Dear Presidents, Ministers, Colleagues from the social partners. I do not like to be a pessimist, but the situation is grim. The global and European economic forecasts have been revised downwards. Inflation is still very low, despite all the efforts made by the ECB. We had finally started to have some breathing space as we were recovering from the 2008/2012 crisis. Now the growth prospects are reported to be weaker than last year. Also looking at the employment figures and claiming all is positive would be misleading.

Commenting on today's European Commission Autumn Economic Forecast, ETUC General Secretary Luca Visentini said: “The Commission’s economic forecast shows Europe rests on the edge of another recession despite the fact that workers’ living standards still haven’t recovered from the last financial crisis. Even the good overall employment rate is based on a rise in precarious work.

Dear Readers, We have just published the October 2019 edition of the ETUC newsletter. To read the document, please click here. Enjoy!

Parents in seven EU member states will begin benefiting from new rights to paid leave if national governments properly implement the work-life balance directive, a new ETUC analysis shows. Fathers in Italy, Croatia and Slovakia are set to receive paid paternity leave around the birth of a child for the first time ever under the directive adopted by the European Council in June. The legislation fought for by the ETUC will also at least double the length of paid paternity leave in the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Portugal and Romania.

Compulsory gender pay reporting backed up by fines must be among the “binding pay transparency measures” promised by Ursula Von Der Leyen if they are to have a real impact. The European Commission President-Designate has pledged to bring forward measures to tackle the EU’s 16% gender pay gap within the first 100 days of her mandate. The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) welcomes the commitment and is calling on her to introduce policies which have a chance of delivering real change in the public and private sectors.

Today the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in the case brought by the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU) against the refusal of the European Commission to put forward their Social Partner Agreement for adoption as a European Directive (Judgment T-310/18, EPSU and Goudriaan v Commission). The court judgement will be a blow to those 9.8 million government workers who would have benefited from much needed rights to information and consultation with their employer.

The Spanish Government is proposing to reduce the protection for workers against cancer-causing substances, and allagedly boosting the competitiveness of companies, on the pretext of transposing the revised EU Directive (2004/37/EC) on carcinogens or mutagens at work. The cancer-causing substances, for which the Spanish caretaker government is proposing to increase the exposure limits, are crystalline silica, acrylamide and bromo-ethylene. The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) is urging the Spanish government to withdraw its proposals.

“The Double Standard at Work: European Corporate Investment and Workers’ Rights in the American South” cites key case studies to reveal practices in the U.S. South European corporations are two-faced when it comes to respecting working people’s freedom of association and workers’ rights, argues a new report by the AFL-CIO and supported by the European Trade Union Confederation.

The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) believes there is no Brexit that will benefit working people. In the circumstances, we welcome the European Union’s efforts to stop no-deal, guarantee the Good Friday Agreement and avoid a hard border in Ireland.   However, the ETUC is concerned that the deal appears to have further watered down already weak commitments to workers’ rights, although further scrutiny is essential.  

A construction worker who has been waiting three years for over €8,000 in unpaid wages is among the cases of exploitation of posted workers which the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) is today announcing will be referred to the new European Labour Authority (ELA) for investigation. 

European employers and trade unions are jointly calling on the new European Commission and Parliament for a more proactive and ambitious EU industrial strategy. The European Trade Union Confederation, BusinessEurope, SMEunited and CEEP want to position European industry as a global leader that will responsibly deliver prosperity by creating value for the people and the planet.

The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) is calling on the EU to take the strongest possible action to prevent a Turkish invasion of Syria, and immediately end its migration deal with Turkey. The ETUC will make representations to the EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs over its concerns that an invasion would put at risk the victory over ISIS and spark a major humanitarian crisis. ETUC General Secretary Luca Visentini said:

There is nothing more important for working people than to know that their children and elderly relatives are being properly cared for. Care, especially for young children and the elderly, is one of the fastest growing sectors in Europe. Care is estimated to employ some eight million people, representing about 5% of the overall workforce. The vast majority of care workers, 88.2%, are women.