Reacting to the Financial Times report on UK Government plans to diverge from the Working Time Directive, ETUC Deputy General Secretary Esther Lynch said: “This is the first major test of the Brexit deal. “The reported plans would be in clear breach of level playing field rules and the EU must prepare to take swift action and retaliatory measures if necessary.

In view of the upcoming Plenary session of the European Parliament, the ETUC is part of a coalition of 36 civil society organisations (CSOs) which have launched a Joint Appeal to the European Institutions calling for the inclusion of  enforceable human rights clauses in the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI).

Commenting on the EU-UK deal Luca Visentini, ETUC General Secretary said “There is no form of Brexit that will improve the lives of working people.“ “Although President von der Leyen says fair competition and a level playing field are ensured, it would mean very little if long-drawn out arbitration was the main way to deal with disputes. 

Dear Readers, We have just published the December 2020 edition of the ETUC newsletter. To read the document, please click here. Enjoy!

Almost a  quarter of member states provided little or no income support for self-employed or precarious workers during the Covid crisis – despite the EU making funds available for such support. Income and job support measures, delivered with the help of the EU’s €100 million SURE scheme, supported 42 million workers at the height of the crisis in May.

At today's EU Council meeting, member states agreed to revise the EU’s 2030 climate targets to at least -55% reduction of GHG emissions compared to 1990. Responding to the development, ETUC Confederal Secretary Ludovic Voet said:

The number of people considered to be ‘working poor’ has increased in the majority of member states over the last decade, reveals a major new report on Europe’s economy to be launched today.  An analysis of Eurostat data found that the percentage of workers at-risk-of-poverty increased in 16 member states between 2010 and 2019 despite the economy improving during that period. Hungary, the UK, Estonia, Italy and Luxembourg suffered the biggest rises, with their in-work at risk-of-poverty rate increasing by between 58% and 27%.

Responding to today’s launch of the European Climate Pact, ETUC Confederal Secretary Ludovic Voet said: “Workers are on the frontline of changes in the economy needed to protect the environment and they need to be formally involved in the design and delivery of the European Green Deal.   "Any initiative to help build awareness of the need for climate action and engage citizens and workers in the process is welcome.

MATICA joins European Trade Union Confederation ETUC today approved the membership application of the Association of Croatian Trade Unions MATICA. MATICA’s application was fully supported by existing Croatian ETUC members UATUC and NHS, and agreed today by the ETUC Executive Committee. MATICA has 55,000 members, mainly in the public sector, and was founded in 1993. ETUC General Secretary Luca Visentini said “We warmly welcome MATICA to the European trade union movement.

The European Commission will publish its Digital Services and Digital Markets Acts on Tuesday 14 December. The ETUC, while conscious that the Acts do not touch directly upon the (lack of) rights of platform workers, believe the Acts will better define the legal liability of online platform companies like Facebook and Amazon - which the ETUC believes is urgently required fully justified, and has given them an unfair advantage over other businesses.   In particular, the ETUC will be looking at the Acts to see if they

Facebook’s founder and CEO will still sleep soundly tonight after the European Commission took only tentative steps towards stronger regulation of social media platforms in its Democracy Action Plan published today. The dominant market position of the digital giants, and business models that benefit from spreading content regardless of its veracity, seem to be disturbed only a little by the Plan. Instead, the Commission commits to

Responding to the new European Commission strategy on strengthening the application of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, ETUC Confederal Secretary Isabelle Schömann said: “As human rights defenders, trade unions are key parties in the Charter’s enforcement chain.