The European Commission, Governments, employers and trade unions today agreed at a conference organised by the Austrian Presidency in Vienna to extend their collaboration to fight work-related cancers .
The initiative aimed at sharing workplace practices that prevent exposure to carcinogens in the workplace was launched in Amsterdam in May 2016 with ETUC, BusinessEurope, the European Commission, the European Agency for Safety & Health at Work and two EU countries (Netherlands and Austria).
Dear readers,
We’re pleased to publish the latest edition of Workers’ Voice National UPdates, demonstrating how national and sectoral trade union organisations in different countries and industries are taking a constructive role in promoting social progress and justice in Europe, often working in cooperation with employers, governments and civil society organisations. In this issue, trade union activities range from brightening the lives of disadvantaged children to tackling intercommunal misunderstandings.
Commenting on Jean-Claude Juncker’s State of the Union speech, Luca Visentini, General Secretary of the European Trade Union said “We strongly support President Juncker’s call for the Pillar of Social Rights to be put into EU law, but social justice deserved far more than one sentence in the State of the Union speech.”
Commission President Juncker's State of the Union speech is due to take place on Wednesday 12 September 2018, and the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) urges him to deliver strong proposals on the future of Europe, to restore social justice, ahead of the EU elections.
ETUC General Secretary Luca Visentini calls for a wide European alliance between parties, politicians, social partners and civil society organisations, to support democratic values and tackle populism, nationalism and racism.
The ETUC calls for pension savings to be fully protected in the proposal for Pan-European Personal Pension which will now go to negotiations between the EU Institutions, following the vote in the EP’s Economic Affairs Committee earlier this week.
The Committee failed to ensure that PEPP providers would be required to guarantee workers’ pension savings when investing them on the financial market.
While welcoming the end of the EU’s Stability Support programme for Greece, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) warns that Greece’s problems are far from over, and needs a recovery plan to tackle unemployment, low wages and poverty.
The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) supports the striking workers in Ryanair and their trade union organisations.
“Workers throughout the EU are sick and tired of employers who don't play fair and who try to undermine hard fought for rights by picking and choosing between national employment legislation” said Luca Visentini, General Secretary of the ETUC.
The European Trade Union Confederation is gravely concerned by reports that far-right forces in the US, led by discredited former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, are planning to disrupt the 2019 European elections and work to destroy European integration.
Said ETUC General Secretary Luca Visentini: “We deplore any attempt to undermine European democracy, in particular coming from outsiders who have no interest in the welfare of European countries and their peoples.
The General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation Luca Visentini, the General Secretaries of the Italian trade unions CGIL, CISL and UIL – Susanna Camusso, Annamaria Furlan and Carmelo Barbagallo – met with Italian Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio in Rome today.
With news of another 100 refugees drowned in the Mediterranean off the coast of Libya, and claims that a rescue ship was unable to assist because Malta will not let it enter port to refuel, coming just a day after the EU Summit that emphasised border control and preventing “illegal crossings”, Luca Visentini, General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation, said
“The Mediterranean is becoming a mass grave while EU leaders are scoring points to take home instead of finding real solutions.
Four global mega trends that are radically changing the world of work – decarbonisation, digitalisation, globalisation and demographic change - cannot simply be left to the market and will bring changes that need to be anticipated and managed together, warn the European Trade Union Confederation and Institute (ETUC and ETUI).
Ahead of this week’s European Council meeting, the Directors General of BusinessEurope and the CBI, Markus Beyrer and Carolyn Fairbairn, and the General Secretaries of the ETUC and the TUC, Luca Visentini and Frances O’Grady have issued an unprecedented joint statement urging faster progress. The organisations, which together represent 45 million workers and 20 million employers across Europe, met for the first time in London on 15 June to discuss Brexit.
