The European Commission’s Work Programme 2021 contains some positive commitments, some surprising omissions and at least one absurd proposal according to a first assessment by the ETUC.
On the positive side are commitments to
The European Labour Authority (ELA) has failed to take real action over the first cases of worker exploitation referred to it a year ago by trade unions.
When the ELA started work in October 2019, trade unions brought ten cases involving the non-payment of wages, holiday pay, sick pay and social security contributions to the attention of the Authority.
The cases, which are typical of the abuse faced by cross-border workers, include:
The European Commission has today adopted its ‘Renovation Wave’ strategy, which is designed to address the current low building decarbonisation and renovation rates of around 1% across the EU and tackle the underlying barriers for improving the energy efficiency of the EU building stock. Currently, roughly 75% of the building stock is energy inefficient, yet almost 80% of today’s buildings will still be in use in 2050. At the same time, more than 50 million European households suffer from energy poverty.
EU labour ministers meeting tomorrow are being urged to send a clear message to companies restructuring because of Covid that they must respect trade unions and workers’ right to a say in the process.
Major restructuring processes are ongoing in all sectors as a result of the Covid crisis and in many cases companies are flouting their workers’ rights to information, consultation and participation to business decision affecting their working conditions and employment.
Trade unions are launching a campaign for an EU law to tackle work-related stress amid a mental health crisis worsened by the lockdown.
Work-related stress had already become an epidemic before confinement, accounting for more than half of all working days lost in the EU. New Eurostat data shows one in three workers are always or often working under time pressure, a major cause of stress.
European trade unions are backing the European Parliament’s call on the Commission to ban unpaid internships and invest in quality jobs for young people amid soaring youth unemployment.
The proposal is part of a Parliament resolution passed today aimed at improving the European Commission’s weak proposal for a Reinforced Youth Guarantee.
The EU’s gender pay gap won’t be eliminated until the next century at the current pace of change, ETUC research shows amid a delay in promised European Commission action to end the scandal.
Eurostat data shows the EU gender pay gap has closed by 1% over the last eight years, which means women will be waiting for another 84 years to achieve equal pay if current trends continue.
Without binding pay equality measures to change the current trends, the ETUC also found:
Responding to the conclusion of the European Council, ETUC General Secretary Luca Visentini said:
“The dependence on imports which caused shortages of PPE and medical supplies during the Covid crisis showed just how important it is that Europe develops more strategic autonomy.
“But EU leaders can’t achieve that aim without strong domestic industries, which were already struggling against unfair global competition and have now been pushed towards major cuts and redundancies by Covid.
The European Trade Union Confederation is calling on national governments to maintain emergency job protection measures as EU unemployment rose for the sixth month in a row.
According to Eurostat official figures published today, 238,000 more people became permanently unemployed between July and August.
That means the number of permanent job losses since lockdown began in March is over 1.7 million, taking total EU unemployment to 15.6 million.
The overall unemployment rate has increased from 6.4% to 7.4% since March, and from 14.5% to 17.6% among young people.
Commenting on the European Commission’s Rule of Law report ETUC General Secretary Luca Visentini said
“The European Union is supposed to be a union of democratic countries where the rule of law is supreme – yet the rule of law is being undermined in a number of countries, and firm action is needed to re-establish it.
