Adapt - Associazione per gli Studi Internazionali e Comparati sul Diritto del lavoro e sulle Relazioni Industriali

LIBRA is a project co-funded by the European Commission, DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion*.

Partners

Adapt – Association for International and Comparative Studies in Labour Law and Industrial Relations (Italy)
IAL – Innovazione, Apprendimento, Lavoro (Italy)
CISL – Confederazione Italiana Sindacati Lavoratori
ABVV-FGTB – Algemeen Belgisch Vakverbond-Fédération générale du travail de Belgique (Belgium)
INCSMSP – National Institute for Science Research in The Field of Labour and Social Protection (Romania)
MOSz- National Confederation of Workers’ Council- MOSZ (Hungary)

Supporters

ETUC – European Trade Union Confederation
Rumanian Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Protection
CSMB – “Marco Biagi” International and Comparative Study Centre, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (Italy)




Background and goals

The EU Member States and institutions have committed themselves to pursuing a strategy that will help Europe to come out stronger from the crisis and turn the EU into a smart, sustainable and inclusive economy delivering high levels of employment, productivity and social cohesion. The Council of the European union acknowledges that not only equality between women and men but also strategies of work-life balance (WLB) are fundamental value (of the European Union) and in this context is important link between productivity which is vital to economic growth, prosperity and competitiveness. Increasing product-market competition is believed to be a driving force behind higher productivity. However, even those critics of globalization who accept this argument claim that there is a hard trade-off because tougher competition comes at the price of reducing work-life balance. Others, by contrast, argue that competition can spur better WLB practices and therefore higher productivity, so there is a ‘win-win’ situation.
The overall aim of the project is the experimentation of a new and best models addressed to workers’ representatives on work-life balance, diversity management, equal opportunities and flexibility issues in order to strengthen workers’ representatives abilities in collective bargaining activity and to improve the development of better industrial relations and social dialogue on such relevant issues, starting from a comparative analysis of the legal framework and the analysis of best practices in Italy, Belgium, Hungary, and Romania, about flexible working time schedules, often considered to be a mechanism to support working parents and workers who care for relatives with disability in combining work and family life; as long as ‘flexibility’ continues to be considered as mainly a ‘female’ way of organising working time, the use of these schemes may offer limited choice. In this context, improving living and working conditions has become a major objective for the European institutions.

Activities and results

The specific activities of the project will be:

• desk research on different industrial relations systems and approaches to social dialogue and to policies of work-life balance and productivities in the countries of analysis (legislation, collective bargaining and agreements);
• identification of good practices developed in Europe and in particular in countries involved;
• realization of two national workshops in Italy and in Belgium and one National workshop in Hungary and in Romania, named Conciliation’s systems and best practices of collective bargaining in order to determine the instruments able to transfer the tested models. In the workshops, will be self-evaluation and in-class sharing of the most interesting and innovative practices already tested through instruments previously settled highlighting, above all, their strengths, criticality, transferability and sustainability;
• dissemination of results, impact multiplication and awareness raising towards relevant stakeholders through the set up and implementation of on-line permanent European Observatory (in several languages) and a newsletter, organization of one national seminar and a final conference.

Added value and innovativeness of the project

The main added value and innovative aspects of the project are:

• widening the range of innovative solutions tested on the problems of conciliation, available to partners of the project;
• highlighting a possible synergy between the analyzed patterns, strengthening the impact of each single testing at a local, National and transnational level;
• identifying a defined intervention model, interchangeable in other European context;
• implementing strengthening synergies, exchanges between European social dialogue sectoral committees and innovative strategies that involve the local decision makers;
• promoting vertical mainstreaming actions, identifying internal and external stakeholders at which highlighting the results of the project;
• constitution and implementation of Permanent European Observatory (in several language) which is aim and also the new and best practice of project.


For further information, visit www.adapt.it/libra

Co-ordinator of the project:
Roberta Caragnano roberta.caragnano@adapt.it


Final Report
Kick off meeting
Abstract



* budget heading 04.03.03.01, Industrial Relations and Social Dialogue.