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The removal of the default retirement age in the UK has been broadly welcomed as the disposal of an age-discriminatory measure. It is argued here that a focus on formal equality has been at the expense of a more critical analysis of the employment relations consequences. The central role given to performance measurement allows employers considerable discretion over when employees retire and the scope for bargained outcomes in the new regime is limited. This may be to the detriment of older workers and will have implications for the workforce as a whole. Equality, in other words, may come at the expense of a broader conception of fairness.

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The purpose of this document is: (1) to provide an overview of the structures and characteristics of the hotels, catering and tourism (HCT) sector and its general trends in and more specifically on the hotel and restaurant subsector which the industry quite often also describes as accommodation and hospitality (chapter one); (2) to discuss recent developments for the sector within the context of the global economic and financial crisis (chapter two); (3) to evaluate the impact of new ownership patterns in the hospitality and tourism industry on employment, human resource development (HRD) and industrial relations (chapter three); (4) to present information on major trends and the diversification of accommodation, operations and consumption and their possible differentiated impact on the employment of women and men, HRD and industrial relations (chapter four); (5) to give an outlook on the specific criteria and needs in regard to sustainable tourism and social dialogue (chapter five); and (6) to provide points for discussion for the Global Dialogue Forum.

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An estimated 30 per cent of the Canadian workforce engages in non-standard employment in some form. Very simply, non-standard work can mean work you take on outside of your main form of employment. But it can also mean your main form of employment does not contain any formal, paid working arrangement. It occupies a space on the continuum of work that is referred to as part of the 'messy middle.' More than a year after the start of the [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 pandemic, Canadians are more attuned to the lives of essential workers who have supported us during this time - from grocery workers we saluted as heroes to tireless food couriers delivering meals to our doors. Yet, we are likely less aware of another force that often confronts these workers every day - precarity and an inability to move out of this space if they wanted to. This paper explores the current state of non-standard and precarious employment and antecedents that have rendered this a reality for many and a choice for some. This is a dialogue between intersecting policies that requires us to think beyond existing structures to envision a future where precarity does not have to be a reality. This paper explores policy considerations in three key areas: (1) Data: That is transparent, accessible and can lead to proactive policies; (2) Benefits: That do not compromise security for flexibility; and (3) Alternatives: That are real and acceptable.

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This report is part of a country-specific series that examines policies and institutions and makes recommendations for improvements. In 2020, Colombia joined the OECD as the 37th Member of the Organisation, bringing to a successful conclusion an accession process that began in 2013. During the accession process, Colombia made important reforms and progress in the area of labour market and social policies, converging towards OECD best policies and practices. However, the OECD invited the Colombian government to continue its reform agenda in four areas in particular: (1) labour informality and subcontracting; (2) labour law enforcement; (3) collective bargaining; and (4) crimes against trade unionists. This report is the first assessment since Colombia's accession to the OECD.

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It has been 30 years since genuine labour administration began in Korea. The major objective of the Korean labour administration in the early stage of industrialisation in the 1960s was to provide a desirable labour market and industrial relations for rapid economic growth, similar to other newly industrialising countries.

This booklet is designed to raise awareness of Korean labour administration. Show less

Based on research in England and Wales in 1994, this paper presents a national picture of the new relations of colleges, schools and schemes in the competition for 16 to 19 year old pupils, students and trainees at a local level. It reveals common emerging patterns together with local variations and relates them to the new mixed economy of semi-privatised state provision of learning in ‘The Contracting State’. The unlikelihood of reaching the revised national targets is related to the competition between colleges and schools that has resulted from the new ‘knowledge policy’ supported by this new state. In relation to the recent merger of the Department for Education with the Employment Department this is referred to as a policy of ‘Education Without Employment’. Show less

This practical handbook provides employers and employees with strategies and essential advice to reorganise work methods and redesign jobs. The strategies are linked to the award restructuring process, structural efficiency adjustments and the drive to make Australian industry competitive internationally through labour market reforms. By involving the people who actually do the work, theoretically, lasting improvements can be achieved. The information is divided into four parts: part 1: The challenge: getting to grips with change; part 2: Nuts and bolts; part 3: Planning and evaluation; and part 4: Fitting it all together. Show less

This publication examines the changing nature of work in Australia and explores the changes that have affected working life since 1983, their causes and consequences, and proposes strategies to promote workplace justice and efficiency in the future. The discussion is based on a decade of commissioned research undertaken by the Australian Centre for Industrial Relations Research and Training (ACIRRT), ACIRRT's database of registered enterprise agreements, data taken from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), and the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Surveys (AWIRS) of 1990 and 1995. Some of the major issues explored are: the emerging gap between higher and lower paid groups of workers in the labour market; the impact of enterprise bargaining in workplace relations on the role of unions; the managerialisation of the workforce where workers are impelled to negotiate salary packages in competition with fellow workers; the intensification of work and longer working hours; technological change; retrenchment; new workplace ideologies; increasing employment insecurity; and a rise in the casualisation of work, temporary jobs and outsourcing of work. The book concludes with a discussion of policy and proposes solutions which acknowledge new workplace realities and consider the needs of employees as well as economic productivity and competitiveness. Show less

There are empirical and theoretical reasons to doubt whether German firms wholly transfer their ‘high-road’ employment practices and industrial relations when shifting production to countries in central and eastern Europe. Yet neither are they likely radically to abandon these patterns. This article examines German subsidiaries in Poland and the Czech Republic, highlighting three important labour practices (working-time accounts, vocational training and approaches to industrial relations). The empirical findings reveal that highly internationalised firms, namely the large multinational corporations, appear most inclined to retain the German pattern, since they are still firmly embedded in the German institutional system of industrial relations.

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This report comprises an in-depth investigation of the existing and historical structures governing co-operation and co-ordination between the social partners and public bodies responsible for vocational education and training in the EC. It begins with the central regulatory instruments and decision-making levels, examining the situation at regional, local and enterprise levels as well as industrial sectors in EC member states; and develops proposals for the contents and objectives of an improved social dialogue at the various levels. It recommends the reduction of distortion of training policy; facilitation of trade union involvement in the training dialogue; dissemination at the local level of information on training opportunities and training demand, between the social partners; clarify and improve the nature and content of dialogue between the social partners; greater involvement of the Manpower Services Commission in sector-specific training concerns; stimulate investment in training through public procurement policy; and making firm- or plant- level training committees a requirement for firms to be accredited as training organisations. Show less