Trouble ahead in Portugal, still?

Ricardo Paes Mamede

Clean exit?
A ‘clean exit’. These were the words used last May, at home and abroad, to celebrate the end of the Portuguese three-year adjustment programme, just like in Ireland a few months earlier. Having accumulated a buffer that covers government financial needs until the end of 2015, Portuguese authorities announced, just ahead of the elections to the European Parliament, that the country would not need to resort again to international assistance – whether in the form of a precautionary line by the European Stability Mechanism, or a new loan by international creditors. 

The ‘Portuguese exit’ added to the general sense of relief that has been increasingly felt among EU authorities since the European Central Bank (ECB) announced the Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) programme in 2012. The continuous drop in government bonds’ interest rates across the Eurozone is seen as a decisive step to overcome the risks of disruption in the European Monetary Union. Though acknowledging the high social and economic costs accruing from several years of budgetary austerity, EU official documents typically conclude that the adjustment programmes implemented in the periphery of the Eurozone were essentially successful, having created the conditions for a sustained recovery from of the crisis.

Thank You Greece

Maria Helena dos Santos André

In a time when in Paris Marine Le Pen is “Ante Portas”, when xenophobic populists are marching through the streets of Dresden, when in London the UKIP sets the tone for an ever more Anti-European hysteria, and when in Helsinki the Finnish government becomes the most ardent proponent of more austerity for Greece, for no other reason but the fear of a success of the “real Finns” at the next ballot box, the Greek people have given a clear signal, voting against more austerity and for the European values of democracy, the welfare state, tolerance and inclusive societies. 

They have rejected the ruling by European and international technocrats. They have said no to their national oligarchic establishment that has led the country to the current situation. But they also resisted the Siren calls of Golden Dawn. They have given their confidence to an untested party, with no experience in government, a party that has presented an electoral programme proposing better governance, more democracy, greater social justice and an end of austerity policies that have destroyed the economy and created unprecedented hardship while the public debt (and the private one) continued to increase. The Greek voters have sent a clear message to the rest of Europe: they want to be part of Europe, they can’t bear more austerity; they need a sustainable solution to their debt problem; they want to be a respected partner in the European Union and play an active role in the common search for a Greek and European recovery.

Repositioning Social Dialogue: The South African Case

Katherine Joynt 

Edward Webster

Introduction
A crucial moment in South Africa’s transition to democracy was the signing of the Laboria Minute in 1990 between unions, employers and government where it was agreed that no laws on labour market issues would be passed without the agreement of all three social partners. This led to the establishment of the National Economic Forum (NEF) in 1992 and its merging with the National Manpower Commission (NMC) to create South Africa’s premier social dialogue institution, the National Economic Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC). In many ways the Laboria Minute was to pre-figure the political negotiations that led to South Africa’s first democratic elections in April 1994.

NEDLAC is distinctive as a peak-level social dialogue institution in that it includes not just labour market issues but also trade and industrial policy, monetary and fiscal policy as well as developmental issues. The traditional tripartite structure was also broadened to include community organisations.

In 2013 the authors were appointed to undertake an External Review to recommend ways of repositioning NEDLAC. We interviewed representatives from all four of the constituencies and wrote up a report. Subsequently we presented the report separately to all four constituencies and then incorporated their feedback into the review again before finalising our recommendations.

Austerity policies and trade unionism: A glance at Portugal

Hermes Augusto Costa

Elísio Estanque

Wage labour played and continues to play a central role in Western industrial societies, not just on the economic plane but above all as a vital support for social cohesion and the rule of law. The main advances of the last 200 years including the building of the welfare state and its important gains in the field of human rights (e.g. dignified work and social rights) are examples of the importance of struggles waged by organised wage labour. The major problem, however, is the imminent civilisational regression in which we find ourselves, teetering on the brink of a new cycle of mercantilist barbarism similar to the times of Marx (Estanque and Costa, 2013). In fact, the Portuguese labour context has in recent years been battered by austerity policies, formally with the entry of the Troika (International Monetary Fund (IMF)/ European Central Bank (ECB)/ European Commission(EC0) in May 2011 and even beyond its exit n May 2014.

In this text, we initially identify some internal challenges put before unions and the external threats underlying austerity policies. We also set out some tasks for trade unions.

Fiscal redistribution: yes, but inequality starts in the labour market: Findings from the ILO Global Wage Report 2014/2015

Patrick Belser

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) Global Wage Report[1], a publication released every two years, has been issued on the 5th of December 2014. The report is titled “Wages and income inequality” and, as usual, it has three parts. The first part analyses the evolution of real wages around the world. The second part, examines the link between wages and household income inequality, and also looks at wage gaps between certain groups: women and men; migrants and nationals; workers in the formal and the informal economy. The last part challenges the reader on what could be appropriate policy responses. The purpose of this column is to therefore highlight and discuss some of the crucial findings of the report.

Wage trends: Flat wages in developed economies, growing wages in emerging economies
The most recent global wage growth was driven almost entirely by emerging and developing economies, where real wages have been rising – sometimes rapidly – since 2007. Before the financial crisis, real average wages in developed economies grew by an average of about 1 per cent per year, and global wage growth was about 3 per cent. Such figures have since changed in recent years; wage growth in developed economies almost stands at zero, and global wages are growing by 2 per cent. If you take China out of the equation, the global wage growth is quite simply cut in half (see Figure 1).