In the last years, labor law and industrial relations are under the pressure of many hostile factors: on one side job killing technologies and global competition on the other political instability and deregulatory policies.
1. Labour law and development: a complex relationship
In the last years, labor law and industrial relations are under the pressure of many hostile factors: on one side job killing technologies and global competition on the other political instability and deregulatory policies. Economic crisis which has hit many developed and developing countries has enhanced the negative impact of these factors on the real economy and on the labor market. The increased unemployment is the most dramatic evidence.
The traditional protective legislation is accused of being incapable of meeting the present economic challenges and even of representing an obstacle to innovation and development.
Certainly many of the historical traits of labor law and of social policies have to be redefined in order to face the problems posed by the new economic and social context. Here I will stress the need of a major redirection of the focus of our discipline.
Traditionally labor law was concerned mainly with the protection of workers and with the distribution of income, on the assumption that growth was a self-sustaining mechanism in a linear direction of development. This assumption has been contradicted by the recurrent crisis which have altered the once stable economic scenario, both in developed and developing countries.
Labor law and labor policies, in order to be effective and accountable to their stakeholders need to share with other policy measures the concern for growth. More specifically they must prove that they can contribute to the sustainability of development and to human well-being.
The extent to which employment standards and labor relations regimes influence growth, investment decisions and job creation, has been object of extensive research, but with limited convergent results. Convincing arguments have been advanced to show that the relationship between labour regulations and development is a complex one. It depends on many variables: on the economic conditions, on the stages of growth of a given national system and on the content of regulation. The types of regulation have greatly diversified even in the legal system traditionally centered on rigid mandatory legislation. Different kind of reflexive and soft regulations have been adopted in order to better respond to complex economic and social issues and to leave room to flexible implementation by public and private actors. To the same end the practice of negotiated regulation has been widely used in variable forms, often innovative with respect to the tripartite concertation developed in Europe during the 70ies and 80ies. Development itself is not a uniform process shaped after standard models. Historical experience, if not blurred by ideology, confirms that, although national systems face common problems and constraints, the ways in which they respond may differ considerably from one country to another.
2. Sustainable and human development
Moreover the objectives and the very concept of development are undergoing a process of revision in order to include not only economic indicators (GDP in first place), but a wider set of goals and of immaterial goods, essential for the quality of life and associated with the concept of human development. According to this concept the performance of the national systems should be evaluated not only on the basis of the traditional parameters, even less of short term financial accumulation, but taking into account social and welfare indicators, such as health of the population, life expectancy, diffusion of education and culture, degree of equality, public and private safety , rate of employment, social and political participation, quality of services, etc.
Some of these parameters have been elaborated by various international organization and research groups (J. Stiglietr; A. Sen; J.P. Fitoussi, 2009); but they still meet with widespread resistance or skepticism among policy markers (and sometime public opinion). This perspective however represents a great opportunity for labor law and social policy because our discipline is challenged to reconcile economic growth and make it compatible with human development in the wider sense envisaged by those organizations.
This is indeed the main orientation and source of inspiration which should guide the revision of labor law and social policies, our discipline has full title to contribute to a new direction of growth and of development for the very fact that decent work is an essential condition (to promote) for sustainable growth.
The range of innovative measures which might contribute to sustainable development covers many areas which go beyond the traditional domain of our discipline and indeed of legal regulation. They concern all public policies necessary to create a more inclusive economic and a social environment favorable to sustainable development and to job rich growth. These policies are wide ranging and include, among others: public and private investments necessary to guarantee quality services and infrastructure and to spread education; innovative research and dynamic business environment, favorable financial conditions for long term investments, etc. Moreover, in order to be consistent with these objectives all major economic decisions, not only at national but at supranational level, should take into account their impact on social and welfare conditions of the people concerned.
A similar approach has been adopted in the European Lisbon Treaty of 2009 (art.9), which provides that all major economic decisions, at national and international level, should take into account their impact on social and individual welfare. This is an important policy approach whose implementation is meeting many obstacles in the actual national and European policymaking. But it is a decisive test for the truth of European social model.
This vision has specific implications on many aspects, technical and political, of our discipline. Let me indicate some areas where a revision of traditional approaches is necessary to promote innovative policy-making in employment and social security matters. It is a tentative list which needs to be enriched by common research. To this research activity our international society and its members are committed, as we have witnessed in recent years. In the congress of Capetown seven research groups have been launched in these directions.
3. The future of protective legislation: more selective and essential
A first area has to do with the core of traditional labor law, namely protective legislation. The rigidity of this type of regulation is the most controversial trait which is accused of discouraging investments and innovation.
The evidence to support this view is far from conclusive. Nor there is wides pread evidence of a “race to the bottom” in labour regulation across the globe directed to correct the rigidity of traditional labor law (A. Verma, 2016)
The regulatory trends are not markedly different, but rather convergent, between developed and emerging countries. The World Bank it self has qualified its previous positions on the economic impact of labor law rules (World Bank 2014, 2015) and has asserted the necessity for some kind of labor regulation as a response to the failures and imperfections which are inherent in the operation of the labor market. Moreover recent studies as those presented by S. Deakin in Capetown, confirm that employment protections laws often have the effect of encouraging employers to invest in productivity -enhancing technologies (S. Deakin, 2016).
On the other hand the changing characters not only of informal employment but also of the standard contracts of work, may well require new adaptable types of regulation. Legal and collective decisions are involved in this search and have followed different paths, short of sheer deregulation.
A major area of innovation in many countries has been to differentiate some aspects and types of regulation according to the different positions and needs of employees in order to capture non standard forms of work, or, in the words of ILO, in order “to formalize the informal”. The treatment of atypical forms of employment may be improved by a the selective application of some basic standards.
The policy approach of individual countries to this problem are different; but the best examples have in common the aim of mitigating the dualism of the labor market.
In some countries this approach has favored a new regulatory approach, simplified, better finalized and more flexible.
A more selective and simplified type of regulation may be useful to reduce the member of norms of detail which are burdening many legal systems and to increase the importance of basic standards, both at national and international level. According to the ILO these standards are to be suited to the economic conditions of the different countries. But the essential core of them should be universally respected. The commitment to guarantee their effectiveness is a major contribution of the legal system to decent work, to equality and to social cohesion.
A different and difficult target is to capture the vast numbers of employees which, not only in developing countries, work in the grey areas of the labor market and in totally irregular or illegal conditions. This task cannot be performed using only the controls of labor inspectors.
Financial incentives aimed at promoting a gradual emergence of employment from the black market have been introduced in some countries, with some but uneven results. Probably the legalization of these sectors of the labor market can be pursued only by convergent and lasting interventions of public institutions and of social actors directed to promote the culture and practice of legality. And these interventions need to be supported by economic policies capable of creating local and sectorial ecosystems favorable to stable development.
4. Flexibility: regulated and skills friendly
Flexibility is another controversial area where labor law and industrial relations must adapt their traditional instruments to meet the changing needs of the enterprises, while maintaining their mission to guarantee the respect of workers and to promote decent work.
Flexibility is a necessity in modern systems of production which cannot simply be ignored. But the use of flexibility needs to be regulated in order to be compatible with decent work. This objective requires to prevent excessive pressure on the stability of working life. Equally important is to finalize the various forms of flexible employment to the enrichment of the content and value of work.
A significant example in this direction can be found in some recent legislations which have committed the employers to provide specific training to the employees involved in horizontal and vertical mobility, with the aim of enabling them to perform the new jobs assigned to them. A virtuous use of “functional mobility” assisted by specific training is essential to prevent the professional obsolence of those employees who are faced with rapid organizational and technological change.
Such a practice is important also to reduce the risk that employees whose position have been modified or abolished, be hit by economic dismissals. Quite a few examples of socially responsible enterprises confirm that a similar finalization of mobility may contribute to make dismissals an “extrema ratio”. On the other hand employing a mobile and multiskilled work force increases the capacity of enterprises to face the shocks of the markets using their permanent employees insteald of temporary and fixed term contracts.
It is up to the law to fix the basic principles concerning mobility. These principles might on one side recognize the possibility to assign workers to different jobs also outside the boundaries of the traditional classifications, which have often become anachronistic. On the other hard the law should demand that employers provide adequate training to their employers.
The actual implementation of these principles and the management of mobility is better left to the practice of labor management relations in the workplace, through consultation and agreement between employers and workers representatives. Similar principles could be followed also to promote a virtuous use of flexibility of working time.
The protection of employees against unfair dismissals has been a basic tenet of labor law. Some countries have introduced legislation directed not to contradict the principle but to reduce the sanctions for its violation. In order not to nullify the legal protection, the reduction of sanctions should not deprive them of their dissuasive effectiveness; a principle endorsed by decisions of the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
A more profound adaptation of law labor is necessary to cope with economic dismissals. Sanctions against abuses are necessary here too. But the most urgent need is to provide legal and economic instrument to prevents these dismissals and to protect the employees from the loss of employment.
Some countries have introduced innovative policies in two directions. In the first place employers have been obliged to include in their business plans the expected trends of employment including the impact of possible downturns. The plans are also requested to implement in due time the measures necessary to reduce this impact: training and retraining programs for the employees most at risk of unemployment, mobility and reorganization of work finalized to adapt the use of workforce to the new business needs. In addition the law has often provided forms of temporary suspension of work and of short time duly subsidized to allow time for business adjustments. When dismissals cannot be avoided, the law and collective agreements usually provide for procedures to regulate the order and the consequences of these dismissals, with the aim of guaranting a fair selection of workers to be dismissed, and the possible remedies. The best national practices indicate that the support should include not only guarantees of income, but personalized assistance in the search of work opportunities, including the opportunity to enrich and update their skills according to their personal capacities and the trends of the labor market.
5. Employment support in transitional markets
The impact of economic crisis but also the recurrent business and labor market changes have increased the pressure on the national systems of employment protection and security. Monetary indemnisation and assistance have become often an unbearable burden on the public budget. In any case they are insufficient to support the employees in the periods of transition which are becoming a normal feature of modern labor markets. For this reason more resources and organizational efforts should be devoted to active labor policies and specifically to the retraining and replacement of displaced employees.
The capacity to implement effective policies of this kind is a major testing ground for labor law and social welfare. The success of these policies is necessary to balance the flexibility required from the employees and to justify the much proclaimed idea of “flexicurity”.
The results so far obtained are uneven also in those Europeans countries which have greatly invested in flexicurity. Keeping this balance is difficult because it is not simply a matter of resources and of efficient organization of employment services. It requires a widerspead consensus on the need and on the ways to promote good employment opportunities for workers and indeed a new labor market governance based on the active participation of public institutions and of social parties. Such a tripartite approach has been experimented in a few countries with success in the past. Now it needs to be enriched by more personalized services and by increased social investments in order to meet the needs of a diversified working population and to promote their active presence in the “transitional markets” of modern economies. Employment and welfare services should follow individual workers rather than being tied to specific jobs and industries.
Such demanding task requires even more than in the past lasting commitment of public powers and a full recognition of the role of trade unions in labor market governance: both conditions which are far from being fulfilled in many countries.
6. Innovations in welfare policies: costs and investments
A redefinition of scope is equally necessary for the law of employment and for welfare policies. The institutions of social security have played a major role in protecting the workers against the risks of economic life. So they have contributed not only to social cohesion but also to promoting equality among the different groups of population and the inclusion of workers in the formal labor markets. Hence indirectly then have favoured societal well-being and economic growth.
The hystorical dimensions of social security adopted mainly in European countries are now being threatened by many adverse factors: financial cointraints, demographic transformations such as the aging of population, the pressure of global migrations and, on a different level, the decline of solidaristic institutions and ethics. On the other hand welfare measures capable of protecting and reassuring individuals and communities in front of these transformations are mostly in need.
Public institutions will be called to compensate for the lack of protection provided by traditional labor law, particularly to non core and to informal workers. At the same time a more committing task requested to our discipline is to reinforce the legal protections with measures promoting equal opportunities and social inclusion also of standards workers. Because equal opportunities and social inclusion are essential components of human development.
In this perspective the transformation of labour law will have to go hand in hand with the search for new welfare measures shaped not as passive costs but as social investments in the personal qualities of their beneficiary useful to maximize their capacities (or “capabilities”). This approach has to find the ways to exploit the potentials of individuals and of groups to support personal trajectories in the various life cycles and also to shape a new welfare mix based on private collective initiative capable of mobilize resources in addition to those provided by public contributions. How to proceed in these directions is an open issue debated among the policy makers of booth developed and emerging countries.
The latter needs not reproduce the patterns adopted by the historically industrialized countries. Possibly the experience of mature systems should teach how to avoid the increase of costs and of burocracy which have burdened traditional welfare states. Some initiatives of emerging countries indicate the importance of group support and of micro finance to promote and spread new experiments of community welfare. Mutualism assisted by public support and incremental improvements will probably be a way to build institutions of social security in these countries (M. Asher, 2015), more appropriate than top down legislation. Public interventions might concentrate the available resources to provide minimum standards of protection and of welfare for the citizens, first and foremost directed to contrast the most seriuos cases of poverty and deprivation.
7. Insurance based schemes and fiscal support
The possibility to establish pension schemes like those adopted in some developed countries based on contributions by the social parties (workers and employers) in the unionized sectors, will have to be tested on the basis of the economic evolution of the various contexts and of the economic options open to the parties. Even in OECD countries this type of sectional welfare based on insurance schemes is being weakened by the changed market and political conditions: increased unemployment, low growth and declining incomes of the working population. These new conditions are suggesting a new direction of policy in quite a few developed countries, namely the need to combined the existing insurance schemes with welfare provisions financed by the general fiscal budget and directed to provide income and services to workers and citizens in need.
It is worth noticing that some of these countries are introducing various forms of basic income, usually conditioned on means testing, to poor citizens and low-paid workers, who are now among the “loosers” of global competition.
As mentioned above, globalization is affecting most aspects of our economic life and of the world of labor. One of the most dramatic impact has been the increase of inequalities among nations, among groups of people and among individuals. All the traditional economic and social policies of the world are challenged to react. Infact these inequalities represent a major obstacle not only to growth and development but also to political stability, as is proved by the pressure exerted by popular reactions on many nationals governments. The existing welfare systems including the Europeans which are considered to be “universal”, have not been able to redress the new types of poverty nor to reduce the risk of empoverishment which is increasing among the once secure middle class.
Recent research indicates some critical areas for reform, but few answers. How to change the financing and selection of welfare benefits to make them capable at facing the risk of poverty and of emargination. How to target the groups mostly at risk and to redistribute the resources and services accordingly. Would it be possible and to what extent to differentiate the contributions of the various groups of workers to social security. How important could it be the role and participation of private organizations in shaping and administering certain areas of welfare?
The young generations are among the most seriously hit by unemployment. A reorientation of active labor policies, training, and welfare protections is urgent to give them equal opportunities.
The changing demography, with the rapidly aging of population is posing an unprecedented pressure to even to the most entrenched systems of health care and of personal assistance. Most of these risks will hardly be faced by the traditional social insurance schemes. A different policy mix between insurance- based benefits and welfare measures financed by the national budget will be needed to provide income support and basic services to all citizens.
8. Education and the accumulation of human capital
Protection and equitable income redistribution remain essential functions of present welfare. But labor law and welfare systems are called to develops new functions if they want to be not only compatible but functional to sustainable growth and human development. The contribution of our discipline to this end depends on the capacity to intercept and sustain the general strategies mentioned above which can promote human development.
The measures which are specific to our discipline are first of all those which can promote among workers and citizens the human and social capital. In the present “knowledge society” the accumulation of human capital is based on education and continuous education. Education and training are essential to enable individual workers to fully realize their capacities, to contribute to the common development and to have access to the benefits of growth. Income distribution itself is greatly influenced by the education and by the skills of workers. Those highly skilled benefit most from new technologies, while the poorly educated are the loosers.
The education and professional skills necessary to be in line with the needs of present society, are greatly superior to those sufficient in the past industrial era. New employment and training services are required to meet the needs of an increasingly variable workforce, often quite distant from the traditional users: the increasing number of women and of old aged, the multitude of immigrants and the educated knowledge workers, which may be semi autonomous but still in need of help. Moreover the provision of these services is not occasional as it was in the past but may be recurrent in the life of the individuals due to the volatility of the markets and also to the variable personal and family needs.
The private and public investments in the education and training will have to grow accordingly, in parallel with the equally decisive investments in research and productive innovation. For the same reasons education and training should become the very basis of an active welfare and the same time an essential part of the public policy of growth. Quite a few emerging countries seem to have adopted such a strategy more clearly than some developed nations.
9. Social cohesion and collective actions
Individual capacities are essential for human development, but they don’t exist in a social vacuum. Social cohesion which is necessary for the accumulation of social capital is equally important. Indeed it is a condition also for promoting the capacities and the opportunities of the individuals. The welfare of the XX Century resulting from a comprehensive social and political compromise, has been decisive in sustaining social cohesion in many developed countries. The transformations of the last years have altered the very basis of this compromise, because they have changed the balance of power between social actors to the detriment of organized labor. Even more in depth the individualization of working life and of identities is favouring a decline of collective experiences. I firmly believe that social cohesion is a common good conducive not only to the well being of people but also to sustainable development. It is a major responsibility of policy makers to create the conditions to keep our society cohese even in the present turbulent environment.
The collective actors - unions and employers - which have supported the social compromise of the past are responsible for adapting their strategies in order to reaffirm their role to this end. The revitalization of collective actions and of labor unions is a difficult and indeed uncertain objective. But I am convinced that this is still a major social and political target to be pursued for the cause of social justice. Research findings confirm that legislative support to collective employee representation and the growth of collective action are correlated with more equalitarian wage bargaining and with an increased labor share in national income (S. Deakin, 2016). Here again there is no ready- made and uniform model to follow. I suggest two major directions of policy which have been developed in previous research.
One: innovative initiatives in industrial relations might require not only changes in the contents and in the structure of collective bargaining, but the search for forms of collective action based on new motivations of the variable workforce of today. This might require a multidimensional approach - bilateral and trilateral - to the regulation of individual and collective relations of the various groups, possibly involving not only working condition but also other aspects of working life.
Two: I believe that the adverse factors which are weakening collective actions both in developed and developing countries, can be opposed only by the concurrent action of public institutions and of social actors. The full recognition by national legislators of individual and collective rights - freedom of association, right to bargain and to strike - remains an essential condition to legitimize and promote collective action in democratic societies.
The experience of some countries indicates that the effectiveness and quality of collective action can be facilitated by promoting workers participation within the enterprises and in the public institutions, national and local, which are active in employment and welfare services. In the countries where this kind of participation has been widely adopted, it has contributed to improving labor management relations and to increasing both the welfare of employees and the productivity of the system. Indeed the involvement and the empowerment of workers in the relevant areas of their life are important factors of human development.
10. The role of states in a globalized world
Most areas of policy innovations indicated in this paper involve the responsibility of national legislators and social parties. Certainly in a globalized world these actors have to face unprecedented contraints, not only financial but coming from the increased productive and regulatory competition among nations.
In spite of this, national states and actors maintain a major role particularly in shaping labor policies. This is confirmed by the persistent diversity in the various regulations which reflect the specific conditions of each country. Some national legislators and governments have recently reasserted their authority on these issues, responding to the growing pressures of their constituencies who are resisting to restrictive supranational directives.
The reasons for these national reactions are different and not always socially oriented. But even international experts who are not biased against globalization recognize that global trades should be subject to some limits and scrutiny taking into account to fundamental national interest. Such a scrutiny would be useful to counterbalance global pressures and make for a more “intelligent” globalization (D. Rodrik, 2010). In many international trade negotiation and agreements the national negotiators have in fact requested the respect of basic standards, mainly in labor and environmental issues which they consider of paramount importance for the economy, the quality of life and even for the cultural identity of their countries.
The recent Transpacific Trade agreement (TPP) and the present negotiations aimed at signing a Transatlantic Trade agreement (TTIP) are significant examples.
The European Parliament has posed to the negotiators of TTIP strict conditions to be respected particularly in labor and environmental matters. It has declared non negotiable the safeguard of the existing European and national labor standards, and has requested a periodical “sustainability impact assessment” (SIA) of the social and environmental effects of the treaty.
The national negotiators of the TPP have included in the agreement a social chapter more assertive than the clauses of previous treaties, committing the parties to “adopt and maintain basic social rights in regulations and practices”, and to guarantee “acceptable conditions of work with respect to minimum wage, hours of work, occupational safety and health (acceptable as determined by each national signing party).
The existing differences of national regimes in the major issues of labor law, including the protection of employment and the regulation of labor management relations, confirm that the convergence among different legal systems envisaged by some scholars still meets many obstacles.
Some countries are reluctant to fully to recognize the fundamental collective rights, particularly the rights to strike, as requested by the ILO conventions. Signs of regression in this area are present in some African countries as commented during the Capetown Congress, but also in a few eastern European states whose policies are hardly respectful of the principles of social Europe.
On the other hand emerging Asian nations, including India and China, have introduced widely debated reforms of their labor legislation.
Labor legislation in Latin America has a long history, influenced by particular by European and North America examples. It has undergone recurrent changes often correlated with the evolution of democratic political institutions. In recent years quite a few countries have introduced major reforms in individual and collective labor law which have favoured an increase in the coverage rate.
The persistent importance of state action is confirmed by the fact that the necessary international projection of labor policies and the strengthening of the international organization, ILO in the first place, cannot proceed without the support of the national governments, beginning with those most influential in the international economic scenario.
11. The instruments of transnational labor regulations: commercial and investment treaties
The development of transnational regulations, in spite of many attempts, in still at an infant stage. The recent experience of the European Union, which is a relatively homogeneous area, indicates the difficulties to harmonize even the basic traits of national legislations, particularly in the most sensitive social issues. The so called “European model” is suffering from the pressure of the restrictive austerity measures imposed by the monetary authorities, which indeed do not correspond to the official commitments to promote stability and growth. Even the measures advocated by the major international organizations (ILO, OECD, World Bank) and by the repeated summits of the governments finalized to promote sustainable development have been partially implemented if not totally disregarded.
The possibility to proceed along the path of transnational labor regulations and social policies depends on many variables and on a myriad of public and private decisions. A multiplicity of actors are involved and different instruments may be combined according to the specific issues and areas concerned.
Commercial and investment treaties in different forms are a major vehicle of transnationalism. And the social chapters which are now regularly inserted in these treaties have contributed to promote in international trade at least the basic social principle recognized by the ILO core conventions. Some recent agreements have strengthened the language of these social clauses and the commitment of the signing states.
But the procedures for the enforcement of these commitments are usually weak and the implementation of even the fundamental right has proved uneven. On the other hand, hardly any attempt has been made to insert in the treaties promotional clauses which might commit the parties to improve their social policies according to the best national and international practices. Multiple strategies have been proposed to increase the effectiveness of social clauses: promote and extend the ratification of core ILO conventions, provide direct access of social organizations, trade unions and workers to dispute- settlement procedures, introduce more effective instruments of enforcement and sanctions, promote innovative forms of litigation in national courts and in front of international bodies.
12. Multinational enterprises and company agreements
Multinational enterprises have become a key vector of global development and also a decisive player capable of promoting the transnational regulation of employment. They are already using different instruments to perform their supranational role, hereby contributing to the innovation also of legal techniques: unilateral ad hoc initiatives, stable programs in economic and social domains, guidelines of corporate social responsibility of variable content and impact, collective agreements with representative organizations of their employees (works councils, national and international unions).
Transnational company -wide agreements can be an important vector of regulation across the borders in many labor and social issues. This type of agreements may have an impact on employment conditions more direct than transnational agreements concluded between the national or territorial organizations of employees and of employers in specific productive sectors. These latter agreements, according to the present legal regimes, have no legally binding effects on the individual companies and on their employees. Transnational company agreements, like national company agreements, have a “comparative advantage” in this respect, because their regulatory impact on employment conditions depends on the power of the employer to determine these conditions; power which the employer may exercise at his discretion or according to the terms of the agreement that he has signed with the legitimate representatives of his employees.
The agreements signed by transnational companies with the European works councils (EWC) have provided different evidence of their impact and contents. But they have proved to be an effective vehicle of transnational regulation in many issues of employment and of welfare. In some cases they have promoted good innovative practices of work organization and of workers participation. Often they have managed to regulate matters which have proved intractable at sectional or territorial levels, in spite of the support given by the European Union to collective bargaining and to social dialogue.
This is the case e.g. of issues concerning the restructuring and reorganization of firms or of groups of enterprises, the consequent redundancies, and in general the various processes of outsourcing of work, subcontracting and organizations of supply chains.
13. Regional regulations and regional Funds
Different and more direct forms of supranational projection of labor law and social policies have been introduced within some regional areas, in Europe, in the Americas, and more recently in Asia, which have set up common institutions and legal regimes.
The European Union has proceeded most in the direction of creating a common social sphere, through a variety of legal techniques. The resulting social model includes some traits inspired to the objectives of sustainable growth and human development. The pursuance of this model has produced positive results in many countries but also set backs due to various obstacles: weak recognition and legitimation of the European initiatives in these matters, specially vis a vis the commitments to financial integration, increasing pressures of centrifugal forces and forms of resurgent nationalism.
The instruments of hard law such as the directives have given way to the open method of coordination (OMC) and to loose guidelines, which share the value and the limits of other forms of soft law.
In spite of the obstacles so far experienced, the continental regions seem to be a manageable dimension and a possible intermediate step on the road to global policy making.
It is also worth noticing that some regional institutions have endorsed direct forms of transnational action aimed at promoting innovative social policies and at sustaining common goals of development. The European Union is a case in point. Their authorities have set up a series of Funds and to be used by member states and by social actors for common social and economic targets. Among the most important are the social fund for education, training and promotion of employment; the fund for regional development, more recently the fund for the 'adjustment to globalization', which is a first transnational measure to counteract the negative effects of globalization on national enterprises and on their employees.
A major investment program directly financed by Union resources have been recently announced by the president of the European Union with the aim of improving the weak performance of the European economies.
Finally, proposals have been advanced to establish a common system of unemployment benefits for the European workers financed with European funds. Such a fund would be an important sign of cross- border solidarity and would function as an automatic economic stabilizer for the recurrent periods of crisis.
Similar funds could be experimented in other regional areas by way of bilateral or multilateral agreements with the aim of extending across the borders selected forms of welfare, and of sustaining national welfare systems. Welfare systems need transnational solidarity, particularly when they are in an early phase of development and in the fields where they mostly suffer the consequences of economic crisis and underdevelopment: fight against poverty, guarantee of minimum levels of income, promotion of young employment, special programs to support basic an professional education.
Short of interventions of supranational forms of government which are not in sight, the internationalization of labor law and of social policies will proceed by the extension and improvement of the different instruments mentioned here (social clauses transnational company agreements, codes of conduct, regional directives and direct interventions): not ready-made global regulations, but a web of rules gradually created by different national and international actors.
14. Some policy priorities
The present although partial analysis provides sufficient evidence of the challenges that the great transformations of present times pose to our discipline. As we indicated lately in Capetown, common research is necessary to deepen our understanding of the future of work and to contribute to new policy- making in employment and social security matters.
Some legal and social instruments adopted by national practices have proved to be particularly useful.
Our discipline have a major role in promoting the well being of workers and sustainable development, provided that it does not limit itself to react to external economic pressure and to defend its glorious traditions, but it dares to use in a innovative way the specific tools of the law and collective action.
Our common discussions have given significant, even tough tentative, indications on how labor law and industrial relations can contribute to this goal.
A few policy priorities need to be stressed again; the protection of workers from old and new social risks, the promotion of decent employment and of the quality of work which are the basis of sustainable development; the diffusion of investments in education and personal capacities, which are an essential road to equal opportunities, an active use of public and private welfare institutions, finalized to increase personal opportunities and to fight inequality and poverty; the promotion of collective voice and of employee participation in the working place and in the public scene; the endorsement of work place flexibility and productivity combined with measures to guarantee security in the labor markets; the support of labor friendly use of organizational and technological innovations.
For the reason already indicated, national states and social actors maintain the major responsibility for the implementation of these policies. But their responsibility includes an increased commitment to promote the social dimension and the democratic character of globalization.
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