AUT: OECD goofs, speaks truth

["Harry M. Cleaver" <hmcleave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1999 11:45:00 -0400
From: Charles Brown <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: Forum on Labor in the Global Economy <LABOR-L@xxxxxxxx>
To: LABOR-L@xxxxxxxx
Subject: Reflection of global class struggle

Financial Times -  July 9 1999

OECD BACKS DOWN AS FINDING IS ATTACKED
By Robert Taylor in London

Attacks from western governments have prompted the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development to climb down from a
controversial finding in its recent employment report that job
protection laws have "little or no effect on overall unemployment".

The finding, contained in the organisation's annual employment
outlook, is being used by trade unions in countries such as Spain and
Italy - the OECD says - to resist government efforts to deregulate
their country's labour markets.

The Paris-based organisation now says the way in which the
controversial chapter in the study was presented was due to a
"communications blunder". The OECD said yesterday the chapter's
conclusion was "not terribly informative" and was only "a first step
in an ongoing study that requires further evidence".

"It was an apparent spin that was not justified by what the report
actually said," the OECD added, although it conceded the report was
written in such a way as to support the view that job protection
measures do not have a negative effect.

The OECD has been warned its research findings threaten to undermine
the organisation's liberalisation strategy to tackle unemployment.
This was launched five years ago and urged industrialised countries
to promote deregulation by, among other measures, abolishing
restrictions on hiring and recruitment to reduce unemployment and
increase job opportunities.

In fact, the specific chapter under attack - based on existing
evidence - pointed out that regulations did adversely hit younger and
older workers but not prime-age men. It also favoured further
research to see whether any trade-off existed between job protection
and employment creation.

However, the study has provoked uproar between the OECD's economists
and labour market experts who work in separate departments. "There is
a firewall between them," admitted one insider. "The economists have
gone ballistic over the employment report written by the social
affairs staff because it seems to contradict their attitudes.
Publicly they now say they all agree with each other but that is not
the case."

John Evans, head of the organisation's trade union advisory
committee, said: "The OECD must make a choice. They can either look
at the evidence they have and adjust their policy conclusions
accordingly or they can push on with their liberal policies
regardless and ignore the evidence."



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