The General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), Esther Lynch, warned on Tuesday at the Forum Europa in Brussels that minimum wages “are not rising fast enough” in Europe.
“This is a problem that affects us all. The wages of many workers are simply not high enough,” Lynch emphasised at the briefing organised by New Economy Forum in the EU capital. She pointed out that, to address these shortcomings, Europe has a directive on minimum wages, which aims to ensure that the lowest incomes reach an adequate level, taking into account the cost of housing and food.
Despite this, the ETUC General Secretary admitted that “the current situation is such” that it is “impossible” for a worker on the minimum wage to afford housing in many European cities, even with two minimum wages in the household.
The inability to access housing “constitutes a crisis for Europe” and is exacerbated by the fact that many workers earn wages that make it difficult to “meet basic needs such as food or energy, invest in themselves and their families, save, buy a car, purchase essential goods or even have a coffee in a city centre”.
On the other hand, and with regard to the directive, Lynch pointed out that Member States with a collective bargaining coverage rate of less than 80 per cent were required to draw up an action plan to promote it, but “unfortunately” these countries “are only now beginning to sit down to negotiate”.
Lynch indicated that the ETUC will assess whether the most reluctant Member States are making progress on this issue and warned that if the collective bargaining coverage rate remains stagnant, they will ask the European Commission to initiate infringement proceedings.
“That is what we must do, because the law must be obeyed. You cannot choose which laws to apply and which not to. We are not in the United States; here you cannot arbitrarily decide which rules to follow. In Europe, we enforce the law. Consequently, as this is a legal provision, Member States are obliged to comply with it", she emphasised.
Lynch also commented that she meets regularly with the President of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde, to assess the price situation and its impact on workers lives.
The ESC’s General Secretary emphasised that the ECB’s tools, including its decisions on interest rates, “are not the answer to this problem”, as the root cause is not that people “have too much money, but that prices are rising”.
“It is not that prices rise because people have so much money, but rather that they rise for other reasons,” she explained. In Lynch’s view, using interest rates as a solution “only serves to push prices up further” and to “take more money out of people’s pockets”.
Given her view that monetary policy is ineffective, Lynch pointed out that “we need someone brave enough to introduce new measures”. She also expressed support for “some form of price control”, because “that is precisely what is needed”.
Lynch also commented on the forthcoming Quality Employment Act being prepared by the European Union (EU). The ETUC has been involved in the consultation stages, and its General Secretary stated on Tuesday that “it does not bring the necessary changes” to protect workers.
She added that they would continue to discuss issues relating to work-related stress, the challenges posed by AI, and abuses in the subcontracting of workers. The ETUC General Secretary also pointed out that the legislation must address climate-related issues to protect workers and their right to stop work, without any loss of pay, in the event of extreme weather conditions.
“We know that working temperatures are set to rise every year. We must respond to this by ensuring health and safety rights so that no one has to work in unsafe conditions”, emphasised Lynch, who called for all workplace variables to be taken into account. She also stressed that the future legislation must serve to protect women in the workplace, particularly against the manipulation of their privacy through AI-generated images.
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