European Commission Work Programme 2018: ETUC Comments

Commenting on the European Commission Work Programme 2018, Luca Visentini, General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation, said

We broadly welcome the work programme, especially the much-needed social fairness package. Whether this package will actually go far enough to improve social fairness for the majority of working people remains to be seen in the proposals when they are published.

Other positive commitments follow up of the European Pillar of Social Rights, including the Social Standards Union and integrating the Social Scoreboard in to the annual economic policy ‘Semester’, as well as a European Monetary Fund, an Industrial Policy Strategy, and a European Economy and Finance Minister.

Less positive is the lack of recognition in the digital single market part of the work programme of the social and employment issues that need to be tackled – particularly to give better rights to platform and crowd workers – and the complete absence of anything connected to increased industrial democracy and workers participation.”