The General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), Esther Lynch, urged this Thursday at the Forum Europa in Brussels to strengthen collective bargaining and for workers to have access to unions.
In the breakfast briefing organised by New Economy Forum in the EU capital, Lynch rejected that there are companies that hire workers who are not covered by a collective agreement and may compete unfairly.
She called for strengthening collective bargaining and ensuring that unions can have a presence in the workplace and can reach workers. “All decisions are better through collective bargaining", Lynch stressed, but she added that such bargaining will be genuine if workers have access to unions and vice versa. “European democracy also involves being part of your union,” she said.
However, she also criticized that there are “anti-union” practices that are making their way in Europe and that “should be eliminated.” She pointed out that collective actions “should not be prohibited” and called for raising the percentage of workers covered by collective agreements to 80%. “I see that business leaders here know the value of social dialogue and the value of collective bargaining,” she said, and immediately asked that they know the value of unions and not turn social dialogue into a “lobby” leaving them out of the work centers.
The General Secretary of the ETUC deemed it necessary to review the EU public procurement directives so that public money does not go to “companies that undermine” and try to compete with “ruthless” wages and poor working conditions.
“What we need to do is make sure our public money works for us to achieve social goals,” she said. At this point, she referred to collective agreements with “fair” conditions and the ability to “fight for a fair wage” that “respects” the worker and the work they do.
Thus, Lynch also defended regulating the role of labour intermediaries and introducing a limit on subcontracting that sometimes prevents workers from knowing who their ultimate employer is. “It is a legal loophole that we have to close because it is a threat,” she added in this regard.
Finally, after the European elections were held, Lynch expressed his “great hopes” that in the new mandate decisions will be made that bring prosperity to Europe and took the opportunity to ask businesspeople to invest in the green and digital transition to ensure that there will be no cuts in the future.
The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) urges to strengthen collective bargaining
