Towards consistent principles of flexicurity

Abstract

"The paper contains analysis of, critical remarks on, and constructive suggestions to Towards Common Principles of Flexicurtity of the European Commission (2007). The latter promotes relaxing the employment protection legislation while providing advances in employment and social security for flexible workforces, like fixed-term, part-time and agency workers, or self-employed. The default assumption, that relaxing labour laws can be compensated by these advances, is criticised as the compensating measures are regarded as vague and insufficient. Therefore, some additional measures are proposed to counterbalance the actual flexibilisation of employment relations, including (1) flexinsurance, a kind of progressive flexibilisation tax, meaning that the employer's contribution to social security should be proportional to the flexibility of the contract/risk of becoming unemployed, (2) elements of the basic minimum income model, (3) workplace tax for worse working conditions of atypically employed which should protect 'the working environment' in the same way as the green tax protects the natural environment, and (4) constraining financial markets. It is argued that all of these meet interests of social partners and solve contradictions between several European policies." (author's abstract)