Growth target: 25 countries in 2008
A further growth of the international WageIndicator project to include
25 countries in 2008 as compared to the present 17, seems realistic.
These new countries are China, Japan, Canada, France, Ireland,
Austria, Norway, Russia and Turkey. In all of those contacts exist with
media partners and
research institutes. The idea behind this ambition is to seize the
apparent opportunity for becoming the world’s standard in online
work-life & wage research. This ambition was first voiced by
Agnes Jongerius, chairperson of FNV and founding mother of the Wage Indication Foundation, in her opening address at the plenary session. In his contribution, Marc de Vries, director northern Europe of co-founder Monster,
endorsed this ambition. He drew a parallel with the growth of Monster
over the past 10 years to its presence in 25 countries in 2006.
One survey for both formal and informal workers
We do not care how you define the informal economy
in your country. As long as you have a very clear definition. Thus
research coordinator prof. Kea Tijdens resolved a hotly debated issue,
i.e. the approach of the informal economy through an internet
survey. She went on to explain: We can always identify in the
data set the respondents from the total population who apparently fall
into the category of informal workers as defined by you. Moreover, we
can compare them to the formal workers, as both groups completed the
same questionnaire.
Relevant identifying questions might be: Do you
have a work permit? Do you pay for social insurance? Do you have a
contract on paper with your employer? Do you work in a company with
less or more than 5 employees? Are you selfemployed and do your pay
taxes? Such few simple questions also help to get around the fact that
informal workers do not know what it means when asked: are you an informal worker?
Using the data set, it can be studied to what extend the informal
labour force is defined along two or even more definitions. Moreover,
once the informal workforce is identified in the data set for a
country, it allows for a comparison of the informal and formal labour
force, for example to what extend they are both harassed by the police.
Especially the delegates from Brazil and India, countries with huge
informal economies, were satisfied with the simplicity of the solution.
On
top the WageIndicator technical support team came up with a trick to
get online and offline (print) completed questionnaires under the same
conditions in the (inter) national data sets.
Harvard tackles the bias in internet data intake
When WorklifeWizard
will be officially launched on Labour Day in the US in September, the
American questionnaire in its core of approx. 50 questions contains a
small set taken from the Current Population Survey. That is a classic
random sample, giving representative results. In this way Isabelle
Ferreras and Jason Anastasopoulos from the Harvard Labor and Worklife
Program want to check the bias induced by non-random internet
sampling. It will be a welcome methodological addition to the weighting
already carried out on the substantial datasets in some EU-countries.
Moreover Harvard Law School introduces Special Research Modules, which
rotate over time, addressing worklife themes that are all but neglected
by the major American data collection institutions. All this – and more -
should help to create an Observatory of worklife, a source of information on virtually all work related issues, including an index of work related blogs.
WageIndicator research (Woliweb): Job insecurity in 6 EU countries
The University of Salamanca used the Spanish data set to find out more about feelings of job insecurity. Greatest surprise: elderly workers with a permanent contract suffer most!
WageIndicator Research (Woliweb): Collective agreements in 7 EU-countries
The German WSI presented the first results of their investigation into bargaining coverage in 7 EU-countries.
They found peak coverage in most public sectors, as well in utilities
and manufacturing. In general workers under a collective agreement
receive higher wages - apart from Poland and The Netherlands.
WageIndicator research (Equal): Gender Pay Gap in Belgium
HIVA- Leuven University found out that – at least in Belgium – the persistent gender pay gap
is accounted for more than 50% by job related characteristics. Next
come company size, personal characteristics and last come attitudes
towards career and work life balance. This outcome matches quite well
with the outcome of earlier research on the Dutch WageIndicator dataset.
WageIndicator Research (Woliweb): Overtime in Germany and The Netherlands
A study of the University of Amsterdam on the WageIndicator data set
showed a remarkable similarity in patters of overwork between the Dutch and German labour markets.
Low paid workers tend to put in extra hours to upgrade their family
income, whereas those in the upper income brackets as a rule do make
extra paid hours which are not reimbursed. In those circles unpaid
overwork seems to be a matter of getting the work done and presumably
career expectations.
WageIndicator Research: Multinationals in 7 countries
At a special workshop Erasmus University Rotterdam presented the newly developed Multinational Entreprise Chooser.
This chooser is included in the questionnaire and allows for focussed
research into multinational enterprises with production facilities in
different countries. It links the WageIndicator to the SCOPE database
which covers financial and strategic information of the world’s largest
non-financial enterprises.
Marketing the websites through trade union channels
In terms of data intake, Finland seemed to be dormant for almost a whole year. And just before the World Wide Wages conference, Finland
surprised all with record breaking intake. 1700 completed
questionnaires per day. Researcher Kimmo Kevätsalo explained part of
the success lay in careful preparation of approaching key figures in trade union
circles. Michelle Medeiros Rodrigues from MeuSalario
in Brazil contributed supporting evidence that a well prepared trade
union approach brings spectacularly high data intake. The future
website launch had been discussed during official trade union meetings
in hundreds of unions throughout Brazil. After endorsement, the
word was spread. And also in the Brazilian case accompanying free publicity was sought and found!
Trade unions should not claim exclusivity
Claiming exclusivity is not a very clever thing to do, said FNV
chairperson Agnes Jongerius, confronting the issue of the relationship
between trade unions and the national WageIndicators. Involvement, yes,
but directing the development no. The FNV chairperson: in the
Netherlands WageIndicator websites were visited in 2005 by 2.4 million
unique visitors. FNV unions organise a total of 1.2 million. This means
that through the WageIndicator unions may improve their outreach.
Jongerius also stressed the importance of forming broad national
coalitions supporting the WageIndicator, even if those coalitions
include your direct trade union competitors.
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