The European Commission’s Annual Sustainable Growth Strategy, published on Thursday,  provides few clues as to how it intends to deliver greater social fairness that it commits to in its €750bn Recovery and Resilience Plan, warns the ETUC. The Survey is supposed to show the next steps for the EU’s recovery, but does not reveal the next steps for social fairness and just transition.

The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) supports the European Commission’s proposal for a new -55% GHG emission reduction target, but the plan to achieve it published today overlooks the just transition needed to make the change fair for workers.    Commenting on the 2030 Climate Target Plan, ETUC Confederal Secretary Ludovic Voet said:

Osnabruck, 17/09/2020 To be checked against delivery   Dear all,

Responding to the State of the Union speech, ETUC General Secretary Luca Visentini said: “Ursula von der Leyen perfectly described Europe’s low pay problem today without clearly committing to the solutions: ending minimum wages below the poverty threshold and the right to collective bargaining for all.

Ursula von der Leyen has taken an important step towards securing trade union support for her plans on minimum wages today with a pledge in the Swedish media to protect and promote collective bargaining. The European Commission president said that the EU will “never” impose a statutory minimum wage on the six member states which set wages exclusively through collective bargaining – Austria, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Italy and Sweden.

Wage levels in Europe are tied closely to whether workers are covered by collective bargaining, official figures show.

Commenting on the European Commission’s first Strategic Foresight Report, ETUC General Secretary Luca Visentini said “ETUC supports any policy initiative that helps to manage change in a sustainable, fair and democratic way. “A longer-term perspective is useful, especially if it leads to new policies consistently contributing to a fairer and more inclusive society. "A shift from the current GDP-based narrative of measuring progress towards a more well-being centred one would be welcomed by the ETUC as this has been a long-standing demand.

The overwhelming majority of European trade unions representing 45 million workers have voted in favour of a new EU law to support fair minimum wages and collective bargaining. Following a full and open debate, members of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) endorsed a call for a European Directive with 85% of the votes in favour. 87 national unions from all over Europe took part in the vote, plus 10 European sectoral trade unions.

The European Trade Union Confederation is calling on national governments to keep emergency job protection measures in place after EU unemployment rose for the fifth month in a row.  Despite an easing of lockdown measures, 336,000 more people became permanently unemployed between June and July, official figures published today by Eurostat show.

Trade unions are calling on EU foreign ministers to defend the fundamental right to strike as workers joining walkouts in Belarus face violence and arrest. A meeting of ministers in Berlin tomorrow (Thursday) to discuss sanctions on the Belarusian regime comes as members of the country’s independent trade unions risk their lives to defend democracy. At least three trade union leaders* have been arrested while rank and file members face threats of dismissal or pay cuts for exercising their right to strike.

Commenting on the special EU video summit on Belarus Luca Visentini, General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), said “The words of the EU leaders on Belarus were strong and I hope they send a clear and powerful message to Lukashenko. It remains to be seen what the targeted sanctions will be and whether they will be as hard-hitting as the words spoken suggest. The EU needs to follow up with decisive action including sanctions that hit Lukashenko and his cronies very hard.”

The European trade union movement, in a letter today to Presidents von der Leyen, Michel and Sassoli, urges the European Union to EU relations with Belarus including “the reintroduction of commensurate sanctions for electoral fraud and violence.”

The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) wrote a letter today to the Presidents of the European Council and the European Commission to ask for urgent meetings with the aim to discuss how to reinforce the social partners’ involvement in the design, governance and implementation of MFF and Recovery Plan, at both European and national levels.  ETUC also insists on ensuring that respect of social dialogue, collective bargaining and workplace democracy are binding conditions for funding.