12.10.2018 Circular

Call to Action : TPWCD letter meps on compromise amendments

Brussels 12/10/2018

Dear MEPs,

The vote in the Employment Committee on the Transparent and Predictable Working Conditions Directive is taking place next Thursday. It is one of the legislative proposals making the European Pillar of Social Rights tangible for working people in Europe.

The ETUC insists on the utmost importance of this Directive. It is a piece of legislation, which can make a difference for working people if drafted in the right manner. The ETUC considers that the work which was done by the different groups in the EP so far does take the Commissions proposal a good step forward, but that some last-minute improvements are still crucial.

Please take into consideration the following key demands:

  • The scope of the Directive needs to be the broadest possible to increase the protection. 
  • Therefore, the ETUC is against any kind of exemption, if this is for parts of the public sector from Chapter III, self-employed or workers with few working hours (Article 1 and recitals). The exclusion of genuinely self-employed in a recital can be accepted if “freelancers” (which means economically dependent self-employed under the ILO) are added in the list of workers covered by Recital 7 b (new).
  • In Article 1 par.2 the wording needs to be changed to “These rights shall furthermore apply to a person who for a certain period performs work and or services …” to ensure that all different kind of working realities, particularly future ones, are covered by the scope.
  • The worker should receive the information on the first day of work whatever the size of the company.
  • For the ETUC it is crucial to ban the 0-hour type contracts on European level to send a strong signal to the national level that those precarious practices are not acceptable. To reinforce this idea, the amendments ensuring limits to the precarity and unpredictability of those kind of contracts are paramount (Article 9).

The ETUC is convinced that the EP will vote on a very strong text allowing for constructive trialogue discussions.

Yours sincerely,

Esther Lynch

ETUC Confederal Secretary