2nd FlexCom Project Meeting

Majvik, Finland

May 16th – 17th, Majvik, Finland

We had a nine-member representation, two from each country except one from Ireland as James had regrettably had to cancel his arrival for family reasons.

1. The five country reports were presented and discussed. In the name of networking, the presentations were done with rotation; Spyros presented the Greek report, Lena the Finnish, Aki the Irish, Gerry the Dutch, and Alfred & Ro the Swiss. In each one, a number of issues were raised, e.g.

  • Greece:
    the strong role of the informal sector makes statistics regarding Greece often misleading. Its role relative to the legal labour, as well as the lack of modern business attitudes are a considerable impediment in the Greek transition from a low wage economy to a learning economy.
  • Finland:
    a success story, Finland is a country whose economic / political system has been forged in the fires of recession, restructured “by the book”. Her legal environment favours the employee. Finland is typified by its policy flexibility as well as high unionisation.
  • Ireland:
    Ireland is guided by the tripartite non-binding social partnership agreements (made every three years and next due in 2003), legislation (in a state of flux) and corporate agreements. Flexibility is a highly controversial subject in Ireland, considered nearly synonymous to worker exploitation and competitivety as the justification thereof. Non-numerical flexibility is mainly done by means of local agreement, in accordance to the tradition of voluntarism. Labour unions are heavily presented and powerful only in the public sector; in the American companies operating in Ireland they are practically non-existent. Ireland has attracted US foreign direct investment by offering an English speaking, highly educated labour force, low taxes and high profits, as well as a gateway to the European market. Now the Celtic Tiger has shown to provide a litter of evil cubs, such as high living costs, infrastructure bottlenecks, and an excessive dependence on the US investments. At the same time, the Irish labour force is increasing due to a late post-war baby boom, increasing percentage of women in the labour force, as well as immigration. A country of Irish interventionism at the junction point is London voluntarism, Boston neo-liberalism and Berlin neo-corporatism, Ireland is about to make major decisions on its future course of action.
  • The Netherlands:
    The Dutch national report was seen as a superb answer, but not necessarily to the correct question. Its strong focus on wage flexibility was seen as highly valuable, yet some additional answers outside its focal area were desired.
  • Switzerland:
    The role of foreign workers was a key topic in discussion over the Swiss report.

It was decided that, as there are significant differences in the perception and maturity of work flexibility in each country, each country report will follow the basic structure but where it is considered appropriate there will be a special chapter (in the form of an Addendum or after the relevant topic) on a selected area of national interest. The Dutch report has already produced such an Addendum in the form of an extensive presentation on wage flexibility in the Dutch economy. The Greek report is expected to do the same for the informal sector.

2. The synthesis report was the next topic on the agenda. This was sketched as:

  • What is flexibility (interpretation)?
  • What does it look like in the five countries?
  • Has it affected economic performance?
  • What indications / concepts are there towards performance [also of non-monetary nature, e.g. social cohesion?]?
  • What limits are there to flexibility?
  • What is the future of flex?
  • Which modes of flexibility are seen as most important?
  • Institutions
  • Impact

This will be further debated electronically before July 10th. Three-page summaries / conclusions on each national report are to be written soon so that the summary of the national reports will be finalised promptly.

3. Themes was the third major focus area; relevant issues touching a minimum of the five Flex.com countries each. Some of the country themes were discussed, but final decisions on the theme that each partner will focus on is to be decided by written procedure.

4. The questionnaire was gone over, question by question. As flexibility is in some of the countries considered controversial and in all a vague concept that can be defined in a myriad of ways, it was suggested that the questionnaire be written in a way that does not refer to the term, e.g. numerically flexible job  a job that is term-fixed, part-time, or both.

5. Tasks and deadlines were set as follows:

What does / When does / Who does
Comments and suggestions regarding the questionnaire to Alfred / Friday, May 24th / Any,
Rita on functional flexibility
Commentary, “anything missing” / Friday, May 24th / Any
Draft financial statement to Vicky / Thursday, May 30th / Any / all partners
Three-page summary of national report / Friday, May 31st / All partners
Near-complete questionnaire to Spyros / Friday, May 31st / Alfred
Complete questionnaire to all / Monday, June 10th / Spyros
National reports, complete, final version / Wednesday, July 10th / All partners
Cost statement, formally signed
Draft synthesis
One pilot case study / Friday, September 27th
End of October
Before the meeting in Zurich / All partners
Lena
Next meeting in Zürich / Thursday Nov14th 2 p.m.. –
Friday Nov15th 6 p.m. / All partners
Draft version of themes / By Zürich meeting / All
Final discussion on synthesis / In Zürich meeting / All