International and Comparative Employment Law - Assignment Example

International and Comparative Employment Law Labour laws aim to promote decent work by protecting workers and promoting democracy in labour relations. The laws of a contract influence labour relations across the globe (Barnard et. al., 2004). The European and global economic integration, changing technologies and the aging European nationals has brought significant changes in the labour market. In addition, the emergence of atypical forms of work has revolutionized the business strategies in the global market (Bronstein, 2009). The modern global labour market require more job flexibility and security to promote ease of between jobs transitions and promote a relevance of workers in the market. The labour laws provide protection for the relationship between the workers and the employers. Laws of contract formed the legal basis for protection of workers. The employment contract provided protection to the full-time employees (Casale, 2011). However, those workers without any contractual relationship remained unprotected during the engagement with their employers. Workers are protected against unfair dismissal and are expected to continue working for the same organization permanently or seasonally and they have right to join trade unions. The standard work arrangement remained in force until 1970s when global economic changes brought forth intense competition and uncertainty between enterprises (Barnard et. al., 2004, p.46). Employment was regulated by restrictive employment protection legislation and collective agreement between workers unions and the employers in the post-war Europe (Blanpain & Baker, 2010). Due to intense global market pressure firms started pushing for larger profits and flexibility of contracts with workers and responding to consumers’ needs. The changes in a global market have necessitated for more flexible and secure labour market that can offer satisfaction to employers and workers needs simultaneously. The International Labour Organization (ILO) had a view that flexibilization of labour market resulted in erosion of workers’ rights which affected their earnings security and the steadiness of working and living conditions (Lansky, 2013). The economists put forward a suggestion to compensate diminishing job security by expanding employment opportunities and social security. Therefore, it was necessary to protect the labour market by ensuring stable and secure jobs in the marker. The quest to provide flexible and secure labour market in the European States has been adopted as European Employment Strategy (Blanpain & Baker, 2010). However, the adoption of flexicurity has ensured that the traditional employments pattern does not get replaced by the modern employment. The flexicurity has adopted the Lisbon recommendation of creating more and better employment opportunities, has increased flexibility and security of the global employments by promoting up-to-date training of workers and between jobs transitions (Moore, 2014). The goal of adopting flexicurity was to ease the employment protection legislation and offset it by offering better seasonal and part-time employees, promote life-long career training to enhance between jobs transitions, more social benefits and constructive guidelines on working time. Off course in the modern economy there is an increasing flexicurity since most people are opting for work at home jobs or freelance jobs it is easy to get more flexible jobs irrespective of location or geographical area. In 1970s and 1980s, the financial markets opened up with expectations of improving the living standards in developed and eradicate poverty in the developing nations (Craig & Burca, 2011). Investors focused on nations with low cost of labour and cheap source of consumer goods and huge returns for the investors. In addition, nations expected to gain from an improvement in technologies and creation of employment opportunities (Lansky, 2013). The poverty levels are the greatest challenges in the developing countries though the living standards in the developing countries have significantly improved. International organizations are focusing on nations with cheap labour such as China to increase productivity. Flexicurity entails striking optimal balance between arrangement for job flexibility and between jobs transitional security in order to promote a creation of better jobs. The issue with a flexicurity approach regards whether the rigidity of the labour market is the cause of poor labour market outcome (Lansky, 2013). The approach aims to ensure job security and flexibility operates as complementary instead of causing friction with each other. The idea of flexicurity is to establish flexible work organizations to enable workers combine work and personal responsibilities. This means that workers can maintain up-to-date training besides flexible working hours. In addition, it ensures flexible working environment for both workers and employers that cope with the dynamism of the working environment (Pennings et. al., 2008). To achieve job security workers can acquire up-to-date training to upgrade their talents and provide them with sufficient employment benefits in case they lose jobs for some time. In the modern labour market workers have greater opportunities to focus on career development because of online training and increased study leaves. Furthermore, available of scholarships have enabled many workers to advance their education and continue with their studies. In the milieu of globalization and technological advancement, businesses are under pressure to adopt greater employment security and flexibility (Lansky, 2013). This will provide means for workers to maintain their jobs, lead to career advancement and accomplish smooth between jobs transitions. The flexicurity will lead to achievement of significant inclusive labour market by challenging labour market segmentation for the workers with stable quality jobs (insiders) and those with temporary employment or the unemployed (outsiders) (Hepple, 2005). The increasing competitiveness of labour in the global market has increased flexicurity since people can work anywhere across the globe and change their career easily. The European states have a common belief in a society that integrates economic growth with high living standards and ample working conditions (Davidov & Langille, 2011). This is referred as the European Social Model. Flexicurity involves careful arrangement of flexible and steadfast contractual preparations operative labour market guidelines, inclusive lifelong learning plans, current, thorough and sustainable social security structures. Instead of having single labour market model for all states, different member states have their model tailored to the particular circumstances of the related state (Davidov & Langille, 2011). Flexicurity ensures balance between rights and responsibilities of all those involved. It aims at creating more and better jobs and helps in the implementation of Lisbon Strategy, reform labour market and promotes social cohesion and employment through new reforms job security and flexibility (Blanpain et al., 2010, p. 116). In addition, it promotes gender equity by offering equal access to quality employment for men and women as well as promoting individual and family lives. The implementation of flexicurity requires rational allocation of resources and must remain harmonious with inclusive and financially justifiable public budget. It helps in reforming labour market by overpowering segmentation (Blanpain et al., 2007). It serves both the employed and unemployed through providing better opportunities, economic incentives and helpful strategies for easier access to jobs and advancement to stable and secure employment. It could also assist those already in employment to retain their jobs, advance their careers and accomplish the transition in work and between jobs transitions. To achieve flexicurity, there is the need for promoting trust and the broad-based negotiation among the stakeholders in which all stakeholders accepts to take the responsibility for modification with a focus on socially balanced rules (Rodgers, 2014). The approach promotes uniform internal and external flexicurity. The workers unions have increased the workers bargaining power and have resulted to flexible and security. Labour flexibility is synonymous with increased productivity that contributes to economic growth and creation of jobs (Blanpain et al., 2007). Labour flexibility can apply to various work arrangements including non-standard work. Despite the competition and changes that have taken place in the labour market, the non-standard employment remains the predominant employment pattern. In a globalized economy, the international labour laws are applicable when hiring workers from other countries (Casale, 2011). The procedure for hiring workers is based on competence while termination of workers has to be fairly executed. This has increased flexicurity of workers since workers can enjoy more stable jobs with options to shift from job to another. Advantage of flexicurity to the workers Flexibility has enabled workers to achieve optimal production by matching the workload with the available working hours (Bronstein, 2009). Also, the flexibility of a job has enabled workers to engage in other economic activities such as undertaking further training in order to increase competence and better skills. In addition, it can help employees to achieve work-life balance by maximizing work during peak-time hours and taking breaks during off-peak seasons (Casale, 2011). In a flexible labour market, persons would otherwise not get jobs have the high chance of joining the labour market. The flexibility of wages and payment has enabled workers to maximize income by increasing working hours and personal input for higher gains insecure labour market (Kaufmann, 2007, p. 213). Workers can easily secure employment due to external-numerical flexibility. Disadvantages of flexicurity to the workers There is the lack of satisfactory integration between the workers and employers since most workers stay in the organization for a short period (Bronstein, 2009). The part-time workers are not entitled to pensions and health insurance benefits. Increased competition in the labour market has resulted in increased cost of training and time wastage as workers strive to acquire additional skills and become more relevant (Kaufmann, 2007). Advantages of flexicurity to the firms Flexicurity expedites the labour market careers and employees biographies with moderately weak state of affairs and provides for high-quality labour market involvement and social annexation (Blanpain et al., 2007). In addition, it has provided functional and wage flexibility for timely labour market and adequate adjustment to varying circumstances in order to sustain and improve competitiveness and efficiency (Casale, 2011). Through internal-numerical flexibility, firms can meet the market need for their labour through flexi-time, over-time, seasonal employments, part-time workers and subcontract. Firms can increase performance and profitability by paying workers based on workers’ input or results. Disadvantages of flexicurity to the firms There is increased rate of labour turnover in a more flexible labour market as workers seek for better opportunities in other organizations (Bronstein, 2009). The organizations are compelled to pay high wages and salaries in order to retain competent workers. Consequently, there is increased inequality as companies pay low wages to some careers with surplus workers while they pay more for those in more technical jobs. Advantage of flexicurity to the government Flexicurity of the labour market increased competitiveness of the firms and stimulated production and consequently improved labour market hence resulting to more stable economy (Blanpain et al., 2007). It has increased unemployment benefit through increased reservation wage that has increased the welfare of the people (Pennings et. al., 2008). Increased employment rate and reduced long-term unemployment have resulted to increase in lifelong learning, and this has also contributed to increased economic productivity (Davidov & Langille, 2011). Disadvantages of flexicurity to the government There is development of collective bargaining model that has contributed to continued workers protection (Blanpain et al., 2010). This has hindered competitiveness of the economy since organizations cannot replace less competitive workers with more productive workers for better performance. The inequality caused by variations in wages and salaries is an issue of public policy since it is propagating discrimination. Conclusion Flexicurity has achieved its target by tremendously improving the living standards of the people. It has generated significant benefits for employees, firms and the government. International labour laws have provided protection against unfair dismissal and unhealthy workplace treatments for the workers. It has increased employment opportunities and job security because workers can move from job to another. Furthermore, it has improved the living standards for the workers especially in the developed countries. Workers can strike work-life balance. Furthermore, it has improved job security because workers can undergo for further training that has increased their work competence. Flexicurity has greater economic growth because of improved productivity and works efficiency. Further research is essential to determine the workers preference for atypical employment compared to permanent employment in order to strike work life balance.   Bibliography Barnard, C., Deakin, Hepple, S F. & Morris G. S. (2004). The Future of Labour Law: Liber Amicorum Bob Hepple QC. Hart Publishing. Pp. 1-320. Blanpain, R. (2008). European Labour Law, (11th Ed.). 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