The living standards of European workers have still not recovered from the cost-of-living crisis, a major new trade union report on the state of the European economy has found.The real compensation of workers in the EU, which represents pay after inflation is taken into account, fell by 0.7% in 2023, according to Benchmarking Working Europe 2024, the European Trade Union Institute’s flagship annual report. 

Brussels, 20 March 2024 [Check against delivery]   There can be no doubt about the need for action. 

Young workers need certainty that the Directive on Traineeships, proposed today by the European Commission, will effectively ban unpaid internships.  The European Parliament has voted a number of times for unpaid traineeships to be banned – trade unions now call on Members of the European Parliament to ensure that measure is included in the final directive.

The increasingly rapid de-industrialisation of Europe is laid bare by new trade union research which finds almost a million manufacturing jobs have been lost over the last four years.   An analysis of Eurostat data by the European Trade Union Institute has found that the number of people employed in manufacturing has fallen by 853,000 since the third quarter of 2019. 

Today, many companies use legal loopholes, making human rights violations the norm rather than the exception in supply chains around the world. It leaves the victims of crimes committed by these companies – workers and communities – trapped in a legal maze seeking justice. Workers are raising their voices, demanding a role in securing supply chains. 

Today's vote by Member States in the Council unblocks the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, paving the way for a dramatic improvement in respect for the human rights of millions of workers in the supply chains of businesses operating in the EU.

Millions of people working through digital platforms are set to finally obtain minimum wages, sick pay and other employment protections following the adoption of the platform work directive today by EU member states.  Trade unions were successful in including the presumption of employment with the reversal of the burden of proof. Instead of individual workers going through lengthy court processes to prove they are a worker, it will now be up to the platform corporations to prove they are not employees. 

Trade unions are challenging European governments to start matching their words on International Women’s Day with action on gender equality. Politicians from across Europe will today post messages celebrating international women’s day despite many recently watering down the EU directive on combatting violence against women. In a letter to the ambassadors of all member states, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) remind them that “gender equality has to be fought every day of the year.”

The European Central Bank has chosen to maintain interest rates at their record high levels today, citing wage increases.  Real wages have fallen for two consecutive years while real profits have increased, so any objective assessment of inflation finds that it has been driven by profits not wages. The real compensation of workers in the EU, which represents pay after inflation is taken into account, fell by 0.7 per cent in 2023.

The political agreement reached last night at trilogue on banning forced labour products is an important step forward. 

The catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza requires urgent action. In the face of recent developments, the EU must help avert further loss of civilian life. The ETUC calls on the EU to increase, speed up and ensure full delivery of funding and to redouble all efforts to ensure that lifesaving humanitarian aid, on the scale that is needed, is safely and urgently delivered. The EU should encourage governments who have suspended aid to immediately restore and increase humanitarian funding. 

The ETUC is increasingly concerned about the inability of the Council to agree political compromises. The latest example is the failure by governments to adopt the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive.  Governments still have a two-week window to show political courage. The ETUC is calling for a vote in favour before the end of the European Parliament’s current mandate. 

Amazon lobbyists have been banned from the European Parliament after refusing to attend a hearing on the appalling working conditions in its warehouses. At the hearing in January, MEPs heard from workers how they are “considered robots” tasked with achieving impossible productivity targets under constant surveillance. 

National governments have reduced the top up of the EU budget until 2027 from an initial objective of €100 billion to €65 billion. The review of the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), adopted yesterday by the EU, determines EU funding up to the end of 2027. The ETUC warns that EU funding to support working people through the digital and environmental transitions, to research and to strengthening care systems is facing severe cuts. Frugal Europe

Employers and some governments who use vexatious legal threats to try and stop strikes and gag workers and trade unions could be fined in future under a new EU directive given final approval by the European Parliament today.

The deaths of more than 30 construction workers on building sites across Europe over the last four months show the urgent need for EU action to raise safety standards in the sector.  The spate of fatal accidents involves many cross-border and migrant workers, who are more vulnerable to exploitation through subcontracting, undeclared or illegal work, and bogus self-employment.  The number of fatal accidents across construction is increasing across Europe, according to the latest data from Eurostat, however many also go unreported.  

The European Commission has published details of the positive impact of public investment - on the same day that the Council is to sign-off on austerity rules which would severely reduce future public investment. 

Overwhelming majority of EU member states have been held back in bringing in protections for delivery riders, taxi drivers and carers among others. Millions of workers will continue to be forced into false self-employment after a small number of national governments torpedoed the chance to find a deal on the platform work directive. Exactly 799 days since the Commission proposal, representatives of the French, German, Greek and Estonian governments vetoed the agreement found in trilogue negotiations between the EU institutions last week.

Europe’s weakening economy shows we cannot afford record interest rates or a return to austerity, trade unions are warning in response to the European Commission’s latest forecast. The  Winter 2024 Economic Forecast published today by the European Commission states:

The ETUC congratulates Judith Kirton-Darling on her appointment as General Secretary of industriAll Europe, as well as Isabelle Barthès as Deputy General Secretary. Having jointly led the organisation since May 2023, the industriAll Europe Executive Committee today confirmed her as General Secretary to lead the organisation until the end of the current mandate period in May 2025.

Trade unions and employers today agreed measures designed to end the gridlock in European social dialogue and better address joint challenges like climate change and digitalisation. The appointment of a social dialogue envoy within the European Commission is part of the plans to increase cooperation set out in the declaration agreed at the Val Duchesse summit today.  

Dear Readers, We have just published the January 2024 edition of the ETUC newsletter. To read the document, please click here. Enjoy!

Failure to deliver on a promise to improve protection from cancer-causing asbestos will have serious consequences for the health of people and democracy, trade unions have warned the European Commission President. In a letter sent to Ursula von der Leyen today, unions remind her that a commitment to deliver legislation on the screening and registration of asbestos in European buildings was included in the Commission’s work programme for 2023.

Responding to the European Central Bank's decision to keep interest rates at record levels, European Trade Union Confederation General Secretary Esther Lynch said: “Record interest rates are piling unnecessary financial pressure on working people and risk pushing the economy into a job-destroying recession.” “That is a high price to pay for a policy which economists have said is not actually bringing down inflation.

The European Labour Authority (ELA) needs more powers and resources to properly tackle the exploitation of cross-border workers, the ETUC will tell policymakers today. Non-payment of wages, social security fraud, health and safety breaches and poor-quality accommodation are among the most common rights violations faced by some of Europe’s 10 million mobile workers.