Compulsory gender pay reporting backed up by fines must be among the “binding pay transparency measures” promised by Ursula Von Der Leyen if they are to have a real impact. The European Commission President-Designate has pledged to bring forward measures to tackle the EU’s 16% gender pay gap within the first 100 days of her mandate. The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) welcomes the commitment and is calling on her to introduce policies which have a chance of delivering real change in the public and private sectors.

Today the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in the case brought by the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU) against the refusal of the European Commission to put forward their Social Partner Agreement for adoption as a European Directive (Judgment T-310/18, EPSU and Goudriaan v Commission). The court judgement will be a blow to those 9.8 million government workers who would have benefited from much needed rights to information and consultation with their employer.

The Spanish Government is proposing to reduce the protection for workers against cancer-causing substances, and allagedly boosting the competitiveness of companies, on the pretext of transposing the revised EU Directive (2004/37/EC) on carcinogens or mutagens at work. The cancer-causing substances, for which the Spanish caretaker government is proposing to increase the exposure limits, are crystalline silica, acrylamide and bromo-ethylene. The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) is urging the Spanish government to withdraw its proposals.

“The Double Standard at Work: European Corporate Investment and Workers’ Rights in the American South” cites key case studies to reveal practices in the U.S. South European corporations are two-faced when it comes to respecting working people’s freedom of association and workers’ rights, argues a new report by the AFL-CIO and supported by the European Trade Union Confederation.

The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) believes there is no Brexit that will benefit working people. In the circumstances, we welcome the European Union’s efforts to stop no-deal, guarantee the Good Friday Agreement and avoid a hard border in Ireland.   However, the ETUC is concerned that the deal appears to have further watered down already weak commitments to workers’ rights, although further scrutiny is essential.  

A construction worker who has been waiting three years for over €8,000 in unpaid wages is among the cases of exploitation of posted workers which the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) is today announcing will be referred to the new European Labour Authority (ELA) for investigation. 

European employers and trade unions are jointly calling on the new European Commission and Parliament for a more proactive and ambitious EU industrial strategy. The European Trade Union Confederation, BusinessEurope, SMEunited and CEEP want to position European industry as a global leader that will responsibly deliver prosperity by creating value for the people and the planet.

The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) is calling on the EU to take the strongest possible action to prevent a Turkish invasion of Syria, and immediately end its migration deal with Turkey. The ETUC will make representations to the EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs over its concerns that an invasion would put at risk the victory over ISIS and spark a major humanitarian crisis. ETUC General Secretary Luca Visentini said:

There is nothing more important for working people than to know that their children and elderly relatives are being properly cared for. Care, especially for young children and the elderly, is one of the fastest growing sectors in Europe. Care is estimated to employ some eight million people, representing about 5% of the overall workforce. The vast majority of care workers, 88.2%, are women.

Dear Readers, We have just published the September 2019 edition of the ETUC newsletter. To read the document, please click here. Enjoy!

A sustainable economy, quality jobs, climate action, fair minimum wages, ethical digitalisation and fair mobility and migration are among the subjects on which trade unions have urged MEPs to grill prospective European Commissioners over the next two weeks. From today, MEPs will be quizzing each member of Ursula Von Der Leyen’s proposed team before voting on whether to approve the new Commission.

The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) says the agreement of the Interior Ministers of France, Germany, Italy and Malta on a proposed voluntary scheme to relocate across the EU migrants rescued at sea is a step towards human decency in EU migration policy, albeit one fraught with difficulties.  

Raising the retirement age in an attempt to ensure the pension system remains sustainable as life expectancy grows is “unfair and ineffectual,” ETUC leaders said today as they launched a fightback against the policy. The ETUC launched a push for fair pensions at a two-day conference in Croatia, where the government recently raised the legal retirement age from 65 to 67 only to be forced into a u-turn by trade unions who gathered over double the number of signatures required for a referendum on the issue.