Este projeto analisa as transformações do regime de emprego ocorridas em Portugal, nas últimas duas décadas, no contexto da reestruturação da economia global e das suas consequências no emprego e no trabalho. Os impactos adversos no trabalho da crescente internacionalização da produção e da concomitante financeirização têm sido evidentes num país vulnerável à deslocalização da produção, aos desequilíbrios macroeconómicos e ao endividamento. Estes impactos atingiram o seu apogeu com a crise financeira global e o consequente resgate financeiro da tróica em 2011. O Memorando de Entendimento especificou uma reconfiguração do regime de emprego, orientada para a desvalorização interna, que veio a ser levada à prática, afetando instituições e regras sobre a proteção do emprego, os tempos de trabalho, as prestações de desemprego e a negociação coletiva. Com base em investigação anterior que caracterizou a reconfiguração institucional associada à desvalorização interna como regressiva e responsável pela transferência de rendimento do trabalho para o capital e pelo desequilíbrio de poder desfavorável às organizações dos trabalhadores, o projeto pretende ampliar esta pesquisa por duas vias. Primeira, alargar a avaliação da desvalorização do trabalho a dimensões-chave da qualidade do emprego e condições de trabalho que possam ter sido diretamente afetadas em resultado da reconfiguração do regime de emprego (em particular, salários, tempos de trabalho e segurança do emprego). Segunda, identificar as consequências de longo prazo da ?desvalorização interna, os seus mecanismos impulsionadores e os meios para os neutralizar, através da análise estratégias dos atores e dos seus recursos de poder ao nível nacional, sectorial e de empresa. O projeto parte da conjetura de que a reconfiguração do regime do emprego em Portugal e a desvalorização interna podem ter acelerado um processo de desvalorização cumulativa do trabalho, envolvendo perdas de competência e aptidão, retração de investi...

The research programme will integrate diverse levels, methods and disciplinary traditions with the aim of developing a comprehensive policy agenda for changing the role of the financial system to help achieve a future which is sustainable in environmental, social and economic terms. The programme involves an integrated and balanced consortium involving partners from 14 countries that has unsurpassed experience of deploying diverse perspectives both within economics and across disciplines inclusive of economics. The programme is distinctively pluralistic, and aims to forge alliances across the social sciences, so as to understand how finance can better serve economic, social and environmental needs. The central issues addressed are the ways in which the growth and performance of economies in the last 30 years have been dependent on the characteristics of the processes of financialisation; how has financialisation impacted on the achievement of specific economic, social, and environmental objectives?; the nature of the relationship between financialisation and the sustainability of the financial system, economic development and the environment?; the lessons to be drawn from the crisis about the nature and impacts of financialisation? ; what are the requisites of a financial system able to support a process of sustainable development, broadly conceived?’

Who benefited most from the re-regulation of labour markets which affected most of EU countries in the 1990s? The guidelines of the European Employment Strategy stress the need to promote flexibility combined with employment security and to ensure employment-friendly labour cost developments and wage-setting mechanisms [Ce05]. Despite higher occupation and employment rates, the outcome of 20 years of labour market flexibility is not clear yet. Flexibility allowed employers to face increasingly competitive markets, yet claims exist that contract flexibility was also used to cut labour and training costs [RaScHa00]. Contract flexibility has also been accused of driving large shares of younger workers and other groups of disadvantages employees to career paths characterised by temporary contracts, lower wages, poor working conditions, and low training. Literature on employment relationships has achieved important results, but several gaps still exist. The core idea of this research project is that wage dynamics and the use of flexible contracts are driven by the wage policy of a firm and by environmental conditions. Thus, the research programme jointly developed by a Portuguese and an Italian research unit, will take advantage of two national administrative linked employer-employee panel databases: Quadros do Pessoal, and Work Histories Italian Panel (WHIP). The research programme is based on a multidisciplinary, comparative, and pluralist approach and it is expected to produce new theoretical models and empirical evidence on the joint use of contract flexibility and targeted wage policies by firms.