Reconciling Labour Flexibility with Social Cohesion‐ Facing the Challenge

Citation

Mesure, H. (2007), "Reconciling Labour Flexibility with Social Cohesion‐ Facing the Challenge", Society and Business Review, Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 136-137. https://doi.org/10.1108/17465680710725344

This book belongs to the “Trends in social cohesion” collection of the Council of Europe (CE). It is preceded by 14th titles that formalised the works of CE project “Making democratic institutions work”. And, in fact, the preservation and the adaptation of the European contemporary form of democracy is the stake that underlines this collection and, specially, this 15 number.

This one is made of nine contributions plus an introduction. The contributors are either well‐established European scholars or European civil servants. The authors discuss on how to conciliate labour market flexibility and social cohesion. As it is written by Gilda Farrell in the introduction “reconciling these two factors is more than a political obligation: it is the price of security and stability, guaranteeing social sustainability” (p. 13). Instead of opposing flexibility and social cohesion, the nine contributions try to explore the relations between labour flexibility, social cohesion and others economical or institutional variables.

The first chapter by S. Urban and D. Velo discusses about the relations between, labour flexibility, European business competitiveness and economic performance. Pierre Salama, in Chapter 2, focuses on the connexions between finance, social cohesion and the contemporary forms of labour flexibility that are, largely, the consequence of the dominance of the market finance. In the third chapter – by B.J Burchell – job insecurity and social cost are linked with labour flexibility. In fourth, T. Wilthagen and M. Houwerzijl lies the question: are the discontinuity and insecurity necessarily linked to flexibility? The relations between the post‐cultural and organisational model and labour flexibility are treated by A. Accornero in the fifth chapter. In Chapter 6, U. Klammer reasons the flexibility over the life course and therefore connected it to forms of employments and forms of social protection. She introduces and develops the notion of “flexicurity”. In the chapter seven, S. Spencer disserts about the components of “flexicurity” arrangements that are socially acceptable. The relations between flexibility, citizenship and the different approaches to activating social protection in European Union are the subject of the eighth chapter written by J.C. Barbier. In the last chapter, L. Mariucci tackles the hard question of the relations between labour law and employments.

One time more, this opus of the “Trends in social cohesion” collection of the Council of Europe (CE), proposes a complete treatment of the question. Conceptually, it is more or less based on Habermas's political philosophy and on sustainable development movement. The necessary labour flexibility and social cohesion are approached (and linked) at the macro, industrial, organisational and individual levels. It is a very rich book, full of suggestions and hope. This book must be warmly recommended to those who are looking for possible and sustainable solutions that conciliate social welfare and labour flexibility.