Brussels, 07/07/2010
Thank you for the invitation to come along today with my trade union and social partner colleagues.
This is an important moment. It’s the worst economic crisis in Western Europe since the Second World War - I do recognise that there have been worse crises in Eastern Europe.
The stimulus packages are being withdrawn, austerity is a near universal European fashion, and the fragile recovery is at risk. Governments are following the example of their predecessors in the 1930s.
Europe arguably is in the worst growth position of the major powers in the world with low growth prospects, rising unemployment and a special problem about youth unemployment; this is a miserable time for a young person to be leaving school or college.
Europe arguably is in the worst growth position of the major powers in the world with low growth prospects, rising unemployment and a special problem about youth unemployment; this is a miserable time for a young person to be leaving school or college.
The ETUC in agreement with our social partners has recently produced an agreement on EU 2020. That calls, importantly, for growth policies, new industrial policies, an emphasis on low carbon and green technology development and support for research and development. That agreement was welcomed by the European Commission but there is little evidence that it is leading to any action.
Instead – and the background notes for this meeting confirm this impression.
• The debate of employment ministers seems to be mainly about increasing the ‘supply’ side of labour: Active labour market policies to get people into a job and raising retirement age to address the longer term ageing problem. Limited recognition of the fact that, right now, there’s excess labour supply and a massive lack of ‘demand’ for labour. High unemployment, wage freezes and cuts, cuts in benefits, extended retirement ages, weaker employment protection – these are today’s realities and therefore the real agenda for us.
• In the (small) paragraph where it is said that the constraint ‘may’ also be on the labour demand side, the solution proposed is unsatisfactory (the ‘development of entrepreneurship and SME’s in green and white sectors’). Moreover, immediately the idea of ‘reforms of labour and tax systems’ is injected, thereby bringing the discussion on ‘labour demand’ back to the supply side of the labour market.
• Whereas ‘entrepreneurship’ is promoted, it sometimes seems that labour is to be disciplined. At least that is what I think is the meaning of ‘appropriate wage setting frameworks and labour cost developments to be monitored’.
‘Labour market reform to remove the bottlenecks to growth and competitiveness’: is this another way of saying there are enough jobs out there if only rigid labour markets and workers’ rights would be ‘flexibilised’.
• ‘Labour market reform to remove the bottlenecks to growth and competitiveness’: is this another way of saying there are enough jobs out there if only rigid labour markets and workers’ rights would be ‘flexibilised’.
• The impression is that there has been nothing wrong with the policy advice of the last decades, it simply needs to be implemented and social partners (trade unions) are invited to give political back up to the drive for deregulation.
All of this gives the impression of an agenda hostile to the interests of labour. Illustrating this is the fact that ‘quality of labour’ has simply disappeared from the agenda or is treated as the responsibility of individual workers (‘if you want good working conditions, don’t bother your employer but get an education!’) The previous Belgian presidency back in 2001 took up a leading role to put ‘quality of labour’ back on the table. That must not disappear today. And the European Commission is apparently promoting higher retirement ages, a careless step which will only deepen Euroscepticism and hostility.
This partial view cannot continue if the EU is to be convincing in future. Social and Labour ministers – and DG Employment - urgently need to stand up and act as a counter veiling force against the financial lobby instead of accommodating the volatile desires of the irrational financial market place and its actors. We bailed them out; yet they are back to bonuses and dividends as usual even though many continue to be vulnerable as the stress tests might show. Labour ministers must be on our side; the side of the real economy and jobs.