The European Parliament has backed proposals to prevent platform companies from forcing workers into false self-employment. Millions of workers are being denied their right to the minimum wage, holiday and sick pay, and a secure employment contract by some platform companies dodging their responsibilities as employers.

Responding to the state of the union speech, ETUC General Secretary Luca Visentini said: “Ursula von der Leyen’s speech included all the right soundbites about the problems facing working people but was short on solutions.

European trade unions have today secured a third major victory this year against Uber’s exploitation of drivers, showing the urgent need for the EU to end the scandal of false self-employment by platform companies. In a case brought by the FNV trade union on behalf of Uber drivers, the Court of Amsterdam ruled that “the legal relationship between Uber and these drivers meets all the characteristics of an employment contract.”

Trade unions are renewing calls on the European Commission to support a patent waiver for Covid-19 vaccines at the World Trade Organisation after Australian

The European Commission has published a disappointingly vague Annual Strategic Foresight Report that fails to clearly put people at the heart of its long-term thinking. While the report addresses general mega trends, it misses the crucial and human fact of the need for social progress and justice, and jobs. This is vital for managing the climate and technological changes ahead in a just and inclusive way.   The report only mentions closer participation with unions and employers in relation to training and needs to go well beyond that.  

The European Parliament’s co-rapporteurs Kira Marie Peter-Hansen (Greens / EFA) and Samira Rafaela (Renew) have today published their Joint Draft Report in a move to improve the Gender Pay Transparency Directive.

Today’s ruling by the European Court of Justice is disappointing and undermines the European Commission’s flagship commitment to ‘an economy that works for people’ warns the ETUC.  

ETUC is delighted to announce new Deputy General Secretary Claes-Mikael Ståhl, who started at ETUC today. Claes-Mikael is Swedish and has worked for Swedish blue-collar union LO since 2007, primarily on collective bargaining.   He has EU experience having worked in Brussels from 2003 to 2006, first for the EU Office of the Swedish Trade Unions and then for the ETUC. He has just moved to Brussels with his wife and two children.

Workers who benefit from collective bargaining enjoy up to two weeks extra paid holiday per year, an analysis of EU data for the ETUC has found as millions prepare to return to work after the summer break. Ten more days holiday on top of the legal minimum is enjoyed by German and Croatian workers whose working conditions are set through negotiations by trade unions and employers. 

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently issued a very worrying report on climate change, tracing fingerprints of manmade pollution across the changing climate. The reports clearly shows “that every fraction of warming makes the planet less safe – and that every bit of action contributes to a safer future.”

The global trade union movement has lost one of its giants with the passing of AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.

Workers receiving poverty-level pay are among 35 million of the poorest Europeans who can’t afford a summer holiday, ETUC research has found amid the campaign to strengthen the EU’s wages directive. While access to holidays has grown over the last decade, the majority of low income families remain excluded. Overall, 28% of EU citizens can’t afford a one week holiday away from home – but that rises to 59.5 for people whose income is below the at-risk-of-poverty threshold (60% of the median).

The European Commission’s proposal to make working people foot the cost of the green transition by raising the price of petrol and household energy risks creating a Gilets Jaunes-style backlash against urgently-needed climate action. Workers facing an increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events know better than anyone the need to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, so European trade unions support the more ambitious climate action contained in the Fit for 55 package launched today.