeanization here. Individual member states may well have taken over the role of interfaces, as can be supposed in view of the UK’s role within the EU, the OECD and/or the Commonwealth. All this provokes a whole series of conclusions. I would like to take up two of these in the following. On the one hand, we can see that institutions such as the EU create discursive spaces (Eder 2000, van de Steeg et al. 2003, Berkel 2006) and thus promote stimuli and arenas for collective learning processes. The European Employment Strategy above all has been designed explicitly according to this pattern. It was intended to establish a benchmarking process, leading to regulatory competition and thus directly to a diffusion of situation definitions and policy ideas throughout Europe. We are confronted with institutionally structured learning processes, which are intertwined on a horizontal and vertical level, since direct influences between the member states can be traced that are also channelled through the intergovernmental and supranational bodies of the EU institutions. Data proves, however, that these are in no way deterministic processes, since the European positions and recommendations have to be translated into national debates. This is not done – or even envisioned – everywhere (i.e. Italy) and by

172

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every actor to the same extent. It is indeed instructive to note that governments represent the European concept of employability in a much more proactive way than non-state actors. This speaks in favour of the effectiveness of institutionalized learning processes, since (social-democratic) governments were far more obviously involved in the formulation and realization of the EES. Indeed, the very logic of the OMC encouraged governments to actively participate in the process, and these European policy debates had lasting effects on the position of participating governments and governing parties, because public statements by the participating social-democratic governments changed visibly also within the national discourse arenas, namely in favour of employability guidelines and measures. On the other hand, these institutionalized learning processes generated perverse effects, when assessed from a critical angle. Within the EU, the European institutions assumed an important role as catalysers and agenda setters. In the case of the EES, they acquired symbolic power by influencing and redefining basic parameters of the national debates on unemployment. This symbolic power was particularly effective because the national actors clung to the illusion of institutional sovereignty and discursive autonomy, thus no longer addressing the European authorship of the positions defended. In doing so, they withdrew these influences from public reasoning. Moreover, ‘horizontal’ Europeanization went hand in hand with a process of depolitization of public debates on employment and labour market policies, since the EES operated as a benchmarking process, which detached policy deliberations from political contentions about differing options or choices and committed them to a technocratic search for best practices. National governments, above all, became the advocates of this European ‘common sense’, which they promoted also within the national arena against the contentiousness of political struggles. The fact that some countries and actors withdrew from these influences more strongly than others may, as our data suggested, serve as a consolation – though a rather weak one. Our findings thus unveil a hidden hand of the EU. The European influences on national debates might be beneficial for the success of the EES’s concerted approach towards problem-solving. However, it is to be expected that this hidden hand – and the streamlining of national governments related to it – might be responsible for the rather pronounced unease of citizens about the course of European integration and the shrinking autonomy of national policy-making. The effectiveness of the EES thus goes hand in hand with a dwindling of its public legitimacy and support, endangering European governance in a central area, as the fate of the European Constitution has demonstrated.

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Index

1926 General Strike in UK 89 1979 General Election in UK 93 1983 General Election in UK 95 1998 Luxembourg summit 167 active labour market policy (ALMP) benefit systems 25 employment opportunities 33–4 Germany 49 job creation 32 job displacement 31 Nordic countries 36 outcomes 30 purpose 17–18, 27–33 retention effect 30 UK 47 US 47 Adult Learning Inspectorate (UK) 61 Allen, Mike 123–4 ALMP see active labour market policy arbeitslosenversicherungsgesetz (AVIG) 68, 72, 75, 76–8, 79–81 Belgium CAPAC 106–7 ‘Comites de traveilleurs sans emploi’ 113 CSC union 109–10, 113, 114 FGTB union 108, 109–10, 113, 114 National Office of Employment 112 trade unions 101–2, 102–15 Trades Union Congress 104 unemployment 101, 102–15 unemployment rate 107–9 union membership 108–9 unions and employment 109–10 unions and unemployed people 112–14 unions and unemployment 110–15 unions and unemployment insurance 106–7 youth employment 108 Beveridgian model of welfare state 5–6

Bismarckian model of welfare state 5–6, 137 Blair, Tony 166 Caisse Auxiliare de Paeiment des Allocations de Chômage (CAPAC) 106–7 CDU see Christian Democrat Party CE see Community Employment Change to Winpolicy 98 Christian Democrat party (CDU) 44 Christian Socialist party (CSU) 44 citizenship and unemployment politics 134 Clinton administration 47 collective action politics 10–13 unemployment 1–3 unemployment policies 145–8 Combat Poverty Agency (Ireland) 124 ‘Comités de traveilleurs sans emploi’ (Belgium) 113 Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) 86, 89–90, 92 Community Employment (CE) scheme in Ireland 126–7 conditionality of politics 7–9 continental-corporatist model of welfare state 137 counter-provisions inwelfare state model 144 coverage inwelfare state model 142–3 CPGB see Communist Party of Great Britain cross-national variations unemployment politics 145–8 welfare state 5 CSC union (Belgium) 109–10, 113, 114 CSU see Christian Socialist Party Delors, Jacques 152, 162 denationalization public policy debates 158–60

204

The Politics of Unemployment in Europe

Denmark, flexicurity model 50 deregulation of labour markets 41 disabled people inUK 59–61 discursive opportunities in unemployment politics 147–8 dismissal regulations in welfare state model 145 ‘DIY social policy’ (UK) 65 early retirement schemes 36 Earned Income Tax Credits 47 Earned Income Tax credits (US) 47 economic protection model in welfare state 140–1 EES see European Employment Strategy ‘employability’ of jobseekers 3 employability national debates 165–6, 167–9 employment policies expansion in Sweden 45–6 OECD 50 postindustrial labour markets 35–51, 46–50 protection laws 42, 44–5 employment protection legislation (EPL) 17–18, 18–22, 33–4, 146 Employment Relations Act 98 ‘employment support allowance’ (ESA) 60 EPL see employment protection legislation ESA see ‘employment support allowance’ EU see European Union European Commission 8, 152 European Employment Strategy (EES) agenda setting 163–7 employability 8 EU 151–3 Europeanization 13 flexicurity 50 national debates 161–3, 163–7, 167–9 research 153–7 European Free Trade Association 156 European Monetary Union 155 European Social Fund 1 European Union (EU) discursive spaces 171 European Employment Strategy 36, 151–72 Open Method of Coordination 151

social policy 48, 50 sovereignty transfer 154 unemployment policy 1, 13 unemployment rate 98, 107 welfare to work schemes 62, 63 Europeanization national debates 161–9, 169–72 public policies 151–71 external agent relations, unemployed movement 88–90 Family credits 47 Family Credits (UK) 47 FGTB union (Belgium) 108, 109–10, 113, 114 France employability debate 165–6, 167–8 labour market regulations 146 postindustrial labour markets 49 retirement age 43 unemployment organizations 127 welfare state 137 Freud Report 60 full protection model, welfare state 140–1 GDP 23, 28, 30 General Strike of 1926 89 Germany employability debate 165–6, 167–8 labour market 43–5, 50–1 welfare state 43, 137 ‘Ghent System’ for unemployment insurance 101, 104, 114 Great Depression 84 Growth, Competitiveness and Employment (white paper) 152, 162 ‘horizontal’ Europeanization, unemployment public debates 156, 163, 171–2 Hunger Marches 89, 91, 95 Hutton, John 60 ILO see International Labour Organization income support (IS) 42, 57 INOU see Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed institutions

Index Ireland 125–8 unemployment 135–8 International Labour Organization (ILO) 81 interwar period trade unions 84–92 unemployed movement 84–92 Ireland Combat Poverty Agency 124 Community Employment scheme 126–7 economic developments 124–5 INOU 120, 124 institutional influences 125–8 pro-unemployed organizations 117–19, 119–32 social developments 124–5 ‘unemployed activists’ 123 unemployed people and activists 128–31 unemployment 117–19, 120–8, 128–31, 132 welfare state 136 Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed (INOU) 120, 124 IS see income support Italy employability debate 165–6, 167–8, 171 labour market regulations 146 postindustrial labour markets 49, 50–1 retirement age 43 welfare state 137 Job Centre Plus initiative 56 jobs creation by ALMP 32 creation in service-based economies 35–6 displacement by ALMP 31 jobseeker’s allowance (JSA) 55, 56–7 Keynesian macroeconomic management 42 Kickstart programme 75, 76, 80 labour market regulations cross-national variations 146 flexibility 146

205

unemployment politics 138–41 welfare state 137–8, 138–41 labour markets deregulation 41 Germany 43–4 liberalization 36 postindustrial 35–7, 37–51 risks 41–6 socioeconomic conditions 2 Switzerland 81 UK 42–3, 146 see also postindustrial labour markets Labour Party (UK) 98, 169 ‘labour-reduction’ route 41, 44 liberal/minimal regime in welfare state 136 lone parents (UK) 57–9 long-term unemployment 38–9 low-wage, poor quality employment 39–40 Luxembourg summit (1998) 167 Maastricht Treaty 155 making working pay (UK) 61–2, 65 Manpower Services Commission (MSC) 95–7 Mediterranean model for welfare state 137, 141 membership trade unions 98 Unemployed Movement 87–8 ‘Mercator’ company 72, 75 minimum wage in welfare state model 145 mobilization of unemployed people 15–16 MSC see Manpower Services Commission ‘national childcare strategy’ 47 national debates EES 161–3, 163–7 employability 165–6, 167–9 Europeanization 161–70 National Office of Employment (Belgium) 112 National Unemployed Workers’ Committee Movement (NUWCM) 86–8, 89, 90–2 National Unemployed Workers’ Movement (NUWM) 86–8, 89–90, 90–2, 93 national unemployment insurance law (Switzerland) 68, 72

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The Politics of Unemployment in Europe

OECD see Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development OMC see Open Method of Coordination OPEC 101 Open Method of Coordination (OMC) in EU 151, 154–5, 161 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) ALMP 28–9, 31–2 employment policies 50 PLMP 23–4 public policy 157, 158 UK role 171 unemployment rates 19–22

cash benefits 22–7 outcomes 30 purpose 17–18 unemployed income 33 personal capacity assessment (PCA) 59 PLM see paid labour market PLMP see passive labour market policy pluralist model of welfare state 137 politics collective action 10–13 conditionality 7–9 unemployed people 13–16 unemployment 133–49 welfare state 4–7 postindustrial labour markets 35–51 continental Europe 48–9 de-industrialization 41–6 employment and social policies 46–51 France 49 Germany 43–4, 50–1 Italy 49, 50–1 long-term unemployment 38–9 low wage, poor-quality employment 39–40 new social risks 40–1 Nordic countries 36, 49–50 risks 37–41 Sweden 45–6 UK 42–3, 46–8 US 46–8 work and family life 40 precariousness model of welfare state 140–1, 148 pro-unemployed organizations (Ireland) 117–32 public debates Europeanization 153 unemployment 158–60 public policies denationalization 158–60 Europeanization 151–71 public sector expansion in Nordic countries 41

‘Packworks Company’ 72–3, 75, 76–8 paid labour market (PLM) 53–4, 55, 59, 63, 66 passive labour market policy (PLMP)

RAV see Regionale Arbeitsvermittlungszentrum recipients in welfare state model 143 ‘Red Army’ movement 84

National Union of Ex-Serviceman (NUX) 86 New Deal for Disabled People (NDDP) 59 New Deal for Lone Parents (NDLP) 58–9 New Deal for Young People 61 New Deals policy (UK) 56, 61 New Labour child poverty 48 conditionality 60 employability debates 166, 169, 170 government 47, 54 policies 8, 64 Newcastle Trades Council 95 Nordic countries ALMP 36 employment expansion 45–6 female employment 37–8, 50 postindustrial labour markets 36, 49–50 public sector expansion 41 response to labour market challenges 36 NUWCM see National Unemployed Workers’ Committee Movement NUWM see National Unemployed Workers’ Movement NUX see National Union of ExServiceman

Index regional employment centres (Switzerland) 68, 78, 80 Regionale Arbeitsvermittlungszentrum (RAV), Switzerland 68, 78, 80 Republic of Ireland see Ireland research for European Employment Strategy 153–7 retention effect in ALMP 30 ‘ring-fenced labour market’ 44 sanctions in welfare state model 144–5 Scargill, Arthur 93 SECO see State Secretariat for Economic Affairs self improvement policy in Switzerland 74–5 service-based economies and jobs creation 35–6 Skills for Life Programme (UK) 57 Social integration in Switzerland 70 social movements 15–16 social protection UK 65 unemployment 17–34 welfare state model 140–1 social provisions in welfare state model 142, 143–4 Social Service Advisory Committee (SSAC) 57 social work in Switzerland 76–7 SSAC see Social Service Advisory Committee State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) in Switzerland 72 state structures in welfare state model 143 state and unemployment 6–7 Sweden employability debate 165–6, 167–8, 170 employment expansion 45–6 labour market regulations 146 ‘Switch’ foundation (Switzerland) 70, 71 Switzerland AVIG 68, 72, 75, 76–8, 79–81 employability debate 165–6, 167–8, 170 European Employment Strategy 156 Kickstart programme 75, 76, 80

207 labour market 81, 146 Mercator company 72, 75 national unemployment insurance law 68, 72 ‘Packworks Company’ 72–3, 75, 76–8 regional employment centres (RAV) 68, 78, 80 research 69–71 self improvement 74–5 Social integration 70 social work 76–7 State Secretariat for Economic Affairs 72 ‘Switch’, foundation 70 unemployment 9, 67–78, 78–81 ‘Weichenstellung’ foundation 70 work simulation 71–3, 73–4 ‘Workfare’ policy 67, 81

Thatcher, Margaret 42–3 ‘Third Way’ policy (UK) 9, 54, 166 trade unions 1980s 93–7 Belgium 101–2, 102–15 Communist Party of Great Britain 86 interwar period 84–92 membership 98 National Unemployed Workers Committee 86–7 ‘Red Army’ movement 84 Unemployed Movement 84–92 unemployed people 83–97, 97–9 unemployment 11–12 workplace influence 43 Trades Union Congress (TUC) 1980s 93, 95–7 Belgium 104 NUWCM 89 ‘organizing model’ 98 role 83 UWCs 99 TUC see Trades Union Congress UC see ‘unemployment compensation’ UK see United Kingdom ‘unemployed activists’ in Ireland 123 Unemployed Movement external agent relations 88–90

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The Politics of Unemployment in Europe

interwar period 84–92 membership 87–8 organizations 87–8 trade unions 84–92 transformation 90–2 unemployed people 13–16 Ireland 128–31 Switzerland 76–7 UK 56–7 Unemployed Workers’ Centres (UWCs) 95–6, 99, 105 unemployment Belgium 101–2, 102–15 Belgium rate 107–9 collective action 1–3 early retirement schemes 36 European rate 107 European Union policy 1, 13 France organizations 127 ‘Ghent System’ for insurance 101, 104, 114 Ireland 117–19, 120–8, 128–31, 132 long-term 38–9 policies 1–3 policy 1–3 public debates 155–6, 158–60 regulations 146 social protection 17–34 state 6–7 Switzerland 9, 67–78, 78–81 UK 9, 53–66 UK policies 55–61 see also unemployment politics ‘unemployment compensation’ (UC) 17, 22–7, 29–30, 42–3 Unemployment Insurance Bill 91 unemployment politics citizenship 134 collective action 138–41, 145–8 cross-national variations 145–8 discursive opportunities 147–8 framework 133–48, 148–9 institutions 135–8 welfare state 135–8, 138–41 UNEMPOL project 146 unions Belgium membership 108–9 employment and Belgium 109–10

unemployed and Belgium 112–14 unemployment and Belgium 110–15 unemployment insurance in Belgium 106–7 unions–unemployed relationship 12 United Kingdom (UK) Adult Learning Inspectorate 61 ALMP 36, 47 childcare services 47 de-industrialization 42–3 disabled people 57–9 ‘DIY social policy’ 65 employability debate 165–7, 167–8, 170, 171 employment and social policies 46–8 Family Credits 47 General Elections 93, 95 General Strike (1926) 89 income support 42, 57 Job Centre Plus initiative 56 labour market 36, 42, 146 lone parents 57–9 ‘make work pay’ strategy 61–2, 65 New Deals 56, 61 OECD role 171 poverty wage 37 Skills for Life Programme 57 ‘social protection’ 65 trade unions 43, 83–97, 97–9 unemployment compensation 42–3 unemployment policies 9, 53–5, 55–66 welfare 53 welfare state 126 workfare 62–4, 64 United States (US) Change to Win policy 98 Clinton administration 47 Earned Income Tax Credits 47 employment and social policies 46–8 labour market 36 labour movement 41 workfare 62 UWCs see Unemployed Workers’ Centres ‘vertical’ Europeanization in unemployment public debates 154

Index Wall Street crash 90 ‘Weichenstellung’ foundation (Switzerland) 70 welfare state Beveridgian model 5–6 Bismarckian model 5–6, 137 continental-corporatist model 137, 146 cross-national variations 5 economic protection model 140–1 effects 2–3 France 137 full protection model 140–1 Germany 137 Ireland 136 Italy 137 labour market regulations 137–8, 138–41 liberal/minimal regime 136 Mediterranean model 137, 141 operation of models 141–5 pluralist model 137 politics 4–7 precariousness model 140–1, 148

209

social protection model 140–1 UK 136 unemployment politics 135–8, 138–41 United Kingdom 53–5 Western Capitalism 35 WFI see work-focused interviews WHO see World Health Organization work simulation 71–3, 73–4 workfare European Union 62, 63 Switzerland 67, 81 UK 62–4 US 62 work-focused interviews (WFI) 58, 59 Working Families Tax Credit (WTFC) 47–8 World Health Organization (WHO) 118 WTFC see Working Families Tax Credit youth employment in Belgium 108 Youth Opportunities Programmes (UK) 95 Youth Training Schemes (UK) 95