Today’s ruling by the European Court of Justice is disappointing and undermines the European Commission’s flagship commitment to ‘an economy that works for people’ warns the ETUC.
The case ( C-928/19 P) was brought the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU) objecting to obstacles placed by the European Commission in the way of a social partner agreement on the right to information & consultation of cleaners and other government workers being incorporated in EU law.
The ETUC is seeking an urgent meeting with the European Commission to put in place a clear and certain process to ensure that social partner agreements can progress into EU law as the EU treaties envisage.
“The process by which European employers and unions get their agreements recognised in EU law has been thrown into doubt by the judgement and needs to be clarified and made certain” said Esther Lynch, ETUC Deputy General Secretary. “It is important not to strangle agreements between employers and unions in complicated rules (unilaterally) devised by the European Commission.”
“The ruling reinforces the widely held view that European Court of Justice struggles to understand labour/industrial relations and should have a dedicated labour chamber with judges with relevant experience.”
“The judgement is deeply disappointing, destabilising and does nothing to help the European Commission convince working people that it is on their side. The European Commission needs to work with unions and employers to fix this mess of its own making.”
The ETUC will examine the appeal judgement in detail and decide on the necessary actions how to bring the necessary certainty and clarity to secure that Social Partner Agreements will continue to be put forward in a predictable way and be adopted as EU Directives.
- Today’s case is a ruling on an appeal against an original judgement (T-310/18) made in October 2019. ETUC’s response to that ruling is here https://www.etuc.org/en/pressrelease/etuc-response-eu-court-ruling
