The ETUC salutes the enormous efforts that have been made by citizens and organisations to ensure that multi-national companies are required by the European Union to report country by country on their economic activities.
This is vital to ensure that multinationals pay their fair share of tax in the countries where their profits are generated, and do not engage in clever accounting to end up declaring only where taxes are very low.
Today the European Union is in final secret negotiations to agree a deal on public country by country reports (pCBCR).
On 21 April 2021, the European Commission presented its long-awaited proposal on the regulation of artificial intelligence. The regulation is the follow-up to the 2020 White Paper process, in which the ETUC also participated. The proposed regulation builds on the internal market rules regulating the development and placement of products and services using AI in the EU single market. The regulation does not address liability. In this context, the Commission refers to the revision of the Product Liability Directive which is foreseen in the second half of the year.
The ETUC Collective Bargaining and Wage Coordination Committee strongly supports the call by UNIEuropa for Amazon to recognise the right of their workers to unionise and begin collective bargaining negotiations.
The European Commission published today an update of its New Industrial Strategy that was adopted in March 2020. The aim of this update is to better identify the challenges and lessons coming from the COVID19 crisis, to further accelerate the green and digital transition, to strengthen the resilience of EU’s single market and to improve the strategic autonomy of the European Union.
Women are at greater exposure to the consequences of the economic crisis resulting from the pandemic. This Recovery needs to put the achievement of equality at the centre.
We are calling for
1. More support for trade unions so that they can spearhead the fight for gender equality.
When women join together in their trade union they can bargain for a better deal, increased pay, more security, training, health and safety, a say over working hours, fairer promotions, more paid leave and a decent pension.
Another unusual labour day. This year we might be better equipped to bring online celebrations to workers but too many current challenges haven’t been solved, yet.
With 1 in 3 people working from home, and those at the workplace taking special precautions, COVID-19 shows the life and death importance of health and safety at work.
Introduction
Although there has been European law on equal pay for women and men for 45 years, the gender pay gap in the European Union is still unacceptably large at over 14%. At the current very slow rate of progress, pay equality will not be achieved across the European Union until the next century (2104) and will never be reached in some Member States.
ETUC position on the Assessment of the Action Plan implementing the EPSR + Roadmap to the EU Social Summit in Porto
Adopted at the virtual Executive Committee Meeting of 22-23 March 2021
SUMMARY
The ETUC welcomes the Action Plan implementing the European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR) and backs the call addressed to Member States, EU institutions and social partners to endorse the Action Plant to keep the EU social agenda prominent in all the policy areas of the EU.