The Deregulation of Labor Market and Unions
The Labor market is the supply of available workers in relation to available work, while a labor union is an organized association of workers formed to protect and further their rights and interests.
In Spain, private health care is provided, families usually send their children to private school, government jobs are protected, and the culture consists of constant spending, rather than saving. They have no awareness of the severe limitations of social spending and they have spent their money for when it is most needed--during the current recession. Labor unions have promised workers benefits at a cost of high taxes. The stimulus that the Spanish prime minister had passed, however, made the government reduce taxes, rather than create jobs. In the countries where unemployment has risen, labor markets are not strictly regulated and unions are weak. Germany, however, is an example opposite of Spain where they strictly regulate the labor market and workers and unions are involved in the management of companies, otherwise known as a co-management system. Germany has reduced working time, rather than laying off workers, consistently lowering the unemployment rate annually. (Data has interestingly shown that the lower the job protection, further growth in unemployment, because job security creates insecurity among the unemployed- do not understand). Although jobs have been protected for all involved in the government in Spain, those people are mostly adults, and among people younger than 25, unemployment is about 50%. |
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