ETUC tells European Finance Ministers not to put the full burden of adjustment to globalisation on workers’s shoulders!
On 6 December, European finance ministers will discuss the consequences of globalisation. The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) invites finance ministers to restore workers’ support for Europe by providing a balanced answer to workers’ concerns over ‘délocalisation’. Finance ministers should not make the mistake of using globalisation as an alibi to undermine workers’ rights and social protection.
"Globalisation should be about moving the European economy higher up the value added chain. Allowing firms to fire workers overnight and pushing unemployed people to accept poverty jobs acts in conflict with workers upgrading themselves into better jobs. It only serves to make big business profits even bigger while spreading massive insecurity within the workforce," says John Monks, General Secretary of the ETUC.
The ETUC recognises that globalisation does offer opportunities for improving living standards. But globalisation also has the potential of deeply dividing society by creating some winners and many losers. To make globalisation work for all, workers need stronger rights enabling them to address the process of change in a positive way. This implies:
1 Information and consultation: European directives on information and consultation and on European Works Councils need to be improved so that workers’ representatives are able to contribute effectively to the management of change as well as to the timely identification of future challenges.
2 Adequate job protection and prior notification: Advance notification provides workers with a head start in searching for and finding a new and better job, as well as the time that is required to prepare them for this process.
3 A right to positive re-insertion in the labour market: Every retrenched worker should have the right to readjustment. In Sweden and Finland for example, social partner funds finance job counselling, retraining and job experience (‘stages’) in other firms from the moment a worker gets a notice of retrenchment.
4 Access to further training for all workers: Less skilled workers run a higher risk of facing job restructuring while having limited access to continuous vocational training. In many member states, collective bargaining agreements address this market failure by organising (sectoral) training funds that provide all workers with the right of access to training.
5 Social insurance: Adequate unemployment benefits are essential to finance job search and retraining, so that skilled workers are matched to productive jobs.
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