labor

Irish Doctors Strike to Protest Work Hours Amid Austerity

Eamon Quinn The Wall Street Journal
There is a growing impatience with austerity among public-sector workers, as the government prepares a budget for 2014 that will inflict a seventh year of spending cuts and tax increases. Irish governments have sought to control costs in response to the country's worst-ever property and banking crisis that started over five years ago. The country is obliged by its bailout with the European Union and International Monetary Fund to public sector spending and jobs cuts.

Europe’s Perpetual Crisis

Conn M. Hallinan International Policy Digest
Why, given the failure of austerity economics, haven't we seen a policy shift to stimulation of the economy?...the push for yet greater austerity has less to do with a deep concern by Europe’s elites over debt—it is high but manageable—than as part of a stealth campaign aimed at dismantling rules and regulations that protect worker rights, unions, and the environment. Meanwhile Washington is concerned with the effect of the economic crisis on the viability of NATO.
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