Участвах в заключителната конференция на проект walqing /Participated at the final conference of walqing project

 I participated at the Final Conference:

Hard work?

Pursuing quality of work and life in European low-wage sectors

of the EU-funded walqing project

Vienna, Austria

19-20 September 2012

Venue: vista3, Alfred-Dallinger-Platz 1, 1030 Vienna, Austria

Times: 19 September 2012, ca. 2 p.m. – 20 September 2102, ca. 5 p.m.

For more information, visit www.walqing.eu

 

“Creating “more and better jobs”: With this formula, the European Employment Strategy announced its main aim for the following decades in 2000. But has this double objective been put into practice? In which areas have additional jobs evolved? Which new jobs face problematic working conditions or low wages? What vulnerabilities are workers in these jobs exposed to?

In the course of three years of research, the EU-funded walqing project carried out by research institutions in eleven European countries has investigated these questions from different angles.

Indeed, walqing found that about half of the jobs that were newly created between 2000 and 2007 have problematic working conditions. They concentrate in expanding sectors that often have low skills and wages, are faced with considerable restructuring and cost-based competition, offer few possibilities of advancement or voice at work, but contribute centrally to European societies’ quality of life. The project has focussed on five selected sectors and central groups of employees:

—  waste collectors in the waste sector,

—  office cleaners in the cleaning industry,

—  builders in green construction,

—  mobile elderly carers in the health and social sector,

—  and catering staff in the hotels and restaurants sector.

While we find various patterns of poor quality of work that enhance the social vulnerability of groups and individuals, the research also shows that work in “simple services” can be shaped in favourable ways. Social partnership, smart management strategies and employees’ voice can contribute to solutions to sector-specific and cross-sectoral challenges such as precarious work, high labour turnover, health hazards or work-life imbalances. Not least, employees’ occupational trajectories, experiences and aspirations need to be taken into account to improve jobs in these sectors. 

Now, towards the end of the project, the research team is looking forward to presenting results of its research activities. 

The conference program was the following:

Wednesday, 19 September 2012
14:00 –15:00 Welcome and Introduction
Welcome - Marc Goffart (DG Research)
Introduction to the walqing project - Ursula Holtgrewe (FORBA, walqing project coordinator)
 

15:00 –16:00 Quality of work
Chair: Monique Ramioul (HIVA, K.U. Leuven)
Employment growth and quality of work
David Holman (Manchester Business School)
Comments
Rafael Muñoz de Bustillo (
Universidad de Salamanca)
Greet Vermeylen (Eurofound)
 

16:00 –16:30 Coffee break
 

16:30 –18:00 Quality of work in the workplace
Chair: Hans Torvatn (SINTEF)
Autonomy in unlikely places
Ole H. Sørensen (Det Nationale Forskningscenter for
Arbejdsmiljø,
NRCWE)
Monique Ramioul (HIVA, K.U. Leuven)
Rasa Naujaniene (Vytautas Magnus University)
Working time pressures in the services sector
Albert Recio, Sara Moreno (Centre d’Estudis
Sociològics
sobre la Vida Quotidiana i el Treball,
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
How to cope with low wages
Ekaterina Markova (Institute for the Study of Societies
and Knowledge, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences)
Claudia Villosio, Ambra Poggi (Laboratorio Riccardo
Revelli, Collegio Carlo Alberto)
Karin Sardadvar (FORBA)
Summary: Quality of work at work
Ursula Holtgrewe (FORBA)
 

18:00 End of Day 1
Thursday, 20 September 2012
 

9:00 –10:30 Quality of work & life
Chair: Karen Winding (Det Nationale Forskningscenter
for Arbejdsmiljø, NRCWE)
Quality of life
Claudia Villosio (Laboratorio Riccardo Revelli,
Collegio
Carlo Alberto)
Comment: Quality of life and work
Maurizio Curtarelli (Eurofound)
Careers and aspirations
Pernille Hohnen (Roskilde University)
Jolanta Kuznecoviene (Vytautas Magnus University)
David Holman, Charlotte McClelland (Manchester
Business School)
Summary: Quality of work, quality of life and the
life course
Charlotte McClelland (Manchester Business School)
 

10:30 –11:00 Coffee break
 

11:00 –12:30 What drives quality of work (down)?
Chair: Ursula Holtgrewe (FORBA)
Gender segmentation and inequality
Karin Sardadvar (FORBA)
Angelika Kümmerling (University of Duisburg-Essen)
Darina Peycheva (Institute for the Study of Societies
and Knowledge, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences)
Vulnerability and inclusion
Pernille Hohnen (Roskilde University)
Discussion: Segmentation and inequality
Outsourcing, customer markets
and regulation
Karen Jaehrling (University of Duisburg-Essen)
Vassil Kirov (Institute for the Study of Societies and
Knowledge,
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences)
Hans Torvatn, Hanne O. Finnestrand (SINTEF)
Discussion: Markets and company
strategies
 

12:30 –13:30 Lunch
 

13:30-15:00 Parallel Sector Workshop 1:
Construction and Waste
Chair: Ole H. Sørensen (Det Nationale Forskningscenter
for Arbejdsmiljø, NRCWE)
Contributions by:
Ole Prüsse (3F, Denmark)
Sylvia Hils (Bremen University)
Maurizio Curtarelli (Eurofound)
Christian Fölzer (Gewerkschaft Bau-Holz, Austria)
Parallel Sector Workshop 2:
Cleaning, Care, Catering
Chair: Angelika Kümmerling
(University of Duisburg-Essen)
Contributions by:
Mechthild Kopel (WertArbeit GmbH, Berlin)
Allison Roche (UNISON, UK)
Lise Johansen (FOA, Denmark)
Marina Merana, Ileana Leardini (Comune di Torino)
15:00-15:30 Coffee break
15:30-16:00 Social partnership, policy gaps and
challenges
Stakeholder strategies to improve quality of work
in Europe
Vassil Kirov (Institute for the Study of Societies and
Knowledge, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences)
Policy gaps and challenges for low-wage/
low-skilled work
Steffen Lehndorff (University of Duisburg-Essen)
 

16:00-17:00 Plenary discussion: Are low-wage, poor-quality
jobs here to stay?
Chair: Jörg Flecker (FORBA)
Karen Jaehrling (University of Duisburg-Essen)
Vassil Kirov (Institute for the Study of Societies and
Knowledge, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences)
Allison Roche (UNISON, UK)
Greet Vermeylen (Eurofound)
Sven Hergovich (Chamber of Labour, Vienna)
 

17:00 End of conference

All conference presentations could be found at: http://www.walqing.eu/index.php?id=163