Varieties of labour administration in Europe and the consequences of the Great Recession

Abstract

This paper focuses on national public administration activities that relate to employment, social protection and industrial relations. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) refers to these activities collectively as 'labour administration' and regards the bodies that conduct them within individual countries as together forming national systems of labour administration. This paper explores the concept of 'national system of labour administration' and considers the potential contribution of comparative institutional analysis in understanding how national systems are organised and change over time. The paper also compares the organisation of national labour administration systems in European Union (EU) countries and analyses how these systems have developed since the start of the economic crisis that erupted in 2008.

Labour geography and the state: Exploring labour's role in working against, with and through the state to improve labour standards

“…In both the UK and Ireland, the most prominent labour standards enforcement agencies have emerged within a relatively crowded landscape of enforcement institutions wherein different entities hold particular, fragmented remits for enforcing labour rights (Gavris and Heyes, 2021; Mustchin and Martínez Lucio, 2023). In the UK, the main labour market enforcement responsibilities are presently divided between the His Majesty's Revenue and Customs's (HMRC's) National Minimum Wage enforcement team, the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate (EAS), the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), and the GLAA, although they are set to come under a single umbrella entity at some point.…”

Introduction to The Governance of Labour Administration

“…Many labour ministries and associated agencies have therefore been confronted with the challenge of trying to achieve 'more' for 'less'. The adoption of austerity measures also appears to have given further impetus to a centralization of previously separate functions through a merging of labour administration bodies, a trend that was apparent before the financial crisis, particularly in relation to employment services (Gavris and Heyes, 2019). 12 In Europe, centralization reflects a wider dynamic in European public administration, where fiscal retrenchment and centralization have been the predominant forms of response to the crisis (Randma-Liiv and Kickert, 2017).…”

“…12 In Europe, centralization reflects a wider dynamic in European public administration, where fiscal retrenchment and centralization have been the predominant forms of response to the crisis (Randma-Liiv and Kickert, 2017). 13 Furthermore, in some countries, ministries of finance or the economy have come to play a more substantial role in labour matters and their power has increased vis-à-vis that of labour ministries Gavris and Heyes, 2019). There are also cases of responsibility for labour issues being transferred to ministries that are primarily responsible for the economy.…”

“…Although social dialogue played a vital role in many countries' responses to the financial crisis, in some countries it was adversely affected by the aftermath. This occurred primarily in the countries hardest hit by the crisis, such as Spain and Ireland, where external conditions attached to bailout packages reduced domestic room for manoeuvre as well as time frames for consultation with social partners (Hyman, 2013;Papadakis and Ghellab, 2014;Gavris and Heyes, 2019). The involvement of social partners in labour administration has also been weakened by changes in labour market regulation.…”

A ‘place-based’ approach to work and employment: The end of reciprocity for ordinary working families and ‘giggers’ in a place

“…We can see this clearly in recent contributions to the literature. On the one hand, Gavris and Heyes (2019) suggest that the de-centralization of labour administration enables the marketization of labour in Britain; this in turn restricts the involvement of social partners in the regulation of employment. However, whilst Britain represents an extreme case of deregulation, flexibility and marketization that pushes back the management of all three to individual workers it is a process that is common across the liberal market economy, coordinated market economy divide.…”