Page 77 - Socially-responsible-restructuring-Effective-strategies-for-supporting-redundant-workers

Socially responsible restructuring
Effective strategies for supporting redundant workers

Other arrangements also in the UK have seen stronger coordination. Each of
the four ‘home countries’ in the UK have different rapid response arrangements
providing funding and capacity support, and these are differently administered in
the devolved governments of Scotland and Wales (and also Northern Ireland). In
both Scotland and Wales, case study companies such as Anglesey Aluminium
have all accessed and profited from these evolved and more coordinated
arrangements through PACE in Scotland and ReACT in Wales (Case studies 9,
11 and 15).
A similar arrangement for national coordination applies in Slovakia, although
operating arrangements, as harnessed by the EnergoMont case study, seem to
continue to evolve (Case study 3). What emerges is a pattern outside the
Scandinavian case studies of substantial dependence on largely discretionary
support from mainly regional public-funded agencies. Several of the case studies
have acknowledged the significant contribution of these funds and the added
capacity provided. Others, however, have commented on some difficulty in
accessing funds and their lack of flexibility. Consequently the impact for BenQ
(Case study 2) was limited, and in AutoVision regionally tapped ESF funds could
only be used in the restructuring for specific training packages and not for any
specific outplacement, counselling or guidance support (Case study 1). In the
UK, similar limitations were expressed regarding some of the rapid reaction
funds, although only in England where it was felt that the choices available to
displaced employees were very limited.
There has been a legacy of direct European support to sector-specific
adjustments and restructuring through structural and other funds. This has
typically been in declining traditional production industries which have not been
job-specific, but have had regeneration within local labour markets as an
important feature for increasing employment potential for those displaced from
such sectors. European-level responses have more recently gone well beyond
this. In the Communication (European Commission, 2005) on Restructuring and
Employment, the Commission sets out measures which aim to improve the
‘anticipation and management of restructuring operations’ in the EU. Subsequent
developments have gone further and looked to direct support to restructuring
employers and aimed at improving European competitiveness.
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The subsequent Regulation (2006) on establishing the EGF ( ) stipulated two
sets of criteria for receiving EGF funding: trade criteria and labour market impact
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criteria. The early anticipated funding ( ) focus was on three cases: at least

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( ) http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=326&langId=en [cited 10.5.2010].
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( ) A financial contribution from the EGF was to be provided where major structural changes in
world trade patterns lead to a serious economic disruption, notably a substantial increase of

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