Commission wants social partners' view on "flexicurity".

The latest issue of the ETUC's collective bargaining bulletin warns that the European Commission is trying to re-focus the European employment guidelines around towards more flexible working practices, making it easier for employers to fire workers while at the same time reformulating workers' security as the security to be able to move into a new job. The bulletin explains that a key element of the approach is to use indicators developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development which, according to the ETUC, “suffers from a fundamental bias. It is constructed to advance

Labour market researchers have criticised the European Commission's narrow focus on competitiveness when analysing wage developments. Guy van Gyes from Leuven University in Belgium and Thorsten Schulten from the WSI trade union research institute in Germany argue that the Commission tends to ignore the structure of the real economy, the non-price factors and the loose relationship between wages and exports. They say that wage developments have the potential to counter deflationary price trends, stabilise and increase private demand, counter income inequality and push for inclusive productivity