ETUI report underlines the costs of austerity

Just out from the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) is ‘Benchmarking Working Europe 2014’, the ETUI’s annual stock-take of macro-economic, social and bargaining conditions in Europe. Reflecting the impact of five years of austerity, it makes for fairly gloomy reading. Statistical indicators in the report show not only that the crisis is not ending, it’s actually still getting worse. The ETUI tracks a clutch of negative trends in things like inequality and social conditions alongside signs of a dismantling of national social models.