Responding to the European Commission’s action plan on implementing the European Pillar of Social Rights and the Effective Active Support for Employment, ETUC General Secretary Luca Visentini said: “The time for a socially fairer Europe has come. This action plan could make it a reality. “The need for a more social Europe has never been stronger. The Covid crisis has exposed the problems with a Europe built on insecure work, low wages and badly funded public services.

Commenting on the European Commission’s proposal to extend the ‘escape clause’ from the Stability and Growth Pact, European Trade Union Confederation General Secretary Luca Visentini said:

The gap in earnings between the richest and poorest Europeans had got wider even before the Covid crisis struck, official EU data shows.

Dear Readers, We have just published the February 2021 edition of the ETUC newsletter. To read the document, please click here. Enjoy!

The European Commission is finally set to present its pay transparency directive on 4 March – 460 days after President von der Leyen took office on a pledge to deliver it “within 100 days.” But now ETUC’s hopes for progress on reducing the gender pay gap are being undermined by conflict in the European Commission’s policymaking with what seems to be THREE different versions of the draft Directive being leaked.  

The European Commission published today its new Adaptation Strategy designed to increase the resilience of the EU against climate change consequences.   While the European Trade Union Confederation strongly welcomes the idea of developing a new EU Adaptation Strategy, we regret to see that the one proposed by the Commission today fails to protect European workers against climate change consequences.

The ETUC is calling on the European Commission to face down cynical new efforts by platform companies to avoid their most basic obligations to their workers. The Commission will tomorrow launch a consultation on improving the working conditions in platform companies like Uber, Deliveroo or Glovo.

Major court rulings against the exploitative employment practices of platform companies this week show the urgency over EU action over this broken business model. 

More than 24 million workers on low wages in the EU would receive a much-needed pay rise if trade union proposals for the EU’s draft Directive on Adequate Minimum Wages are accepted. The European Trade Union Confederation is pushing for a ‘threshold of decency’ to be included in the legislation that would ensure statutory minimum wages could never be paid at less than 60% of the median wage and 50% of the average wage in the Member State.

In light of recent complications with the Covid-19 vaccines roll out, the ETUC believes that a higher degree of democratic control is needed over the process and that people must come before profit. While unions fully support the principle of European coordination on vaccines as a means of avoiding vaccine nationalism, the process so far has been blighted by a lack of transparency in procurement and unexplained delays in production which have cost lives and livelihoods. 

European trade unions, together with a large coalition of NGOs and academics, are leading a campaign for the European Commission to permanently scrap austerity policies which have been paused during the pandemic. A ‘General Escape Clause’ relaxing the rules of the Stability and Growth Pact was introduced last year as part of the European Commission’s response to the Covid-19 crisis, which also included the creation of the SURE emergency job support scheme and the unprecedented recovery fund.

11 months after the start of the pandemic, young trade union leaders say that young unemployed, those neither in employment or education or training, and workers in platform companies are not being helped enough by job and wage protection schemes and related emergency measures. These findings will be presented today to Commissioner Nicolas Schmit and the Portuguese President of EU Council of Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Ministers, Ana Mendes Godinho at an online conference ‘(How) Will Europe prevent a Lost Generation?’ attended by over 200 young people.

The European Commission has today joined trade unions in warning member states against prematurely withdrawing financial support for workers and businesses. But the Commission must now put its money where its mouth is and refinancing the successful SURE job support for 2021 to ensure that all member states can maintain support measures as requested.