BARGAINING AND TELEWORK IN EUROPE
IN THE BANKING/INSURANCE SECTOR

by Rita Fatiguso*

The technological reference scenario . . .
Organizational models for job activities change in response to new technologies. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and telework are now so thoroughly involved in this process that today workers can take part in the productive cycle while sitting comfortably at home in their favorite armchairs, something that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.
As are many others, the banking sector is discovering the advantages of the new organizational structures that have arisen together with the ICTs. As things currently stand, the full potential has not been exploited, except in certain cases linked to support or "accessory" activities: delocalization of the workplace is becoming a reality above all for such functions as marketing, accounting, data and process management, reporting and consulting activities, and customer services.
Telework is also an excellent solution for resolving problems linked to ensuring equal opportunities for men and women, to providing jobs for the disabled, and to reconciling working time and personal temporal needs.

…. and European growth prospects
According to the "Emergence" project conducted by Bates and Huws, e-workers in Europe at the beginning of the third millennium amounted to more than nine million. The subjects taken into consideration worked exclusively from home or alternatively from home and an office, or they were e-lancers (independent workers linked to a company by telecommunications) or, finally, workers not connected with industry.
The study, which is still underway, suggests that it is not possible to make reliable forecasts regarding the development of work via Internet. What may be said, however, is that were the growth rates to remain stable (with respect to those recorded for the period 1997-2000), by 2010 the number of e-workers should triple, reaching 27.12 million.
Of the total e-workers, the teleworkers active in the EU countries in 2002 are about 4.5 million; according to Community estimates, their number should reach 17 million by 2010.
*journalist
(with the collaboration of Vito Fatiguso)

Contractual issues in Europe.
Only in the European context has it been possible to accelerate the process of "contractualization," understood as a privileged route for introducing telework into the companies both in the services sector (and therefore in financial services, banking, and insurance) and in industry.
We must, however, take into account the different national characteristics of industrial relations, since this factor is destined to play a fundamental role in the spread of information technology based work.
In point of fact, regulation of telework is conducted at different levels in the different EU countries: we may thus conclude that there is no true convergence, even though our global society ought to be leading us in that direction.
The countries with a tradition of collective bargaining are marking time with respect to the countries in which working conditions are generally defined at the individual level.

• Germany and Austria count on a stable, multilateral participatory process, incorporating company representation mechanisms, that is capable of dealing with telework-related questions above all in the large companies. In the small and very small companies, this method has proved less efficacious.
  
• France and Italy are influenced by political and legislative processes targeting definition of rules for performing telework (in particular in the public administration). There exist partially-sectorial collective agreements in which different unions participate; bargaining is general in character and may be easily modified at the local level.
  
• The Scandinavian countries tend toward local bargaining, following the example of groups of qualified unionized workers. There are special cases such Finland, where the emphasis is on including telework in the law regulating traditional home-based work, and Denmark, where the unions have pushed for collective labor agreements rather than individual contracts.
  
• Spain, Portugal, and Greece are implementing a sort of deregulation, since it is generally considered that in some cases telework is only with difficulty dealt with through a process of collective bargaining.
  
• The United Kingdom is probably the country in which telework is most widespread. Individual bargaining seems best adapted to the peculiarities of a scenario in which collective negotiation is an especially weak tool. In Belgium there exist company agreements, while in Holland deregulation and the individualization are the bywords as regards telework.

The road to a European framework agreement on telework.
For some time now, social dialogue has been attempting to probe the collective willingness to establish a common notion of telework in order to later introduce, thanks to the impulse lent by the social partners, a true agreement on the subject.
But given that telework is not a legal but rather a "functional" category, considerable difficulties have existed almost from the start. Europe began really talking about telework only in the 1990s.
Taking into consideration the enormous variety among teleworkers, some of whom are very well equipped, others much less, the fundamental elements judged to be useful for defining telework were two in number. First of all the workplace, which must possess some characteristic setting it apart from the traditional office, and secondly, the contribution made by the information and communications technologies (computer, fax, telephone, satellite, CD-ROM) of which use is made.
The legal status of the teleworker can also vary greatly: from employee to freelance to home-based. The area of application, instead, has been mostly the services sector, including credit and finance.
Comparative research conducted some years ago by Dublin's European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions provided a detailed picture of the situation in the EU countries as concerned collective contracts and their contents, union protection of workers holding membership in the unions, and the role of the teleworker with respect to European-level policies. The study was based on contributions by the national centers of the EIRO (European Industrial Relations Observatory) in the 15 EU countries plus Norway.
Another research project coordinated by CES in the late 1990s and adopted by the European Commission is Euro-Telework, a continuation of the MIRTI project (Models of Industrial Relations in Telework innovations) on telework in 16 European countries (www.euro-telework.org; from the homepage click the link to the MIRTI project).
These are precious analyses that provided snapshots of the telework circumstances and practices but also suggested that the time was not yet ripe for an across-the-board agreement.

The roles of the European Commission, the trade unions, and the employers.
Interest in the subject "telework" received a stimulus from its close connection with the broader debate on the "Information Society." It is no wonder that the first European Commission communication that speaks of telework dates to July 1997 (Communication on the Social and Labour Market Dimension of the Information Society. People First - The Next Steps), but with this document the EC passed the ball to the social partners, requesting that they verify whether or not there was space for specific regulation.
The same year saw another step forward with the Green Paper entitled Partnership for a New Organisation of Work, which defined various forms of "technological" work (home-based, alternating, and multi-site telework, freelance, e-lance, mobile, and relocated back offices).
The message was clear: the new technologies could create new employment.
The European-level professional associations moved their pawns as well: this is the case of the communications sector and then commerce. In 2001 they established guidelines to be followed when introducing telework into the various sectors, so creating a precedent for inter-category European-level bargaining.
But the first concrete step toward a stable definition of telework was the preliminary agreement reached by the European trade union organizations on 23 May 2002. And this preliminary agreement made it possible to approve a framework agreement on 16 July 2002. This is the first agreement reached independently by the social parties by the route mapped in Article 139 of the European Union treaty.
The contents arise from eight months of summit talks among the representatives of European employers and employees:ETUC , UNICE/UEAPME andCEEP .

The agreement establishes 12 essential points that must be respected by the countries when tailoring agreements to fit the specific needs of the social partners concerned.
1. General considerations. The motivations that have pressed for definition of common regulations on the subject have to do with modernization of the labor market, in the sense of ensuring greater flexibility. Flexibility implies a way of reconciling work with social life, since the teleworker is able to organize his/her job activities to best accommodate all his/her needs. It is also a sterling opportunity for disabled persons.
2. Definition and scope. The document provides a single definition of telework as "a form of organizing work, using information technology, in the context of an employment contract/relationship, where work, which could also be performed at the employers' premises, is carried out away from those premises on a regular basis."
3. Voluntary character. The telework relationship is voluntary, and may be established at the start of the job relationship or at a later time. In either case, the employer provides the teleworker with relevant written information in accordance with EC Directive 91/533/EEC, including references to the applicable collective agreements and a description of how the work is to be performed. The specificities of the telework require written information on the department to which the teleworker will be attached and on his/her superiors or other persons to whom to address questions of a professional or personal nature. The passage to telework does not affect the teleworker's employment status. A worker refusal does not constitute a reason for terminating the employment relationship or for changing the terms and conditions of employment. The telework agreement is reversible; the modalities are established by individual and/or collective agreement and may imply the worker's returning to work at the employer's premises.
4. Data protection. The employer is responsible for ensuring, with regard to software, the protection of the data used and processed by the teleworker in his/her professional connection. It is the employer's duty to inform the teleworker of relevant legislation concerning data protection, any restrictions on use of the information technologies (for example, Internet), and any sanctions in the case of non-compliance.
5. Protezione dei dati il datore di lavoro è responsabile della sicurezza riguardante il software per mettere al sicuro i dati usati ed elaborati dal telelavoratore a scopo professionale. Il datore di lavoro è tenuto a informare il lavoratore sulla normativa che regola la protezione dei dati, sulle restrizioni relative all'uso delle tecnologie IT (come Internet) e le relative sanzioni in caso di inosservanza.
6. Privacy. Likewise, the employer respects the privacy of the teleworker. Any type of monitoring system used must be introduced in accordance with EC Directive 90/270 on visual display units
7. Equipment. All questions concerning work equipment, liability, and costs must be clearly defined before the start of the telework relationship. As a general rule, the employer is responsible for supply, installation, and maintenance of the equipment, unless the teleworker uses his/her own equipment. The employer covers communication costs and provides technical support services. The employer has liability in case of damage to the equipment and/or data. The teleworker takes good care of the equipment and does not make work-related material public via the Internet.
8. Health and Safety. The employer is responsible for the protection of the health of the teleworker in accordance with EC Directive 89/391/EEC The employer informs the teleworker of the company's policy on occupational health and safety. Within the limits of national legislation and collective agreements, the employer has access to the teleworkplace. If the teleworker is working at home, such access is subject to congruous prior notification.
9. Organization of work. The teleworker manages the organization of his/her working time. The workload and performance standards of the teleworker are equivalent to those of comparable workers at the employers' premises. The employer ensures that the teleworker not be isolated, allowing him/her to meet with colleagues and to access company information.
10. Training. The teleworker has the same access to training and career development opportunities as his/her colleagues at employer premises. The teleworker receives appropriate training that takes into account the technical equipment at his/her disposal and the peculiar characteristics of telework.
11. Collective rights issues. Teleworkers have the same collective rights as workers at the employers' premises. There are no obstacles to communicating with workers' representatives, and teleworkers participate in their elections. Teleworkers may stand for election to bodies representing workers at the same conditions as other workers. Teleworkers are included in calculations for determining the number of worker representatives, in accordance with European and national law. Worker representatives are informed of the introduction of telework in accordance with European and national legislation, collective agreements, and company practices.
12. Implementation and follow-up to experimentation. In the context of Article 139 of the European Union treaty, will be integrated by the components of UNICE/UEAPME, CEEP, and CES (and the EUROCADRES/CEC liaison committee) in accordance with the laws and collective bargaining and management practices in the member states.
Experimentation will last for three years from the date of signing of the contract. The organizations of the member states will report on the integrations to an ad hoc group, set up by the signatory parties under the responsibility of the social dialogue committee, which will prepare a joint report within four years after the date of signing of this agreement. In case of controversies over the contents of the agreement, the organizations may have joint or separate recourse to the signatory parties. The signatory parties must review the agreement five years after the date of signing if so requested by one of the signatory parties.

European agreements on telework
Following signing of the agreement among the social parties at the European, there remains to see how telework can be implemented in the single national contexts, which are very different as regards bargaining traditions and their respective stockpiles of previously-stipulated contracts. Following are overviews of the telework-related scenario in several countries that delineate the points from which it will be necessary to start work in the direction indicated by the framework agreement.
We must stress the importance of the system of industrial relations and its role, but also the weight of the single labor markets from both the economic and the normative points of view. Also of importance are the conditions that characterize the banking/insurance system within the economy as a whole..
The most advanced contexts, like Holland and, more in general, the Scandinavian countries, will find it easier to create for themselves a national reference framework coherent with the European guidelines than will countries such as those in the southern European area, in which telework is still in its infancy; that is, more a theory than an application.


Contractual regulation in Italy.
From the point of view of contractual regulation, Italian teleworkers can already count on a series of agreements stipulated at various levels: sector, category, company. Among the latter, the agreements with Caridata, Digital Equipment, Dimensione, Dun & Bradstreet, ENPACL, Omnitel, IG, TIM, Italtel, Saritel, SEAT, Telecom Italia, and Tecnopolis are worth mentioning. The TIM agreement, like that stipulated by Omnitel, applies to the call centers of the telecommunications company. There are also the informal contracts stipulated by IBM and DuPont, and the national-level contracts regarding telecommunications and the services sector.
The banking sector also boasts a reference agreement. (CCNL Credit 18/11/99).
The basic thesis is that workers in the credit sector, like in any other, must keep in step with the times. In Italy, telework is still, essentially, an unknown quantity, especially from the points of view of organization and protection of the worker. In the banking sector, there is a difference between introduction and awareness.
A study organized by the Italian FABI in 1999, involving about 1,000 workers, revealed two problem areas, that of the telecottages and that of mobile telework. In the first case the worker travels to special structures to perform backoffice or EDP tasks for one or more companies which may be partners of a consortium or simple users.
The study revealed that in the main telecottages are used to decentralize the companies' non-core business activities and concentrate them in structures that can operate according to flexible, and even continuous, working schedules, with consequent economies of scale. The system has positive impacts for employment in the areas in which the telecottages are located, and in terms of easing traffic congestion and related problems of pollution in urban areas, given the mainly outlying locations selected for these structures. Another advantage is reduction of the time spent by employees commuting to work, if the telecottages are set up in areas near where the workers live. In the case of mobile teleworking, the teleworker does not have a permanent office but rather uses a mobile computer workstation with communications capabilities to perform his/her activity. He/she moves from one place to another but always remains connected to the company in order to be able to access the procedures and data banks in case of need for his/her work or for the clientele visited. This figure is developing at a rate equal to that of the financial promoters, true financial-sector teleworkers who operate under contract either to single credit institutions or to more than one bank in different territorial areas or for different product lines. All these figures have similar problems. Companies and employees alike must develop a new culture of remote work if they are to overcome the generalized diffidence toward this system of work and avoid its translating into professional marginalization and loss of career opportunities caused by the workers' physical distance from the company premises.

The section of the credit-sector collective contract that concerns telework can be summed up in seven points.
1.Types of contract. The telework employment relationship can be configured as subordinate, para-subordinate, or free-lance. Contractual regulation regards subordinate employment relationships involving work performed at the employee's home and/or in telework centers or satellite workplaces and/or as mobile telework.
2.Establishment of the employment relationship. The companies may hire workers with teleworking as the initial job description (specifying the production unit at the time of hiring) or by agreement with the workers transform existing employment relationships into telework relationships for a specified or indeterminate period of time. In this case, the teleworkers remain conventionally in their original production units at the moment of changeover to the teleworking mode. In the case of transformation of a permanent employment relationship (open-ended contract) into telework, after a two-year period the worker has faculty to request to return to working in the traditional manner. The company, compatibly with its requirements, grants the request.
3.Performance standards - Economic aspects. Telework is performed in respect of normal working hours and/or in line with the flexible schedules communicated by the company to the worker and to the labor representatives at the company before the start of telework. The teleworker has the duty to be on call in predetermined hours during the day; should this not be possible he/she has the duty to give timely and motivated notice to the company. The telework relationship cannot constitute an obstacle to career opportunities. It is the company's duty to communicate the specific procedures involved in the telework; it is the teleworkers' duty to maintain confidentiality. The teleworker has the right to benefit from the same contractual conditions of retribution as his/her colleagues who perform commensurable work in traditional modes.
4.. Return to company premises - Training. If need be, the company may recall the teleworker to his/her original production unit premises for the time required. Employer and teleworker may agree on periodic returns of the teleworker to company premises. It is the company's duty to guarantee appropriate training for the teleworkers' specific tasks and to favor socialization among the teleworkers and traditional employees. In the case the teleworker returns to work permanently at the employer's premises and during his/her period of telework the organizational structure has undergone modification, the company is duty-bound to provide adequate professional training to ensure reintegration of the teleworker.
5.Collective rights - worker monitoring and information.Teleworkers have the same collective rights as workers who perform their job activities in traditional manners at the employer's premises. The companies establish a bulletin board for trade union communications, which can be consulted by interested parties outside of normal working hours (by electronic or other means). Data collection by the company for the purpose of monitoring the teleworker's respect of his/her duties and evaluating his/her performance cannot be in violation of Art. 4 of Law No. 300/1970 performance of his/her duties. The company has the duty to inform the interested party in advance of the operating criteria of the monitoring software, in order to guarantee transparency. In the case of home-based telework, the company has the right to carry out inspections of the teleworkplace following congruent prior notification. At the annual meeting, it is the company's duty to report on the number of telework employment relationships and their characteristics and to examine any problem areas
6.Workstation and equipment - Safety in the workplace. In the case of home-based telework, the company sees to installing in a suitable position in the teleworker's home a workstation suitable for carrying out the telework activity. In the other cases as well, it is the company's responsibility to provide the worker with the needed equipment. Maintenance and operating costs are at the company's expense, as is returning the workplace to its original condition in the case of resolution of the employment relationship or permanent return of the worker to company premises. The workstations are supplied on free loan for use in accordance with Art. 1803 ff of the Italian Civil Code, unless otherwise agreed upon between the parties. The provisions of Legislative Decree No. 626 of 1994, as modified, concerning safety in the workplace, apply to the teleworker and to the specific workspace.
7.. Experimental nature of the regulatory instrument. The regulations are experimental in character and may be subjected to review on request by one of the stipulating parties and in any case on occasion of the forthcoming law on the subject or after two years from the date of stipulation of this contract.
The regulations have not, however, produced the desired effects. In fact, much is still defined on a case-by-case basis and contractual conditions can very greatly from one employment relationship to another due to private negotiating. In any case, the characteristics of the Italian banking sector contracts reflect many principles expressed in the European agreement: the voluntary character of telework, the teleworkers' duty to be available as agreed, employer responsibility for installing the hardware and software needed for telework at the company's expense, flexible working schedules, periodic returns to the employer's premises for training and contacts with colleagues, maintenance of the contractual and collective rights in force for the category as a whole

Long before 1999 (in 1995 to be precise), the banking sector saw an agreement stipulated by Caridata (a company owned by the Cariplo bank and specialized in software development) that regulated telework performed for the company from a telecenter located in Piacenza. Eight employees were thus spared the discomfort of commuting back and forth to Milan. The essential points of this agreement are explained below.

o Experimental nature and transitory character. The agreement is subject to cancellation with 15 days' notice with no requirement for supplying any specific motivations. It does not affect organizational and hierarchical constraints except as regards the aspects specifically mentioned in the text.

• Equipment. Caridata agrees to supply the tools and technologies (PC, e-mail, fax, data transmission lines) needed for performing the telework on a free loan for use basis.
  
• Employment relationship and training. The teleworkers remain employees of the Caridata offices at which they originally worked; the company agrees to activate channels of communication such that the teleworkers be fully integrated in the company organizational processes and activities and guarantees equal opportunities for training and career advancement.
  
• Flexible organization of work. The teleworkers are required to put in a minimum of 8 working hours daily between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m., to meet the needs of the customers and to comply with instructions from Caridata, to pursue company aims and to strictly respect all due dates and terms, and to work in accordance with company quality standards procedures.
  
• Duration. The experimental phase will last for 12 months; after that period, the agreement will be tacitly renewed for an indefinite period until notice of termination is given.
  
• Trade union meetings. Company management will meet with representatives of the RSU (Rappresentanze Sindacali Unitarie - Unitary Union Representative Body) at least once every three months to evaluate the activities of the telework center, analyze any problems, and evaluate the possibility of extending the experience to involve other employees.

One current sector initiative worthy of mention is that now being implemented at Credito Valtelinese (interview with Mauro Danesino, in charge of labor policies and union relations at the Gruppo Credito Valtellinese).
Doctor Danesino, how and when was the idea of experimenting with telework in the company first arise?
The idea arose at least two years ago, in part in the wake of the collective contract of July 1999 that introduced telework as a system. We began activating an evaluation mechanism within the company to ascertain whether or not there were the premises or, indeed, the need to include telework among the opportunities available to our three thousand employees
To which "opportunities" are you referring?
I was thinking of the Group's complementary pension schemes and all the other instruments that are useful for protecting certain rights. Telework, for instance, can weigh heavily in the balance between one's work-related and personal needs.
The perspective, we might say, was that of achieving work-life balancing. How did you prepare for it?
By conducting a study within the company, interrogating our department heads, to establish what organizational needs existed-and therefore privacy considerations, a most delicate subject for bankers. What's more, there are certain functions in our sector that simply cannot be "teleworked."
For example?
The work of the tellers, the inspectorate services …
And then how did you proceed?
The study was followed by an action plan, which is still being carried out, to assess the management and organizational costs, the eventuality of loss of revenue due to decrease in production, and other possible internal and external impacts.
How many individuals are involved?
A few dozen. And at least on paper, for renewable six-month experimental periods. It is essential that we succeed in quantifying the "physical" costs, from the telephone lines to the expenses implied by Law No. 626 on safety in the workplace. Informally, we have launched several "virtual" telework experiences, with good results.
Do you find the European Framework Agreement to be an asset"?
The major problem is how to succeed in promoting a "telework culture." A lot is said about telework, but there is no well-defined, standard body of knowledge and people's notions on the subject are not always clear.
With whom do you think the most work in this direction is required: with management or with employees?
I'd say with employees, at least as far as we are concerned, but also with the representative organizations. Not all the organizations are as aware of the potential of this innovation as they perhaps ought to be.
One of the biggest obstacles seems to be a sense of isolation and abandonment by the central office . . .
That's true. So true, in fact, that we are examining the possibility of also experimenting with having the teleworkers return periodically to company premises and of building a communications network for maintaining relationships among the teleworkers.
And your debut?
By end H1 next year. At least we hope so.

A brief digression into history. The first teleworking contracts were fruit of single-company negotiations.
In 1994, the management of Saritel and the labor organizations of the information and entertainment sector stipulated an agreement concerning about sixty sector workers. The agreement was signed by the labor organizations and by the RSA (Rappresentanza sindacale aziendale - Company Union Structure).
The effect of the agreement was that certain of the workers could work at home while remaining connected to the central offices thanks to equipment supplied by the company: personal computers, printer, and fax machine, supported by a telephone line that placed them in contact with the home office. The agreement called for monthly reimbursements of expenses and allowances under separate regulation systems.
Some time later, Italtel also stipulated a telework contract that involved 13 executives in the software research, analysis, and development sector. The agreement called for an additional allowance on a quarterly basis.
A local experimentation project, supported by the Ministry of Labor and structured on the basis of Law No. 125/1991, was carried on by the Puglia region based Tecnopolis CSATA and the company RSU. The reference legislation was originally designed to promote introduction of women into mainly advanced-technology activities (Article 1) and to favor balancing of family and professional responsibilities. Characteristics: voluntary participation in telework, maintenance of original professional standing and relative retribution, performance of the job activity at the employee's home (suitably equipped with information processing and communications equipment), flexible working schedules with working hours distributed over the course of the day at the employee's discretion, employee duty to be on call for at least two hours daily, periodic return to company premises, employee duty of confidentiality regarding company data and information, and bilateral reversibility during the course of the experimentation.

But it was with the agreement of 1 August 1995 that telework finally came to the attention of the general public. This agreement involved 200 operators at Telecom Italia (handling calls to the directory information service) who, thanks to call transfer technology, could be relocated to work in areas in which the telephone lines were under-exploited or even in their own homes (a quarter of the employees were permitted to request to work at home if they accepted conversion of their employment contracts from full-time to part-time and demonstrated that their homes were suitable for installing the necessary equipment).
The "remotization" of the work in question was not reversible for three years and the company would have established the working schedule. The agreement was received coldly by the employees and stagnated. Beginning in 1998, however, the situation began moving again. Currently, "INFO 12" employs more than 300 home-based workers (many workers joined the bandwagon after stipulation of the August 2001 agreement).

In the same period, the Associazione Ente Nazionale di Previdenza e Assistenza dei Consulenti del Lavoro (ENPACL - National Institute of Labor Consultants) stipulated an agreement trading off work at home and office-based work: days on which the employee works at home and the hours he/she will be on call are established by agreement between the employee and his/her supervisor, compatibly with organizational needs.

Also of importance is the "Protocollo sulla introduzione sperimentale del telelavoro domiciliare" (Draft Agreement on Experimental Introduction of Home-Based Telework) signed in May 1996 by Federelettrica and CGIL, CISL, and UIL, which proposes telework to the sector companies for a maximum 12-month period. The agreement encourages flexibility and at the same time protects certain rights guaranteed to the workers, such as professional training, privacy protection, and periodic return to company premises, and also guaranteed reimbursement of the expenses sustained by the workers during the course of the experimentation

The commerce-sector agreement signed on 20 June 1997 (and still applicable to employees in the sector) provides ample and detailed regulation for home-based work, telework centers, and mobile telework, as well as for the type of work known as "hoteling," which concerns workers who due to the nature of their activities work mainly at premises external to those of their companies and grants them the right to workstations within the company. The agreement states that "telework represents a change in the ways of providing a work service, since the traditional measures of space and time are modified, due to the adoption of computer and/or telematic tools."

Of note for its concern for the "weaker sex" is the agreement stipulated Zanussi in December 1997. It targets female workers who are also mothers and who can perform their jobs at home, so reconciling family needs with professional obligations (above all in during pregnancy, the standard parental leave period following delivery, and periods when due to children's illnesses mothers are constrained to prolonged absence from work).

In 1998, telework was recognized in the public administration, where it is regulated by Article 4 of Law No. 191/1998 (known as "Bassanini ter"). The law prescribes that public bodies may launch remote employment relationships making use of the opportunities guaranteed by technological development: computer equipment and communications links over telephone lines.
Funds availability permitting, employees interested in telework may be authorized to perform their jobs in places different from the normal workplace, at equal salary.
From the organizational point of view, the third Bassanini law delegates determination of contractual conditions to relative instruments. The first, again in 1998, with the participation of AIPA (Autorità per l'informatica nella pubblica amministrazione - Authority for Information Technology in the Public Administration), and another, this time collective, agreement reached by ARAN (public administration representative body) and the trade unions in March of 2000..
The law recognized the faculty of a public administration to "in any case" launch experimentation of telework with the consent of the AIPA and of the most representative union bodies.


Holland, the land of the "pilot initiatives."
Holland is the country where flexibility reigns king, a country that since the beginning has seen telework as an instrument for combining and making best use of pre-existing tools such as part-time work, job sharing, etc.
One of the most important among the principal reference agreements signed in the sector of financial services is the year 2000 agreement between KPN (Koninklijke PTT Nederland - a company specialized in telephone services, Internet traffic, call centers, and media services) and the Dutch trade unions for the development of home-based telework, defined in this case as "work routinely performed from home and remotely coordinated by the employer." The agreement was applicable to more than thirty thousand employees and was in force from 1 April 2000 to the same date the following
The fundamental points covered were:
1) The employer defines in advance and for each industrial sector what functions are "teleworkable."
2) Employees working under open-ended contracts may request to perform their work from home, availing themselves of the information and telecommunications technologies. "Controllability" is a necessary element in telework: safe data processing and storage procedures must be commensurate with the type of work carried out and compatible with procedures in place in other company departments. Other aspects: the telework must be performed independently, the activities must be planned, telework is not necessarily performed at permanent workstation.
3) Workstation.
4) Equipment and software. The teleworker has at his/her disposition a personal computer and all else needed for performing his/her work. The employer supplies the necessary software
5) Telecommunications. The employer refunds the initial costs of installing the needed telecommunications devices and utilities (ISDN lines and Quattrovox). Likewise, the employer refunds the communications expenses (telephone bills) incurred for teleworking.
6) A complementary annual contract must be stipulated with each employee who opts for a teleworking employment relationship.

One aspect that arouses great interest in the Netherlands is the relationship between telework and workers' physical mobility.
The question of traffic congestion has become an obsession in the country where since 1992 the teleworker population has jumped from a mere sixty teleworkers to over 300,000. It is calculated that the teleworkers in Amsterdam alone could number 100,000 by 2010, for a saving of 3 million commuter miles and all the related stress for the workers and environmental pollution (the forecast is for a 1,65% annual reduction of CO2).
One of the experimental programs adopted by the Ministry of Transport involves the Dutch banking colossus ENG, the Dutch national airline KLM, and various insurance companies. It targets introduction into the companies of a "traffic coordinator" who is expected to contribute to implementation of traffic coordination plans. Ms Kitty De Bruin, the Netherlands' premier expert on telework, has had much to say on this point.

Ms De Bruin has stated that a feasibility study conducted in ten large insurance companies, banks, and trade unions revealed that these organizations all declared their willingness to introduce telework in the Amsterdam/Utrecht triangle as an alternative to having workers arrive at the workplace after 10 a.m. Many of those involved estimated that more than 50 thousand people could work in the telework mode, an even the least ambitious estimates were about 10 thousand. Ms De Bruin goes on to note how twelve traffic coordination centers are in operation in the Netherlands, and 100 companies are involved in this ambitious project. They are attempting to convince employees to make use of new commuting programs, since it must be considered that even mobile teleworkers generally begin work at 7:00 a.m. and move before 10:00 a.m., do not work much between 4:00 p.m. and 8 p.m., and return to telework as such after 8:00 p.m. Thus, concludes Ms De Bruin, the coordinators also work toward providing incentives to alternative routes by bicycle and public transport, and/or involving private transportation companies.

Ireland, where the banking sector leads the pack
A study of the flexibility of the job market, conducted by 3Sacta and for Ireland by Coinneach Shanks of Virtual Image in November 2001 (virtual@image.com), examined changes in the banking and technology sector in Ireland, the country of the economic and information-technology boom..
Companies that implement various forms of flexible working modes include the Bank of Ireland and the First Active Bank; a particularly interesting initiative is that promoted by AIB (Allied Irish Banks, www.aib.ie).

AIB was formed in 1966 from amalgamation of three Irish banks; since then, the group has acquired banks in the United States (Allfirst), Poland (Wielkopolski Bank Kreditowy and Bank Zachodni) and holds interests in the Singapore KepelTatLee Bank. The group counts 310 branches in Ireland alone, specialized in banking and financial activities and related services. AIB employs about 8,000 workers and makes use of the new technologies to offer 24-hour banking via Internet.
Since 1996, AIB has been conducting a "family friendly" flexible working program in conjunction IBOA (Irish Bank Officials Association, the union that represents about 6,000 of the bank's 8,000 employees). The Choices 2000 policy, by which AIB introduced new forms of flexibility in company organization in order to accommodate workers' needs and improve performance, is the progression of this program. (For further details contact Human Resources, AIB Group, Bankcentre, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4).
(Interview with Mairèad Callanan, in charge of Human Resources at AIB).

How did Choices 2000 get its start?
The need to organize work in a more modern, and therefore more flexible manner, has been perceived for some time (and that is, since incorporation of the new AIB).
How much did Ireland's economic boom influence the program?
A lot. This is a country that has undergone tumultuous development in a very short period, but this fact has not always produced positive fallout for our system. Just look at the capital, Dublin, and the increase in traffic congestion. Going to work has become "a job."
"Good" versus "bad" flexibility. The public administration took the first steps in flexible working, offering more flexibility against the higher wages in the private sector . . .
Certainly. The ministry in charge of public employees has developed a system incorporating telework, and it seems to me that their experimentation is proceeding well. In our favor we can say proudly that we were the first in the private sector to have wagered on flexible working programs, and in particular on telework.
What are the first results of Choice 2000?
The new working system has become very popular; it has upped staff morale, increased staff retention, reduced recruitment costs, and, besides having made union partnerships much more productive experiences, has also improved customer relations.
And the "cons"?
The new working hours have forced a change in "mind set" and there has been some resistance to change from management. The home-based workers request more meetings, while we as Human Resources find that the procedures for implementing telework are sometimes very complex.
And the reactions of those involved in the experimentation?
Excellent. So good, in fact, that what started as an experimental policy "risks" becoming a permanent fixture.

The AIB agreement also called for telework understood as an opportunity for the employee to work directly from home, using computer equipment and fast communications links. Suitable insurance is seen as a key criterion for protecting both employer and employee.
AIB also experimented with desk "hoteling" (an extension of hot desking), where office facilities are sited at outer city locations.
It allows for:

• Fast achievement of certain project objectives


• Undertaking work that is difficult to carry out in an office that is environmentally unsuitable for certain tasks
  
• A time-saving option for workers who commute or periodically travel to a distant location (with managerial permission).

Austria, the potentials of the system.
Of importance for assessing the development of telework in Austria is a study concerning implementation of this new form of working, conducted in October 2000. Results: of those interviewed, one company in five makes use of telework and 34% of these companies declared to have begun teleworking the previous year.
The sectors in which teleworkers are most commonly employed were shown to be information technology (24%), marketing (10%), sales (10%), and administration (8%). Thirty-five percent of the large companies make use of telework, while the percentage drops drastically to 13% for the small and medium enterprises.

The Austrian consulting firms and bank are the greatest exploiters of telework, with 55% of employees alternating home-based and office-based work. The teleworkers comment that they have found new motivational stimuli and that they succeed better in reconciling work and family life.

December 2000 saw approval of the collective contract for workers in the IT (Information Technology) sector, which entered into force for 20 thousand employees on 1 January of the following year. The agreement was a milestone for improvement of working conditions in the New Economy, and includes provisions pertinent to teleworkers.

Essential points: 1) voluntary nature of telework, 2) the equipment needed for telework is supplied by the employer; the employer also covers the expenses for operation of the home workstation, 3) flexible working schedule (with guarantee of the minimum hours provided for by law), and 4) modification of the pay scale that created advantages for younger workers, offering them the opportunity for a professionally remunerative experience.

Belgium, the call centers as a driving force.

1988 saw the signing of an agreement between SITEL and the services-sector unions CSC and FGTB and, since the SITEL outsourced call center is near the Brussels airport and therefore in a Flemish region, also with the Flemish unions BBTK (FGTB) and LBC (CSC). In brief, the salient points of the collective agreement :
1) The working hours of non-operator staff are reduced from 39 to 38 hours weekly. 2) The operators' working day is 8 hours, including 24 minutes for mealtime and a 10-minute break every 4 hours. 3) Particular conditions are established for work in the evening, at night, and during weekends, a schedule is set for remuneration of overtime hours. 4) Part-time work is limited to 3 hours per day. 5) Working time is one of the questions that can be dealt with in specific agreements with the unions. 6) A standard contract is foreseen in order to facilitate agreements. 7) The duration of the collective agreement is set from January 1998 to January 2001 (but is re-negotiable. The area of application is NV Sitel Benelux, which counts about 300 employees.
In and of itself, the agreement is not particularly innovative, but in its country of application it has become a point of reference, thanks in part to certain aspects like definition of working hours, programmed breaks, control over employees, relations with the team manager, and due to the fact that it places workers on their guard concerning management control measures.


Finland and Sweden, the promised lands.
Maybe it should go without saying that in a country like Finland, where 16,77% of the workforce is employed in manners different from traditional work scenarios, telework is not a news item. What is more, the figures refer to a very narrow definition of e-work.
In seven years, from 1990 to 1997, the percentage of teleworkers has reached 7% of total employees. And uniquely enough, the country counts more male than female teleworkers.
Nineteen percent of males with management duties and 17% of those organizing staff work operate in the teleworking mode.

The same picture in Sweden, a country in which negotiation among the social parties has taken giant steps forward. Of great interest, the possibility of stipulating customized individual agreements concerning telework. In the report prepared for the European Commission entitled "The Knowledge Economy and Climate Change," which deals in part with e-banking, the Swedish telework expert Lennart Forseback supports the notion that e-banking can lead to a reduction in travel to and from the bank, that the physical closure of branch offices does not eliminate the need to maintain direct relationships with customers, and that although the potential is considered to be lower, the same principle is applicable to share dealing over Internet.

Germany, the sleeping giant.
A country with a great potential but also with a particularly tight employment market. Of note, an interesting initiative in the context of the OnRorTe project called Telejobservice . The service was established in 1999 to respond to the growing demand for remote work. It is a sort of computer-based employment agency that matches demands and offers for remote work and telework, both free-lance and subordinate. It is a public-sector initiative that offers such services as training for telework, a self-test for evaluating one's aptitude for telework, and a myriad of useful links on the subject of telework.
In the German insurance sector, telework was introduced gradually as an experimental alternative, and in particular by the Allianz group .

A stimulus to development of telework could come from a recent ruling of the German Supreme Court on a question of taxation of private use of services linked to remote computer-based work. The possibility of deducting these expenses, as well as those for equipment, could provide an incentive to use of the Internet and more flexible working modes. In 2001, employers as well were allowed tax discounts on their purchase of technological tools for telework when the equipment was entrusted to the teleworkers. Among the large German companies that have taken advantage of this opportunity are Bertelsmann and Ford.

Greece, a nation taking its first steps.
According to a 1997 European Community report, participation in telework was at the time very limited (about 20,000 in the entire country).
But as early as 1998 we saw some signs of attention to the status of teleworkers, in Law No. 2639/1998 on industrial relations.
By this law, no employee may be given a teleworking activity to perform unless written communication is made to the Labor Inspectorate in the 15 days following the assignment of such work. The teleworker is considered to be a full-time worker like any other.
The employer must communicate the complete list of the teleworkers to the Labor Inspectorate within nine months from the implementation of telework in a company.
Collective bargaining in this area is proceeding rather slowly; to the point that the future holds much work in this direction (and others) even for the advanced services sector. Confirmation that there is room for telework in the Greek labor market comes from the Greek federation of second-level banking workers, with its 55 thousand members. The Federation's forte is training, as is clear from the close relationships established with INE (the Institute of Labor of Greece's GSEE and ADEDY trade union confederations), a body which exerts considerable influence on Cyprus and in the Balkans as well. But according to the latest report on e-work in 2002 in the banking sector in Greece, e-work and Internet-linked procedures still today find only very limited application. In fact, most of the active e-workers operate in the publishing, translating, and journalism sectors..

Spain facing off against flexible working.

"Spain is a nation new to telework." This is the authoritative opinion of Michel Ickx, one of the foremost Spanish experts on telework and manager of the Association espagnole du teletravail (Spanish Teleworking Association). Icks also notes how "Spain is a country with an enormous potential but with companies still cast in the old mold. I know what I'm talking about, since I worked for a long time in the banking sector. But it's not to be excluded that things might change even in the short term, thanks in part to the new flexibility that is now being introduced to the employment market."

It is no wonder, then, that government has stepped up investments in new technologies, providing incentives for the creation of 625 public Internet access centers. Fifty-four million euros were earmarked for training 14,000 unemployed persons in the IT sector; the program has been launched but still has a long way to go

1998 saw an important collective agreement with the unions (CC.OO and UGT) on telemarketing. The agreement is applicable throughout all of Spain in the companies active in telemarketing (that is, companies whose activities are carried on by telephone or using the other information and communications technologies and involve advertisement and sale of products and services, individual interviews, receiving and/or classifying outside calls, and customer services.

The principal contents of the agreement deal with organization of work, hiring practices, working hours, vacation and free time, overtime, salaries, qualifications and training, safety at work, equal opportunities, and collective rights. According to a report by the union CC.OO on a study conducted in 2000, the number of call centers in Spain doubled in three years. Although a third of the companies make use of call centers, the demand has increased by forty percent, especially in the after-sales support sector.

Following this agreement, in July 2000 Ibermatica and CC.OO signed a company agreement. Article 19 states that workers who desire to do so may work from home if the company and their supervisor agree. At this point, an individual agreement is drafted; it must specify the type of work, the maximum duration, the type of monitoring, and the frequency of consignments to the home office. The advantages? Flexible working schedules, less frequent travel, and improved concentration on the job at hand.

COMFIA-CCOO , the Financial and Administrative Services Federation of the Commissiones Obreras (CC.OO), is very active in Spain; with 50,000 members it is the most important federation in the banking sector and is particularly active in technological innovation.

The government White Paper on public-sector employment calls for introduction of telework for modernizing the bureaucracy and at the same time introducing new technologies.

It is expected that by 2005 e-workers in Spain will account for 15 percent of the workforce.

France, victim of centralization.

A Study by ANACT reveals a pattern of light and shadow in the French scenario. A company having recourse to telework must reconsider the principles of organization of work itself, management, and working conditions. Given that the French market is strictly regulated, it is difficult to translate theory into practice. The keys to success in implementation of telework - according to the ANACT study - are a broadband approach from the earliest stages, a minimum investment by the company, and discussion with the team of teleworkers about reorganization of work, during which the teleworker must be aided in developing independence. The study also points up how it is easier to implement partial teleworking of a job activity than full-time teleworking, which often creates a sense of isolation from company life in the teleworking subject.
The similarities, cultural and otherwise, between the French and the Canadian (and especially French-Canadian) teleworking experiences are interesting. Canada counts about 600,000 teleworkers.

Marie France Revelin is a consultant to Bull. Her comments: "Our experience is by now consolidated; there's no going back. At most, we have to make adjustments case by case." Ms Revelin tours France explaining the teleworking experiences implemented in a number of Canadian banks. One of these is the National Bank of Canada, which since 1993 has been offering a work-life balancing program; another is CIBC (Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce), which instead proposed to its 40,000 employees (75% women, of which 24.4% managers) to telework under a "work-life options" program. The Bank of Nova Scotia introduced an AWA (Alternate Work Arrangements) program; the Royal Bank of Canada, work-life balancing. The TD Bank Financial Group offers flexible working options and the Bank of Montreal a system of flexible contracts.