Sustainable employment: a key for the future of Europe

Sustainable employment and the generation of wealth in the territories

The crisis has highlighted two contrasting tendencies: one focusing on short-term gains, and the other one generating long-term wealth for the territories. Sustainable employment finds its place only in the latter. Indeed, sustainable employment allows to distribute locally generated wealth. But, in order to generate wealth the first place, sustainable employment requires the existence of economically, socially and environmentally sustainable enterprises, namely enterprises which have a strategy of anticipation and foresight in developing goods and services, and privileging rates of profitability that do not jeopardize their long term expansion. Enterprises with such strategy are those that are best fit to contribute to the aggregate wealth of the territories in which they are embedded.

Consequently, promoting sustainable employment is also one of the most fundamental ways to prevent and combat poverty and exclusion. Indeed, poverty is increasingly linked to unemployment and precarious forms of employment. The increase of poverty on a territory or in a nation-state has an impact on wealth generated over the long-term.

Sustainable employment and knowledge-based economy

In order to be sustainable economically, enterprises should invest in knowledge. As a consequence, a knowledge-based enterprise must invest very substantially in human resource development so that it can have develop an innovative strategic vision and deal with the unexpected. This is, by definition, a long term investment, considering the time needed to provide such high level of human training. Thanks to this investment, enterprises will be able to apply the acquired knowledge to the internal organisation, the processes and the products of the enterprise, and train new persons that will, in turn, master such knowledge. This strategy requires a work cycles sufficiently long, providing all the needed material conditions (remuneration, contractual relation, workplace environment, etc.) for this process to take place efficiently, and for real prospects of self-realisation in the organisation and intrafirm mobility for the employees.

Whereas this rationale appears obvious for highly qualified executives and technical staff, it can also apply to less qualified jobs if one considers the importance of joint knowledge and effort of workers building together a dynamic of trust.

The current economical crisis has – and is still having – a very important impact on employment in Europe. Measures adopted recently at EU level (EU 2020 strategy, Employment guidelines) do not seem to be adequate answers to tackle the massive job reductions and growing unemployment. Employment guidelines [1] promote flexicurity and flexible contracts as solutions to overcome the consequences the crisis is having. At the same time, member states are asked to tackle labour market segmentation due to precarious employment and underemployment. Without being defined in the European Commission Communication, precarious employment is perceived as a concept, while “quality of jobs” is limited to low wages and adequate social security. Orientations for enterprises are almost non existent: they are mentioned only when it comes to training and the anticipation of skill needs. The social economy (namely the part of the economy involving cooperatives, mutuals, associations and foundations) is mentioned only as a solution for the reintegration of vulnerable groups.

Sustainable employment and the competitiveness of Europe

From the more macro-economic perspective of Europe as a whole, an entrepreneurial vision based on added value, long-term wealth and sustainable employment is necessary to face globalised competition. By contrast, the destruction of jobs entails a corresponding loss of skills, cancelling in one stroke years of investments carried out by the enterprises, the territories and the state. Unemployment also entails a slump in consumption. Thus, sustainable employment in sustainable economic organisations should be recognized as a fundamental component of a brighter future for Europe.

Sustainable employment and job mobility

Sustainable employment and mobility complement each other: the possibility for one to change jobs provides added value to the choice of investing oneself in the economic organisation in which one finds oneself.

Support measures for sustainable employment

Sustainable employment cannot be managed exclusively from the micro-level of the enterprise. It also required meso-level mechanisms and policies on the territories, in order to ensure coordination, compensatory measures in times of crisis and in case of restructuring, and an overall anticipation strategy.

Cooperatives and sustainable employment

The cooperative model promotes sustainable employment in sustainable enterprises, and, thence, local development and social cohesion. Cooperatives are owned and controlled by owners-stakeholders who are actively present on the territory, and are aimed to satisfy their common economic, social, cultural and/or environmental needs and aspirations.

Among them, worker and social cooperatives – and other types of employee-owned firms – are owned and controlled by the enterprise staff. The resilience of these enterprises to the present crisis, which has been surveyed [2], is a good indicator of their capacity to sustain their economic activities and their jobs. In the short-term, their governance and economic model enables them to take rapid joint decisions such as the non redistribution of surpluses to worker-members or cost reductions or even to restructure when needed. In more complex groupings, workers can be rapidly redeployed from one enterprise to another one for some time and be retrained, while maintaining intact the payment of their pension benefits.

In the longer term, they can often generate the joint intelligence needed to invest in innovation and find the appropriate anticipatory solutions for the future. This process is reinforced by the support environment that the enterprise network provides, with dedicated advisory bodies, training systems, banks and non-banking financial institutions, consortia and groups, representative federations and social organisations, which contribute to the long term sustainability of the enterprises and of their workplaces.

[1] COM(2010) 193/3

[2] see http://www.cicopa.coop/The-impact-o...
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What is a cooperative

Cooperatives a sustainable employment solution!

A cooperative is an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise.

Enterprises represented by CECOP are enterprises in which workers unite to satisfy their needs in terms of creation of sustainable jobs. They can be industrial enterprises or services rooted in the territories and having a long-term strategy. They are a genuine solution for sustainable jobs in Europe: they are broken down into workers’ cooperatives, social cooperatives and other types of enterprises owned by their workers.

Workers’ cooperatives: Workers’ cooperatives are enterprises subject to the same restrictions of competition, management and profitability as other companies. Their originality lies in the fact that their workers hold the majority of the shares, at least 51%. In doing so, the workers decide jointly on the major guidelines of their enterprises and appoint their leaders (managers, boards of directors, etc.). They also decide on how to share the profit with a twofold aim: to give the preference to the workers of the enterprises, in the form of refunds based on the work done and to consolidate the enterprises with a view to handing it over onto the future generations, i.e. creating reserves to reinforce the equity and ensuring thereby the sustainability of their enterprises. In all cooperatives, the internal democratic control is based on the principle of “one man, one vote” whatever the capital share held by the respective workers. Finally, the cooperative spirit promotes its employees information and training, a prerequisite to develop the autonomy, the motivation and responsibility, accountability required in an economic world which has become insecure. (Source: www.scop.coop)

Social cooperatives: Social cooperatives are specialised in the provision of social services or reintegration of disadvantaged and marginalised workers (disabled, long-term unemployed, former detainees, addicts, etc.). A large number of such cooperatives have been set up in Italy but also in other EU countries. Most of them are owned by their workers while offering the possibility or providing for the obligation (according to the national laws) to involve other types of members (users, voluntary workers, etc.).

Other types of enterprises owned by their workers: There are other types of enterprises owned by their workers such as for example the “Sociedades Laborales” in Spain which are real driving forces of economic and social activities which have contributed to lower the unemployment level and to revamp a sustained growth in Spain.