The 20% tariffs on goods from the EU announced today by the US government will hit working people hardest.
While the full extent and impact of the tariffs announced by the US is not yet clear, it is essential that the EU response delivers a comprehensive strategy to stabilize the economy and save jobs as it responds to the changed trade environment.
Europe must not be bullied out of our values and standards. We must not water down our rights and rules.
Essential elements to protect jobs and incomes
Following the decision to open the ‘stop the clock’ urgency procedure on the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CS3D) and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), the ETUC is calling on all MEPs to vote down the postponement of the directives.
Workers and their unions are on general strike across Belgium to face down a sweep of anti-worker measures in the coalition agreement of the government. Pension restrictions, annulment of negotiated overtime bonusses, demonstration bans and forcing trade unions to report on their strike funds. These are only a few of the measures the Belgian government coalition agreement implies.
The ETUC and industriAll Europe have called on the EU to urgently bring in job protection measures in response to today’s announcement by the Trump administration that it will impose 25% tariff rate on cars imported from Europe.
Responding to the European Commission’s proposals for a Preparedness Union Strategy, ETUC General Secretary Esther Lynch said:
"Preparedness means being ready for climate, biological and security events. We’ve received reports time and again that the workplace dimension was overlooked. This is a real risk when there is top down decision-making that discards the reality on the ground, trade unions need to be included.
ETUC General Secretary Esther Lynch speech at 6th Uni-Europa Conference "Real say, more pay: forward through collective bargaining"
[To be checked against delivery]
Delegates, Colleagues and Friends
It is always a privilege to bring solidarity greetings from the 45 million workers and their trade unions that the ETUC represents but it is a particular honour to be asked to do so here in Belfast.
Trade unions have never been more relevant, nor more needed, than now.
The ETUC has called on the Commission to expand the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund and make it into a pre-emptive tool to save jobs, as part of its initiatives set to be announced tomorrow.
The resources allocated to the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund are not sufficient to meet the threat of mass layoffs faced by working communities across Europe. Funding must be massively scaled up to meet the challenges the EU is facing in the turbulent geopolitical context.
The ETUC estimates that over 100,000 jobs will be lost if worker-focussed measures are delayed until October 2025. In exchanges with President Costa and President von der Leyen at the Tripartite Social Summit today, trade unions stressed the urgent need for EU action, currently at risk of being delayed until the end of the year.
Reacting to the European Commission’s communication on Savings and Investments Union reform presented today, Ludovic Voet, ETUC Confederal Secretary, said:
“This proposal socialises the risks, to the detriment of workers and taxpayers.
“Encouraging people to get more pension funds products driven by financial markets would expose people to market volatility.
“Working people haven’t forgotten the consequences of greater liberalisation of the financial markets.
Retaliatory measures will not be enough to save the jobs that could be wiped out by the Trump administration’s 25% tariffs on steel and aluminium. The ETUC and industriAll Europe are calling on the EU institutions for immediate action to support the workers impacted by the tariffs and to equip itself with a SURE-stye job protection mechanism coupled with a permanent investment facility up to the task of prioritising quality jobs in a volatile geopolitical environment.
Commenting on the European Commission’s deportations plan published today, ETUC Confederal Secretary Giulio Romani said:“Nothing illustrates how wrong and counterproductive this deportation plan is than the fact it is being launched on the same day as the Commission is holding meetings about the need to increase migration because of demographic change and labour shortages.“The priority should be establishing more regular pathways for people to come and work in Europe safely, ensuring that they cannot be exploited by unscrupulous employers.
The ETUC and European social partners met with the presidents of the ECB and the Eurogroup, Commissioner Vladis Dumborvskis and ministers of finance from member states at the biannual Macro-Economic Dialogue at Political Level (MEDPOL).
Trade unions on both sides of the Channel have joined forces to call for the reset in EU-UK relations to bring real benefits to working people. The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) are today publishing a joint set of demands for the EU-UK summit that will take place in May. In a first joint intervention since the signing of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement in 2020, unions are calling for:
The ETUC calls for a full suspension of the economic governance rules, following the outcomes of the heads of member states meeting in Brussels yesterday.
The economic governance rules must be fully suspended and reformed. This is urgently needed to allow for the necessary investments for a European industrial policy, quality jobs, just transitions, public services, along with security.
Plans by businesses to block pay transparency would impact over 10 million working women, costing them a total of at least 4.8 billion Euros a year, according to new findings based on ETUI research.
Commenting on the ECB’s decision to cut interest rates today, ETUC General Secretary Esther Lynch said: “The ECB has a duty to keep cutting interest rates with the same urgency with which they raised them to record levels at the expense of workers and their companies. “High interest rates are preventing the scale of investment required for Europe to decarbonise its industries, putting at risk quality jobs now and in the future.
The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) urges the European Commission to ensure the “Union of Skills” initiative establishes a legally binding right to training for all workers, including on
Together with employers’ organisations and the European Commission, the ETUC has today signed a pact to strengthen the role of social partners in shaping the labour market, employment, and social policies.
As part of the Pact, the Commission commits to support social dialogue, at all levels, politically, financially and administratively, in a sustained way and by promoting capacity building of national social partners.
Following her unveiling of the Clean Industrial Deal last week, which includes important job-saving measures, Commission Vice-President Teresa Ribera met with trade union leaders from across Europe today. The discussions focussed on the urgency of EU action to stem the wave of job cuts faced by working people.
A controversial legal opinion calling for the annulment of the Directive on Adequate Minimum Wages (AMWD) was based on a “historically mistaken” reading of EU law that failed to consider established case law.
The Commission has today proposed to weaken mechanisms designed to hold companies accountable to the abuse of workers in their supply chains.
Measures brought in to address conditions like those that led to the Rana Plaza tragedy would be dramatically watered down, if the European Commission’s Omnibus deregulation drive goes through.
Thousands of jobs rely on a swift implementation of the Clean Industrial Deal (CID), announced today by the European Commission. The ETUC is calling for the measures focussed on workers to be urgently brought forward.
An average of 500 jobs a day are being lost and even more threatened. Just transition measures are urgently needed to save those jobs and must be moved to the top of the list, not left as an add-on to be implemented at the end of the year.
Trade unionists and green campaigners staged a protest in Brussels today to tell the European Commission to ‘slam the brakes’ on its Omnibus package which is driving Europe towards deregulation that will weaken workers’ rights and environmental protections.
The number of people in the European Union who can’t afford to keep their home warm increased by 16 million during the cost-of-living crisis – and the majority of them were in work. In 2019, an estimated 7% of the European population could not afford to put the heating on, equivalent to 30.7 million people, including 13.4 million people in work.But the latest figures show that the share of people living in energy poverty increase to 10.6% in 2023 - 47.5 million people, including 23.7 million people in employment.
