European Trade Union Confederation and Social Platform statement on the Directive on Adequate Minimum Wages in the EU
During the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council (EPSCO) meeting on 14 June, EU Ministers will discuss the European Commission’s Directive on Adequate Minimum Wages in the EU. We hereby urge EU Ministers to demonstrate their full political support for the proposed Directive.
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.