The new impetus for Social Europe of the past five years has led to important and long-awaited policy initiatives, including on minimum wages, platform work and corporate due diligence. However, progress in this field remains both fragile and fragmented. The key question now is whether this social paradigm shift can be upheld in the face of the high risk of an austerity reload and in a context of continued “polycrises”.
German workers support the transition towards climate neutrality, but do not want to move to a different place or obtain a job with lower pay for it, a new survey found.
Freelance interpreters in Belgium are organising to demand fair pay and improved working conditions against language service providers, building on the new European Commission’s guidelines, which allow individual self-employed workers to organise and negotiate collectively.
The heads of the European trade unions and the European business associations urged EU leaders for more support to help workers and businesses to withstand high energy prices at a meeting on Wednesday (19 October).
EU ministers approved the directive on adequate minimum wages on Tuesday (4 October), starting the two-year implementation process for member states. Meanwhile, trade unions argue for faster implementation due to the cost of living crisis.
Two years after its initiative to ease collective bargaining for self-employed workers, the European Commission published new guidelines to allow collective bargaining for solo self-employed people under EU competition rules.
What is the EU's minimum wage directive about? Our economy editor János Allenbach-Ammann explains how the directive aims to increase minimum wages and collective bargaining across the EU.
Trade unions reached an agreement with business associations on a work programme for the social dialogue 2022-2024 that should include legally binding measures to regulate telework and institute a right to disconnect on a European level.
In a success for the French presidency of the EU Council, negotiators from the EU Parliament, member state governments, and the EU Commission reached an agreement on the minimum wage directive.
Swedish trade unions cannot support EU wage legislation, and the issue risks undermining support for the EU project, argues Torbjörn Johansson.
Two weeks after the European Parliament agreed its negotiating position on the minimum wage directive, a large majority of national ministers also agreed on a common position, with the only dissent coming from Denmark and Hungary.
The European Parliament is set to adopt a text that would be a huge step towards delivering a living wage to millions across the EU – but the directive’s future is now in question as a group of Nordic MEPs try to stop it in its tracks, writes Alva Finn.
As efforts to level the playing field between publishers and platforms gather steam around the world, collective bargaining approaches are also attracting support.
Trade unions and other labour supporters are continuing their push for greater worker involvement in company decisions, now labelling this as an effort for “more democracy at work.” They want to see this topic play a larger role on the …
After the COVID-19 pandemic shone a spotlight on working conditions in meat plants, Germany is moving to tighten rules in a bid to afford workers more job security, but this has been met with criticism by the meat industry. EURACTIV Germany reports.
In the current negotiations over a new loan package for Greece, collective bargaining and worker rights have been in the spotlight. But expert opinion in favour of these tools is being ignored by Greece’s lenders, warn Jan Willem Goudriaan and Richard Pond.
The erosion of the middle class is worrying, because it particularly hurts young people, thus leading to an intergenerational gap. But it is even more worrisome, as it does not seem to have been taken seriously enough so far, said ILO senior economist Daniel Vaughan-Whitehead.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras presented a 47-page list of reforms in the context of negotiations with Jean-Claude Juncker. The list contains many recommendations – especially those that have been rejected by donors.
The report Benchmarking Working Europe 2014 reviews the crisis and EU austerity policies in the last five years from the point of view of Europe's social agenda.
The European labour market is being overhauled in a thorough 'individualist' revolution that is moving workers away from fixed-term contracts and towards collaboration and subordination, argues Denis Pennel.
Eurozone governments panicked at the onset of the Greek crisis and now there is a real risk that austerity measures, hastily adopted, might prompt a double-dip recession, John Monks, secretary-general of the European Trade Union Confederation, told EURACTIV in an interview.
Under the threat of an economic downturn, trade unions and employers adopted a harsher tone at their bi-annual meeting with the current and forthcoming Council presidencies.
A series of attacks by European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet on collective bargaining agreements that adapt wages to increased costs of living have been strongly criticised by trade unions throughout the EU.
