Decent work: indexing European working conditions and imposing workplace tax

Abstract

This article indexes working conditions using data from the Fourth European Working Conditions Survey 2005 for three purposes. (1) Benchmarking countries and social groups. This reveals poor qualification and career opportunities, and modest incomes. Atypical workers have less advantageous working conditions than those in permanent full-time jobs. This shows that Europe is still far from creating ‘better jobs’ as advocated in the Lisbon agenda. (2) Analysing the flexicurity concept as proposed by the European Commission. Our study disproves the assertion that European workers are less interested in remaining with the same employer but need more flexibility combined with ‘upward mobility’ and lifelong learning. Moreover, Europe has a shortage of training possibilities and workers demonstrate latent resistance to learning. The basis for the Commission's promotion of flexicurity would thus seem questionable. (3) Proposal of a workplace tax for bad working conditions. As with ‘green taxes’, the workplace tax would encourage employers to improve working conditions. Indexing individual working conditions with reference to a checklist, as developed in the article, could be a prototype for measuring ‘social pollution’ to determine the amount of workplace tax.