Sound of the underground: fix EU public procurement rules

Unions have launched a billboard campaign in the metro stations beneath the buildings of the EU institutions ahead of a crucial meeting of MEPs to review the rules that govern the awarding of public contracts to private corporations.

With over €2 trillion spent annually through public procurement across the EU, the stakes are high. Yet too often, these public funds reward companies that undercut wages, ignore collective agreements, and exploit subcontracted workers, fuelling a race to the bottom on workers’ pay and conditions.  

Race to the top

Instead, private corporations vying for taxpayers’ money should be rewarded based on quality, including respect of workers’ right to unionise. The ETUC is calling on MEPs who sit on the European Parliament’s Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) to ensure that public money supports fair pay, good jobs, and collective bargaining rights. They can do so by ensuring the own-initiative report currently being negotiated recommends:

·  Legal certainty to favour quality job employers

Contracting authorities need legal certainty that collective bargaining and working conditions are always relevant when awarding public contracts, regardless of the goods, services or works procured.

· Requiring collective agreements

A collective bargaining say over their pay and conditions is the most effective way for workers to ensuring they get a fair share. A simple but deeply effective solution for more socially responsible procurement is to require that the people who provide the goods and services for public clients have a collective agreement.

· Limiting subcontracting

Stricter regulation of subcontracting and direct jobs should be promoted under public contracts, including by ensuring equal treatment, introducing joint and several liability, dissuasive sanctions and limiting the length of the subcontracting chain to a maximum of two sub-levels.

ETUC General Secretary Esther Lynch said:

“This campaign is a wake-up call. Public procurement must no longer be a tool for social dumping. It must become a driver of quality jobs with fair pay and decent conditions as a minimum. Taxpayers’ money must deliver working conditions that are empowering, not exploitative.

“The European Parliament IMCO Committee has the opportunity—and the responsibility—to make that happen. MEPs must listen to the rising voice of workers. A bottom-up approach, where workers are guaranteed a real say over the decisions that shape their working lives, is the way to fix the EU’s public procurement rules.”