Europe must create high-road debate around competitiveness and improve workers’ conditions rather than just discussing cutting costs, says Judith Kirton-Darling, General Secretary at trade union IndustriAll Europe.
Accidents in Europe’s leather sector have decreased in recent years, while new methodologies to assess its lifecycle carbon footprint is helping the industry in its green transition.
On International Workers’ Day, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD/S&D) and trade union representatives have voiced opposition to calls by business leaders and pro-business parties for longer working hours and to increase the retirement age.
The omission of emails from the Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs to Bolt and other mobility tech firms, demanded in a freedom of information (FOI) request, was due to human error, the Ministry's Deputy Secretary General Sandra Särav told Estonian news agency ERR.
The European Parliament overwhelmingly approved a watered-down version of the EU's long-awaited platform work directive at a plenary on Wednesday (24 April), ending two years of intense negotiations with 554 votes in favour and 56 against.
As the long-term growth potential of the German economy has declined substantially over the past years and decades, longer working hours and later retirement were needed to increase growth, business leaders said on Tuesday (16 April).
Long subcontracting chains lock workers out of rights, and lock injustices in, European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) General Secretary Esther Lynch said during a debate on abusive subcontracting practices in Europe.
When done abusively to cut costs and circumvent regulations, subcontracting is detrimental to both the subcontracted workers and local workforces who end up approaching the negotiating table from weaker positions, says a leading European trade unionist.
EU countries finally adopted the platform work directive at a meeting of EU labour ministers on Monday (11 March), after Estonia and Greece, which had abstained in the past, voted in favour “in the spirit of compromise”.
As EU ambassadors were due to meet on Friday (8 March) to try to agree again a provisional deal on the platform work directive, France circulated a set of changes it wants to make to the text, throwing another spanner in the works for the ill-starred file.
The German government hopes to secure the long-term financing of its pension system with a new capital stock of up to €200 billion, which should be invested in global markets and yield €10 billion annually starting from 2036.
EU negotiators reached a deal on Tuesday morning (5 March) on a new regulation aiming to ban products linked to forced labour from the bloc’s market, with potential implications for agricultural and food commodities produced in and outside the bloc.
The Belgian Presidency failed to garner the necessary support from member states to agree a new platform work directive on Friday (16 February), effectively shelving the proposal, after more than two years of negotiations.
“When we give vast amounts of taxpayers’ money to private industry, we should be ensuring they are creating quality jobs that make this collective investment worthwhile."
Negotiators from the European Commission, Council and Parliament struck a deal on the Platform Work Directive - for the second time - on Thursday (8 February), with all eyes now on member states, who have been asked to rubberstamp it on Friday.
“We have to make sure that we work on reindustrialisation before our history has disappeared, and that is really why we have to act now."
Following failed interinstitutional negotiations over the platform work directive last week, the Belgium Presidency circulated yet another draft text, which significantly waters down the file’s flagship chapter on the legal presumption of employment.
The Belgian Presidency of the Council of the EU has circulated a new draft text of the platform work directive, which should be the basis for technical negotiations among member states on Tuesday (16 January), amid persistent divisions about the directive's scope.
Last month, a coalition of EU countries blocked the provisional agreement on the Platform Workers Directive. But while the Belgian EU Council presidency wants to use the political deal as the starting point for future discussion, Paris wants a more comprehensive file reshaping.
Member states’ ambassadors failed to find a majority over a platform work directive deal struck last week, dealing a heavy blow to the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU and raising concerns the file may not get through before the end of the mandate.
Welcome to Euractiv’s weekly Economy Brief. You can subscribe to the newsletter here. France's political imbroglio over its immigration bill on Monday has resulted in an ambitious mechanism to grant one-year automatic visas to irregular workers being dropped. …
The representatives of the main EU institutions reached a provisional agreement over the Platform Workers Directive in the early hours of Wednesday (13 December) after almost two years of strenuous negotiations.
Companies are doing a disservice to themselves by increasing requirements for entry-level tech positions, the CEO of an education and skilling NGO told Euractiv in an interview.
With countries and companies lamenting ongoing skills and labour shortages, experts argue that part of the problem is not a lack of workers - but an unwillingness on the part of employers to provide better working conditions.
