24 Amendments of Agnes JONGERIUS related to 2020/0030(NLE)
Amendment 46 #
Proposal for a decision
Recital 1 a (new)
Recital 1 a (new)
(1a) Europe is facing an unprecedented crisis with unforeseen consequences on people's lives, on society and the economy. The Union and the Member States have to do their outmost to contain the economic and social shock of the crisis, prevent massive job losses, and a deep recession, and to develop a sustainable and fair recovery plan with robust investment to strengthen social security and healthcare systems and make society and the economy more resilient while respecting workers’ rights and decent working and employment conditions. The European Green Deal and the European Pillar of Social Rights should be the guidelines for the economic and social recovery strategy to be monitored by the European Semester.
Amendment 54 #
Proposal for a decision
Recital 2
Recital 2
(2) The Union is to combat social exclusion and discrimination and promote social justice and protection, as well as equality between women and men, solidarity between generations, the inclusion of persons with disabilities and the protection of the rights of the child and other vulnerable groups. In defining and implementing its policies and activities, the Union is to take into account requirements linked to the promotion of a high level of employmentinclusive labour markets, full employment, collective bargaining and decent wages, the guarantee of adequate social protection for all, the fight against poverty and social exclusion and, a high level of education and training as set out in Article 9 of the Treaty on the Funnd the protectioning of the European Unionhuman health.
Amendment 72 #
Proposal for a decision
Recital 5
Recital 5
(5) The European Semester combines the different instruments in an overarching framework for integrated multilateral coordination and surveillance of economic and employment policies, employment, social and environmental policies. The European Semester process should be the comprehensive governance tool to ensure a socially and economically balanced recovery. It needs to be revised together with the Annual Sustainable Growth Strategy in order to fully reflect the new situation and ensure that social, environmental and economic objectives have equal priority. While pursuing environmental sustainability, productivity, fairness and stability, the European Semester should further integrates the principles of the European Pillar of Social Rights, including stronger engagement with social partners, civil society and other stakeholders. It and supports the delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals (13 ). The Union and Member States’ employment and economic policies should go hand in hand with Europe’s transition to a climate neutral, environmentally sustainable, socially inclusive and digital economy, while improving competitiveness, fostering innovation, promoting social justice and equal opportunities as well as tackling inequalities and regional disparities. __________________ 13 UN Resolution A/RES/70/1
Amendment 80 #
Proposal for a decision
Recital 6
Recital 6
(6) Climate change and environmental related challenges, globalisation, digitalisation and demographic change willare transforming European economies and societies. The Union and its Member States should work together to effectively address these structural factors and adapt existing systems as needed, draw lessons from past and the current crises and adapt existing systems to strengthen resilience and sustainability, recognising the close interdependence of the Member States’ economies and, labour markets and related policies. This requires a coordinated, ambitious and effective policy action at both Union and national levels involving social partners at all levels, in accordance with the TFEU and requires a revision of the Union’s provisions on economic governance. Such policy action should encompass a boost in sustainable social and environmental investment, a renewed commitment to appropriately sequenced structural reforms that improve public services, social protection, social dialogue, productivity, economic growth, social and territorial cohesion, upward convergence, and resilience and the exercise of fiscal responsibilitywhile exercising responsible fiscal flexibility as provided for through the ‘General escape clause’ activated by the Council decision of 23 March 2020. The duration of the validity of the ‘General escape clause’ has to reflect the extension, depth and symmetric origin of the sanitary and economic crisis as well as the duration of its effects, and should lead to a substantial revision of the Stability and Growth Pact, that has proven to be unfit to respond to both symmetric and asymmetric economic shocks. It should combine supply- and demand side measures, while taking into account their environmental, employment and social impact.
Amendment 91 #
Proposal for a decision
Recital 7
Recital 7
(7) The European Parliament, the Council and the Commission signed an inter-institutional proclamation for a European Pillar of Social Rights (14 ). The Pillar sets out twenty principles and rights to support well-functioning and fair labour markets and welfare systems, structured around three categories: equal opportunities and access to the labour market, fair working conditions and social protection and inclusion. The principles and rights give direction to our strategy making sure that the transitions to climate- neutrality and environmental sustainability, digitalisation and demographic change are socially fair and just. The Pillar constitutes a reference framework to monitor the employment and social performance of Member States, to drive reforms at national, regional and local level, and to reconcile the “social” and the “market” in today’s modern economy, including by promoting the social economy. The implementation of the Pillar principles will help to mitigate the economic and social impact of the COVID-19 crisis and to emerge from the crisis with a more resilient and inclusive society and economy. __________________ 14 OJ C 428, 13.12.2017, p. 10.
Amendment 95 #
Proposal for a decision
Recital 8
Recital 8
(8) RCrisis response and recovery measures, reforms to the labour market, including the national wage-setting mechanisms, should followbe formulated following an adequate and meaningful social dialogue, respecting and enhancing national practices of social dialogueindustrial relations and allow the necessary opportunity for a broad consideration of socioeconomic issues, including improvements in sustainability, competitiveness, innovation, job creation, lifelong learning and training policies, working conditions, education and skills, public health and inclusion and real incomes. Member States should therefore, respect and strengthen social partners and collective bargaining, and take measures to extend the collective bargaining coverage.
Amendment 103 #
Proposal for a decision
Recital 9
Recital 9
(9) Member States and the Union should ensure that the crisis response and future transformations are fair and socially just, strengthening the drive towards an more inclusive and resilient society in which people are protected and empowered to anticipate and manage change, and in which they can actively participate in society and the economy. Discrimination in all its forms should be tackled. Access andeliminated. Everyone should be given the ability to contribute fully in society, equal opportunities for all should be ensured and poverty and social exclusion (including that of children) should be reduceradicated, in particular by ensuring adequate social investment and establishing the European Child Guarantee, an effective functioning of labour markets and of social protection systems also through the establishment of a permanent European Reinsurance Unemployment Scheme (as foreseen in the Commission working programme) without any undue delay and by removing all barriers to education, training and labour-market participation, including through investments in early childhood education and care and lifelong learning. Timely and equal access to affordable healthpublic health and social care services, including prevention and health promotion are particularly relevant in a context of ageing societies. The potential of people with disabilities to contribute to economic growth and social development should be further realised. As new economic and business models take hold in Union workplaces, employment relationships are also changing. Member States shoulAs the COVID-19 crisis also revealed, many low skilled workers are indispensable for the basic functioning of the economy. Too often they are low paid and work in precarious conditions. Member States should further strengthen Europe’s social model by ensuring that all workers have the same rights, decent working conditions, including health and safety at work and receive decent wages. Moreover, Member States should ban zero-hour contracts and bogus self-employment, and ensure that employment relationships stemming from new forms of work maintain and strengthen Europe’s social model. do not put workers in precarious employment situations.
Amendment 120 #
Proposal for a decision
Recital 10 a (new)
Recital 10 a (new)
(10a) In order to strengthen democratic decision-making, the European Parliament should be involved in defining the Integrated Guidelines on an equal footing with the Council.
Amendment 122 #
Proposal for a decision
Article 2 – paragraph 1 a (new)
Article 2 – paragraph 1 a (new)
These employment guidelines shall be fully revised no later than one year after their adoption to better reflect the effects of the outbreak of COVID-19 to support a swift economic and social recovery and to better respond to future crises.
Amendment 129 #
Proposal for a decision
Annex I – Guideline 5 – paragraph 1
Annex I – Guideline 5 – paragraph 1
Member States should actively promote a sustainable social market economy and facilitate and support investment in the creation of quality jobs. To this end, they should reduce the barriers that businesses face in hiring peopleinvest in support measures to preserve employment and to protect all types of workers, in particular those in precarious and non-standard work, cross-border workers and the self-employed, in the creation of sustainable quality jobs across all skill levels and economic sectors. To this end, they should promote full employment, foster responsible entrepreneurship and genuine self- employment and, in particular, support the creation and growth of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises, including through access to finance. Member States should actively promote the development of the social economy, foster social innovation, social enterprises, and encourage those innovative forms of work, creating quality job opportunities and generating social benefits at local level.
Amendment 145 #
Proposal for a decision
Annex I – Guideline 5 – paragraph 3
Annex I – Guideline 5 – paragraph 3
Member States having in place national mechanisms for the setting of statutory minimum wages should ensure an effective involvement of social partners in a transparent and predictable manner allowing for an adequate responsiveness of wages to productivity developments and providing fair wages for a decent standard of living, paying particular attention to lower and middle income groups with a view to upward convergence. These mechanisms should take into account economic performance across regions and sectors. Member States should promote strengthen social dialogue and collective bargaining with a view to wage setting. Respecting national practices, Member States and social partners shoultake measures to extend collective bargaining coverage. Respecting national practices and industrial relation systems, Member States and social partners should eliminate wage discrimination on the ground of age or gender, or for specific categories of workers and ensure that all workers are entitled to adequate and fair wages through collective agreements or adequatecent statutory minimum wages, taking into account their impact on competitiveness, job creation and in-work povertyincluding for those in precarious forms of employment as well as public employment.
Amendment 152 #
Proposal for a decision
Annex I – Guideline 6 – paragraph 1
Annex I – Guideline 6 – paragraph 1
In the context of the COVID-19 crisis, technological and environmental transitions, as well as demographic change, Member States should ensure proper and immediate adaptation strategies and adequate support for those worst affected, promote sustainability, productivity, employability and human capital, fostering relevant knowledge, skills and competences throughout people's lives, responding to the current crisis and future labour market needs. In particular, Member States should implement strategies to foster and enhance the participation of women in the labour market and to ensure decent working conditions for people working remotely. Member States should also adapt and invest in their education and training systems to provide high quality and inclusive education, including vocational education and training. Member States should work together with the social partners, education and training providers, enterprises and other stakeholders to address structural weaknesses in education and training systems and improve their quality and labour market relevance, also with a view to enabling the environmental transition. Particular attention should be paid to challenges of the teaching profession. Education and training systems should equip all learners with key competences, including basic and digital skills as well as transversal competences to lay the foundations for adaptability later in life. Member States should seek to ensure the transfer of training entitlements during professional career changes, including, where appropriate, through individual learning accounts. They should enable everyone to anticipate and better adapt to labour market needs notably through continuous reskilling and upskilling, with a view to supporting fair and just transitions for all, strengthening social outcomes, addressing labour market shortages and improving the overall resilience of the economy to shocks.
Amendment 165 #
Proposal for a decision
Annex I – Guideline 6 – paragraph 2
Annex I – Guideline 6 – paragraph 2
Member States should foster equal opportunities for all by addressing inequalities in education and training systems, including by providing access to good quality early childhood education. They should raise overall education levels, reduce the number of young people leaving school early, increase access to and completion of tertiary education and increase adult participation in continuing learning, particularly among learners from disadvantaged backgrounds, the least qualified. Taking into account new requirements in digital, green and ageing societies, Member States should strengthen work-based learning in their vocational education and training systems (VET) (including through quality and effective apprenticeships) and increase the number of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) graduates both in medium-level VET and in tertiary education. Furthermore, Member States should enhance the labour-market relevance of tertiary education and research, improve skills monitoring and forecasting, make skills more visible and qualifications comparable, including those acquired abroad, and increase opportunities for recognising and validatingensure recognition, validation and accreditation of, knowledge, skills and competences acquired outside formal education and training. They should upgrade and increase the supply and take-up of flexible continuing vocational education and training. Member States should also invest in jobs and social protection schemes for those who are not capable to reskill, support low skilled adults to maintain or develop their long- term employability by boosting access to and take up of quality learning opportunities, through the implementation of Upskilling Pathways, including a skills assessment, an offer of education and training matching labour market opportunities, and the validation and recognition of the skills acquired. The right to paid educational leave should be ensured.
Amendment 186 #
Proposal for a decision
Annex I – Guideline 6 – paragraph 5
Annex I – Guideline 6 – paragraph 5
Member States should ensure gender equality and increased labour market participation of women, including through ensuring equal opportunities and career progression and eliminating barriers to participation in leadership at all levels of decision-making. The gender pay, pension and employment gap should be tacklclosed. Equal pay for equal work, or work of equal value, and pay- transparency should be ensured. The reconciliation of work, family and private life for both women and men should be promoted, in particular through access to affordable quality long-term care and early childhood education and care services. Member States should ensure that parents and other people with caring responsibilities have access to suitable family leave and flexible working arrangements in order to balance work, family and private life, and promote a balanced use of these entitlements between women and men.
Amendment 191 #
Proposal for a decision
Annex I – Guideline 7 – paragraph 1
Annex I – Guideline 7 – paragraph 1
In order to benefit from a dynamic and productive workforce, new work patterns and business models, Member States should work together with the social partners on fair, transparent and predictable working conditions, health and safety at work, balancing rights and obligations. They should reduce and prevent segmentation within labour markets, fight undeclared work and bogus self- employment and foster the transition towards open-ended forms of employment. Employment protection rules, labour law and institutions should all provide both a suitable environment for recruitment, and the necessary flexibility for employers to adapt swiftly to changes in the economic context, while preserving appropriate security and healthy, safe and well-adapted working environments for workers, protectensuring labour rights and ensuring social protection. Employment relationships that lead to precarious working conditions should be prevented, including in the case of platform workers and by fighting the. There should be no abuse of atypical contracts in this regard. Access to effective and impartial dispute resolution and a right to redress, including adequate compensation, should be ensured in cases of unfair dismissal.
Amendment 197 #
Proposal for a decision
Annex I – Guideline 7 – paragraph 2
Annex I – Guideline 7 – paragraph 2
Policies should aim to improve and support labour-market participation, matching and transitions. Member States should effectively activate and enable those who can participate in the labour market to find quality employment. Member States should strengthen the effectiveness of active labour-market policies by increasing their targeting, outreach, coverage and better linking them with decent income support for the unemployed, whilst they are seeking work and based on their rights and responsibilities. Member States should aim for more effective and efficient public employment services by ensuring timely and tailor-made assistance to support jobseekers, supporting labour- market demand and implementing performance- based management.
Amendment 200 #
Proposal for a decision
Annex I – Guideline 7 – paragraph 3
Annex I – Guideline 7 – paragraph 3
Member States should provide the unemployed with adequate unemployment benefits of reasonablesufficient duration, in line with their contributions and national eligibility rules. Such benefits should not dis-incentivise a prompt return to employment and should be accompanied by active labour market policies
Amendment 204 #
Proposal for a decision
Annex I – Guideline 7 – paragraph 4
Annex I – Guideline 7 – paragraph 4
The mobility of learners and workers should be adequately supported with the aim of enhancing employability, skills and exploiting the full potential of the European labour market, while also ensuring fairthe rights and fair working conditions for all those pursuing a cross- border activity and stepping up administrative cooperation between national administrations with regard to mobile workers. Barriers to mobility in education and training, in occupational and personal pensions and in the recognition of qualifications should be removed and recognition of qualifications made easier. Member States should take action to ensure that administrative procedures are not an unnecessary obstacle to workers from other Member States taking up employment, including for cross- border workers. It will be important for Member States to take mobile workers, including frontier workers, into account when implementing measures, such as closing borders, to cushion the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, for instance in terms of health and safety, taxes and social security and coordination. Member States should also prevent abuse of the existing rules and address underlying causes of ‘brain drain’ from certain regions including through appropriate regional development measures.
Amendment 209 #
Proposal for a decision
Annex I – Guideline 7 – paragraph 5
Annex I – Guideline 7 – paragraph 5
Building on existing national practices, and in order to achieve more effective social dialogue, and better socioeconomic outcomes, Member States should ensure the timely and meaningful involvement of the social partners in the design and implementation of employment, social and, where relevant, economic reforms and policies, including by supporting increased capacity of the social partners. Member States should fosterstrengthen and promote social dialogue and collective bargaining and take measures to increase the collective bargaining coverage, including in the case of non-standard forms of employment. The social partners should be encouraged to negotiate and conclude collective agreements in matters relevant to them, fully respecting their autonomy and the right to collective action.
Amendment 213 #
Proposal for a decision
Annex I – Guideline 7 – paragraph 6 a (new)
Annex I – Guideline 7 – paragraph 6 a (new)
In the context of the COVID-19 outbreak, a healthy and safe workplace is vital in order to combat the risk of getting infected and spreading virus and other diseases. Member States should ensure that employers take their responsibility of the health and safety of workers and provide them and their representatives with adequate information, make risk assessments and take prevention measures. To enhance the functioning of labour markets, Member States should invest in occupational health and safety, and ensure adequate means and provisions for labour inspectorates or trade union health and safety representatives.
Amendment 218 #
Proposal for a decision
Annex I – Guideline 8 – paragraph 1
Annex I – Guideline 8 – paragraph 1
Member States should promote social rights and inclusive labour markets, open to all, by putting in place effective measures to fight all forms of discrimination and promote equal opportunities for under-represented groups in the labour market, with due attention to the regional and territorial dimension. They should ensure equal pay and equal rights for equal work at the same place, as well as equal treatment regarding employment, social protection, health and long-term care, housing, education and access to goods and services, regardless of gender, racial or ethnic origin, nationality, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation.
Amendment 224 #
Proposal for a decision
Annex I – Guideline 8 – paragraph 2
Annex I – Guideline 8 – paragraph 2
Member States should moderniseensure sufficient investment in social protection systems to provide adequate, effective, efficient, and sustainable social protection throughout all stages of an individual's life, fighting poverty and fostering social inclusion and upward social mobility, incentivisconvergence, supporting labour market participation and addressing inequalities, including through the design of their tax and benefit systems. Complementing universal approaches with selective ones will improve effectiveness of social protection systems. The modernisationimprovement of social protection systems should lead to better access, quality, adequacy and sustainability.
Amendment 238 #
Proposal for a decision
Annex I – Guideline 8 – paragraph 5
Annex I – Guideline 8 – paragraph 5
Member States should invest more in and ensure timely access to affordable preventive and curative public health care and long-term care of goodhigh quality, while safeguarding sustainability over the long run.
Amendment 242 #
Proposal for a decision
Annex I – Guideline 8 – paragraph 6
Annex I – Guideline 8 – paragraph 6
In a context of increasing longevity and demographic change, Member States should secure the adequacy and sustainability of pension systems for workers and self-employed, providing equal opportunities for women and men to acquire pension rights, including through supplementary schemes to ensure an adequate incom the public or occupational schemes to ensure a decent retirement income above the poverty line. Pension reforms should be supported by measures that extendnsure healthy working lives, such as by raisingand close the gap between the effective and statutory retirement age, and be framed withinccompanied by active ageing strategies. Member States should establish a constructive dialogue with social partners and other relevant stakeholders, and allow an appropriate phasing in of the reforms.