Summaries
The economy of daily life J.W.M. Mevissen and P.H. Renooy
In the past few years the attention for the infor mal economy has been growing. In particular economists and sociologists are involving them selves with different points of view on this phe nomenon. In this contribution the focus is on the question: who are participating in different forms of informal economy, what way are they doing this and for what reason? Answers to the ques tions were sought through an empirical research in six locations in the Netherlands, each with its own socio-economic and cultural background. The two main conclusions are:
— household characteristics play an important role in the coming about of supply and de mand of informal labour; and
— in bringing together this supply and demand, social networks have a most important func tion.
Another important finding was that many infor mal activities are an integral part of the so-called household maintenance strategy, and in this sense, part of ‘every day’s life’. For the government,this makes formulating of an adequate policy to the informal economy more difficult.
Towards a dualistic unemployment policy J.P.R. de Jonge
In times of mass-unemployment employment po licy should not be restricted to labour market policy but be concerned with fighting the effects of unemployment as well.
This article starts with a discussion of the policy towards unpaid labour performed by the unem ployed. On account of the labour market policy long-term unemployed can be compelled to per form unpaid labour in order to achieve
work-experience. Unpaid labour by the unemployed on their own account however is restricted. The argument of the government that paid and un paid labour are to be seen as equivalent has ob viously solely a meaning in terms of duties that can be derived from it: unemployed not only have to accept a job, when available, but also to accept unpaid labour. This argument provides the government with a convenient legitimation to economize on the expenses for social services, by substituting paid for unpaid labour.
Rather than making unpaid labour an instrument of labour market policy, unpaid labour should only be allowed as a means to fight the effects of unemployment. To explore the potentials of such an approach two concepts of unemployment po licy are considered: unemployment policy and social innovation and unemployment policy and community organisation. The first concept argues for measures to support the level of self-provi sioning through resource- and networkdevelop- ment. The other concept moreover argues for a so-called local initiatives policy to fight the effects of concentrated unemployment.
Work in Europe: five scenarios D. van der Werf
Scenario building is a method of future research that replaces single extrapolations by a number of competing pictures of the future. Five scena rios are given, that describe contrasting possible sets of developments in the fields of technology, work and employment. These scenarios are essen tially qualitative. They have been compiled as part of the FAST II Programma of the European Communities (FAST = Forecasting and Assess ment in Science and Technology). For further information write to:
Commission of the European Communities, DG XII / FAST,
Rue de la Loi 200, B-1049 Brussels.
The Preventive Check of Labour Dismissal by Advisory Boards in the Netherlands: An example of the Decreasing Effective ness of Informal Justice
L.N.A. Spiekerman and E.R. Blankenburg Employment protection law in the Netherlands is handled by a rather unique procedure: before being legally valid a dismissal has to receive a per mit by the director of the labor administration. He is advised by a board with representatives of both employers and trade unions, and this board again refers, in controversial cases, to bipartite board specific to the industrial sectors. Here the preventive check is handled in many different ways according to the mobility patterns and con flict constellations of industrial sectors and often specific to local circumstances. While the proce- , dure allows for many informal idiosyncrasies, it helps to keep the volume of exposed procedures before the courts at a low level. Thus, it can be considered to be a functional equivalent to the labour courts in Germany, the Prud’hommes in Belgium and France, or the Industrial Tribunals in Great Britain. Dutch employers, however, con sider the administrative permit to be a major ob stacle to employment flexibility. Consequently, they find numbers of informal ways to avoid go ing through the procedure. Empirical data on the use as well as the avoidance of the Dutch employ ment protection system, are presented for in dustries in the district of Amsterdam.
Co-determination by the new style Works’ Council
C.V. van Vuuren and P.L. Koopman
This article compares the results of a pilot study among five Works’ Councils with the interim- report of Looise and Heijink (1986) about an in vestigation in a representative sample of 173 Works’ Councils in the Netherlands. Both studies were concerned with the functioning of the Works’ Council under the revised legislation. The pilot study was based on an analysis of the be haviour of the Works’ Council in 16 actual deci sions in the five organizations. Instead of this, the other research used questionnaires about the opinions of the people involved. In spite of the different method and the small sample of our
pilot study, more or less similar results were found. First, contrary to the expectation that the revised law would lead to a polarization between management and workers, the studies show a rather harmonious picture of the functioning of the Works’ Council. Second, our findings give some confirmation of the expectation that the revised law would strengthen the position of the Works’ Council in the organization. However, the results of Looise and Heijink do not confirm this expectation. This discrepancy may be caused by the difference in the methods used. The second part of the investigation of Looise and Heijink may provide more decisive information.
The economics of trade unionism
A review of J.J. Rosa (ed.), The economy of
trade unions: new directions (1984)
G.B. van Hees
This reader gives a state of the art on the effects and nature of trade unions, analysed from an eco nomists’ point of view. It contains articles on em pirical research, theoretical developments and perspectives for further research. The empirical articles mainly concern the effects of unions on wages and labour productivity (c.f. the Harvard School of Freeman and Medoff). The theoretical articles pay attention to models of trade unions and trade union behaviour, using notions from agency paradigm-, public choice- and property rights-theory. These models differ in important aspects (action rationalities or logics of action) from the models that are developed by social scientists. Confrontation and combination of economists’ and sociologists’ perspectives will increase the empirical validity of the models and will lead students of trade union power to differ entiate and specify propositions made on trade union power.
Management by seduction H. Doorewaard and H. Regtering
Our dissatisfaction with the explanation of management strategies in terms of ‘manipulation’ has been the main reason to write this article.
In reorganization processes one can discover that, due to managerial activities, workers become en thusiastic about the planned changes. Afterwards however they are disappointed when the results are less favourable than expected. Have these people been fooled? We dot not think so.
In order to find a more suitable explanation, we describe a daily, self-evident form of manage ment, focussing on the seduction of the workers: ‘management by seduction not as a despotic but
as a hegemonic form of power. Two processes appear to be especially important, ‘semantic doubling’ and the ‘change of perspectives’. We connect this line of argument with some theories within the Labour Process Approach. By means of the presentation of empirical examples we show how ‘management by seduction’, ‘semantic doubling’ and ‘change of perspectives’ actually work.
