Trade unions are calling on the European Commission to name a date for the promised directive on corporate responsibility as a new report reveals rising levels of abuse in workplaces across the world. Attacks on civil liberties like arbitrary arrests and detention of workers, along with limits on the right to assembly or to join a trade union, have reached an eight year high during the pandemic, according to the new Global Rights Index released today by the International Trade Union Confederation.

The European Commission has today joined trade unions in calling on member states to address health and safety failures putting workers’ lives at risk – but stopped short of taking real action themselves. 

Treaty change must be on the table in the Conference of the Future of Europe if the process is to have a meaningful outcome, ETUC General Secretary Luca Visentini has warned EU leaders today. Speaking at a high-level ETUC event on the conference alongside its executive board co-chairs Guy Verhofstadt and Ana Paula Zacarias, Visentini said it must move past institutional “process” which has caused delays and focus on delivering “ambitious content” that can reconnect Europe with working people.

All three ETUC-affiliated trade unions in Italy (CIGL - CISL - UIL) are holding joint demonstrations all over the country on Saturday 26 June

Employers using software to monitor workers’ every movement are likely to be in breach of EU privacy laws, trade unions warn today as they launch a new report on artificial intelligence at work. The use of surveillance programmes which allow management to monitor every mouse movement and keyboard stroke of their workers – or even access their webcam and microphone – has grown during confinement.

Strasbourg, 19 June 2021 Thank you chair. The European trade unions and workers support this Conference and are highly committed to contribute to shaping a fairer European Union that takes care of people. When this process was launched there was a need to reconnect citizens to institutions, to overcome inequalities and social exclusion as consequences of the financial crisis and austerity policies, to cope with the challenges of climate change and digitalisation, to rebuild European democracy.

Influential MEPs have today committed to improving the Gender Pay Transparency Directive at a trade union protest for equal pay outside the European Parliament. Evelyn Regner, shadow rapporteur and Chair of the Women’s Rights and Gender Equality Committee, symbolically launched the ETUC “Equal pay needs trade unions” pledge, committing to secure the right of workers to bargain collectively for equal pay through trade unions. Rapporteur Kira Peter-Hansen and shadow rapporteur Marc Angel committed by video to support the pledge.

Dear readers, In this issue of Workers’ Voice – National Updates we highlight how trade unions in different European countries are responding to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic by focusing on the future of work in areas such as remote and teleworking, the right to disconnect, or obtaining extra payment for the remarkable efforts of social and health carers and other workers over the last year. Elsewhere, unions are winning recognition and challenging union-busting, working for equal pay or a four-day week. 

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) today stated that the right to strike takes precedence over the ‘economic freedoms’ of the single market.   The ECtHR held that Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights which protects the right to strike had not been breached by Norway’s Supreme Court when it ruled unlawful industrial action by dock workers to protect their pay and working conditions.

Workers in half of EU member states are being deprived of the statutory minimum wage based on their age, occupation or because they are workers with disability, ETUC research has found.Workers are most commonly excluded from statutory minimum wages and are paid below-minimum rates based on age discrimination, with 8 member states deducting up to 70% of the real rate for under-21s.​An 18-year-old working full time in the Netherlands would earn just 10.917 Euro in a year instead of the 21.835 Euro minimum (excluding vacation payments).

Leaders of European and Spanish trade unions today told the European Commission to stop using negotiations over Spain’s national recovery plan to frustrate reforms of workers’ rights and pensions.   ETUC general secretary Luca Visentini and UGT general secretary Pepe Álvarez, who also spoke on behalf of the CCOO, held an online meeting with Commission vice-president Valdis Dombrovskis to discuss his recent comments regarding Spanish government plans for progressive labour and pension reforms as part of its national recovery plan.

Responding to the economic guidance provided to member states by the European Commission today as part of its European Semester Spring Package, ETUC Confederal Secretary Liina Carr said: “Unprecedented levels of public investment supported by the EU are returning growth to Europe’s economy, in contrast to the decade-long fallout from the austerity measures taken following the last crisis.

The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) condemns the threats and insults by Bosnian Serb politician Milorad Dodik against journalist Tanja Topic. Currently a member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dodik called the journalist a German agent and ‘quisling’. It is the latest in his campaign of threats and insults against journalists who is he disagrees with.