Activities of Agnes JONGERIUS related to 2023/2536(RSP)
Plenary speeches (1)
Strengthening social dialogue (debate)
Amendments (25)
Amendment 2 #
Citation 7
— having regard to International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No 135 concerning protection and facilities to be afforded to workers’ representatives in the undertaking (the Workers’ Representatives Convention), ILO convention No 155 concerning Occupational Safety and Health, ILO convention No 187 concerning Promotional Framework for Occupational Safety and Health and ILO convention no 190 concerning the elimination of violence and harassment in the world of work,
Amendment 7 #
Citation 19 a (new)
— having regard to its resolution Strong Social Europe for Just Transitions of 17 December 2020
Amendment 8 #
Citation 19 b (new)
— having regard the Council Decision (EU) 2022/2296 of 21 November 2022 on guidelines for the employment policies of the Member States
Amendment 9 #
Citation 19 c (new)
— having regard the Commission action plan on the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights of 4 March 2021 and the Porto Declaration on social affairs adopted by the members of the European Council in May 2021
Amendment 27 #
Recital B
B. whereas collective bargaining at the sectoral and cross-industry levels came under pressure or have been dismantled in some Member States in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis; whereas the European Semester's Country Specific Recommendations adopted between the years 2011 and 2015 requested Member States to decentralise collective bargaining systems and stop wage indexation as well as the ultra-activity of collective agreements; whereas the share of workers covered by collective agreements has declined significantly over the past 30 years, with an estimated drop in EU average coverage from about 66 % in 2000 to about 56 % in 201811, owing to labour market reforms in many Member States that decentralised collective bargaining systems, the rise of precarious forms of employment and bogus self- employment; whereas in most Member States, collective bargaining covering rates tend to be higher for employees on permanent contracts and for those working in larger companies; whereas bargaining coverage is substantially higher in countries where there are sectoral agreements and where these are frequently extended to non-covered companies or workers; _________________ 11 Visser, Jelle, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies, ‘Database on Institutional Characteristics of Trade Unions, Wage Setting, State Intervention and Social Pacts’, Version 6.1, November 2019.
Amendment 40 #
Recital C
C. whereas European workers and employers are currently facing major challenges stemming from the consequences of the pandemic and, since 24 February 2022, the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine and the consequent cost-of-living and energy crisis; whereas these events have shown a pressing need for broader and stronger participation by social partners, especially if the green and digital transitions to a sustainable, fair and social future for the EU are to be achieved; whereas workers or their representatives have the right to be informed and consulted in good time on matters relevant to them, in particular on the transfer, restructuring and merger of undertakings and on collective redundancies; whereas according to Eurofound EUPolicy Watch database, social partners have been involved during the pandemic in almost half of the legislative policy measures recorded, while this involvement has decreased during 2022, when further policy measures related to the green transition, support for refugees from Ukraine and responses to the cost-of-living crisis were mapped;
Amendment 58 #
Recital E a (new)
E a. whereas the RRF regulation includes an obligation for Member States to consult social partners in the preparation of the National Recovery and Resilience Plans through a greater variety of settings, however the quality and intensity of the involvement is uneven and rather weak in a relatively high number of countries; whereas the review report of the Commission on the RRF states that the success of the RRF depends on the close involvement of social partners, civil society organizations, local and regional authorities, and other stakeholders;
Amendment 60 #
Recital F
F. whereas the involvement of social partners in policymaking and particularly in the implementation of the European Semester and the Recovery and Resilience Plans is an indicator of the quality of social dialogue; whereas some Member States are ensuring an enabling framework for social dialogue, while in some other Member States, social dialogue is under pressure for reasons including ineffective consultation procedures, a lack of capacity and strict representational criteria, attacks against workers’ rights to join or to form a trade union at the workplace, ineffective legislation that does not enable trade unions to access workplaces for the purpose of organising, attacks against the right to strike; whereas the EU regulatory landscape in the field of employment law and company law remains excessively fragmented, which could result in a lack of legal certainty on applicable rules and rights for both employers and employees;
Amendment 76 #
Recital H
H. whereas the enabling conditions for a well-functioning social dialogue are: (i) the existence of strong, independent trade unions and technical capacity in employers’ organisations; (ii) access to relevant information to participate in social dialogue; (iii) a commitment from all parties to engage in social dialogue; (iv) respect for the fundamental rights of freedom of association and collective bargaining; and (v) appropriate institutional support and (vi) allowing for independent social partners to negotiate and conclude collective agreements autonomously;
Amendment 80 #
Recital I
I. whereas strong collective bargaining, in particular at sectoral or cross-industry level, contributes to quality jobs; whereas trade unions, workers’ representation and participation and collective bargaining coverage are essential for the enforcement of workers’ rights and the proper functioning of companies; whereas action isand better legislation to protect trade union rights are needed to ensure a balance of bargaining power between employers and trade unions, which can be improved by strengthening democracy at work;
Amendment 85 #
Recital L
L. whereas social dialogue and collective bargaining are key instruments for employers and trade unions to use to establish fair wages and working conditions; whereas strong collective bargaining systems increase Member States’ resilience in times of economic crisis; whereas societies with strong collective bargaining systems tend to be wealthier and more equal; whereas the right to collective bargaining is an issue that concerns all European workersworkers in Europe and that can also have crucial implications for democracy and the rule of law, including respect for fundamental social rights; whereas collective bargaining is a European fundamental right and the EU institutions are bound to respect it by Article 28 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU; whereas in this context, policies that respect, promote and strengthen collective bargaining and the position of workers in wage-setting systems play a critical role in achieving better working conditions and ensures better living conditions;
Amendment 90 #
Recital L a (new)
L a. whereas the informal economy is characterised by a high share of invisible and most vulnerable groups of workers; whereas the COVID-19 pandemic has forced a growing number of workers, especially women, to enter informal economy and exacerbated pre-existing vulnerabilities; whereas the most represented sectors in the informal economy in the EU, i.e. health, care, social work, and agriculture, are at the same time vital ones for the functioning of our societies;
Amendment 115 #
Paragraph 2
2. UIs convinced that good-quality social dialogue pays off in turbulent times when stability is needed to face ongoing economic uncertainty, as it was proved during the COVID-19 crisis when it played a major role in managing the crisis and mitigating its negative economic and social effects; urges the Commission to monitor the implementation of its recommendation at national and Union level, jointly with the Member States and relevant social partners; calls on the Commission and the Member States to ensure that this monitoring allows social partners to, among other things, identify situations from which they have been excluded or in which they were inadequately involved in national-level consultations on Union and national policy, including access to justice and the right to redress; calls on the Commission to initiate infringement procedures in case social partners involvement is not respected; proposes that Eurofound’s EUPolicyWatch database, as unique EU wide instrument to capture social partner’s involvement in national policy making, could be used for that purpose;
Amendment 126 #
Draft motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Is concerned that the density of employers’ organisations and trade unions is declining across all Member States; notes that main reason for the decline in coverage is the weakening and dismantling of cross-sectoral and sectoral collective bargaining structures as well as the detrimental regulatory changes made in some Member States in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis in order to comply with the European Semester recommendations on the one hand and in order to access rescue funds on the other for some Member States; warns that the decrease in collective bargaining coverage is not only due to the decline in trade union density, but also to the lack of representation within employers’ organisation and employers’ lack of involvement and willingness to participate in collective bargaining;
Amendment 137 #
Draft motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Urges the Member States to take note of the fact that both mutual recognition of social partners and the statutory recognition of trade unions and employers’ organisations by the authorities of each Member State are key to a successful collective bargaining framework, provided employers and workers are able to choose freely which organisation(s) will represent them; calls on the Commission and Member States to protect the autonomy of social partners to negotiate and contribute to the well- functioning of the labour markets;
Amendment 143 #
Paragraph 6 a (new)
6 a. Urges the Commission to promote collective bargaining, democracy at work, and social dialogue through the European Semester, and specifically in the country- specific recommendations, in order to ensure, decent wages through collective bargaining; encourages the Commission to propose new social dialogue indicators for the European Semester, relating to industrial relations in the Member States that could be used to further strengthening the social dialogue; such indicators could include references to industrial democracy already used by Eurofound in its Industrial Relations Index;
Amendment 145 #
Paragraph 7
7. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to ensure, with the involvement of social partners, an enabling environment for collective bargaining; calls on the Commission and the Member States to include in such an enabling environment effective measures against union-busting practices, since those practices decrease trade union density; calls on the Commission and the Member States, along with social partners, to commit to reaching collective bargaining coverage of 90 % by 2030, and to taking concrete measures in this regard with a view to improving living and working conditions in the Union, contributing to upward social convergence, fighting in- work poverty and social exclusion and reducing wage inequality;
Amendment 156 #
Paragraph 8
8. Calls on the Member States to repeal any national legislation that hampers collective bargaining, including any legislation that inhibits trade unions’ access to workplaces for the purpose of organising in order to be able to collectively bargain; calls on Member States to ensure access to the workplace is being guaranteed, also when the work is performed digitally; calls on the Commission and the Member States to promote sectoral- level collective bargaining as an important instrument to increase collective agreement coverage, making sure that derogations from collective agreements concluded at a higher level are restricted to situations in which those derogations are needed to maintain quality employment;
Amendment 188 #
Paragraph 11
11. Calls for the EU industrial strategy to ensure that the jobs of tomorrow are not only green, but above all decent, well paid and based on good working conditions, including as regards health and safety at work, robust social protection and gender equality; calls on the Member States, in the context of the European Green Deal and the RePowerEU plan, to adopt and implement, in close cooperation with social partners, comprehensive and coherent policy packages to benefit all societal groups and to make optimal use of public and private funding, including social conditionalities for the creation of quality jobs with fair working conditions and good pay, the promotion of collective bargaining and respect for collective agreements and trade union rights; considers furthermore that all EU financial support to undertakings, including the Green Deal industrial plan programmes, should be made conditional on the undertakings’ compliance with the applicable working and employment conditions and/or employer obligations, including any applicable collective agreements; urges the Commission and the Member States to enforce the requirements that companies receiving public support must avoid redundancies and the worsening of working conditions and that, under the EU industrial plan, undertakings must respect collective bargaining and information and consultation processes with unions on investments, restructuring and any reforms; public funding must also be linked with training obligations under which companies agree to put in place paid apprenticeships with the right to be retained, as well as cost-free, on-the-job re- and up-skilling programs for workers;
Amendment 200 #
Paragraph 12 a (new)
12 a. Reminds the Commission and the Member States of the urgent need for a social progress protocol that, in the event of conflicts between economic freedoms and fundamental social rights, give priority to the latter
Amendment 210 #
Paragraph 14 a (new)
14 a. Stresses its deep concern of union busting practises; calls on the Commission to propose a directive guaranteeing trade unions access to workplaces for the purpose of organising, information sharing and consultation, and to secure every European citizen the right to voluntarily organise in a trade union, strengthening worker’s representation and securing social partners’ rights to collectively bargain;
Amendment 222 #
Paragraph 17
17. Calls on the Member States to ratify and implement all ILO core conventions, including No 155 concerning Occupational Safety and Health and the Working Environment and No 187 concerning the promotional framework for occupational safety and health, which have both been recently designated as ILO core conventions and which have not yet been ratified by all Member States, as well as ILO convention 190 concerning the elimination of violence and harassment in the world of work; calls on the Commission to encourage the Member States to ratify and implement all the ILO core conventions;
Amendment 228 #
Paragraph 18 a (new)
18 a. calls on the Commission and the Member States to promote and facilitate freedom of association and collective bargaining in the informal economy as a means of raising worker’s visibility, ensuring decent working conditions and social protection, as well as tackling undeclared work;
Amendment 238 #
Paragraph 20 a (new)
20 a. Calls on the Commission to make the necessary improvements to the legal frameworks regulating European public limited-liability companies (Societas Europea or SE) and European Cooperative Societies and, on the basis of a timely evaluation by the Commission, to the Company Law Package, and to amend them to introduce minimum EU rules governing employee participation and representation on supervisory boards, including on gender equality;
Amendment 239 #
Paragraph 20 b (new)
20 b. Is convinced that introducing new digital technologies has the potential to have a positive impact on the work environment if they are implemented and monitored in a trustworthy manner, which will require timely and meaningful information and the consultation of workers’ representatives, including trade unions, to ensure full respect for their health and safety at work, data protection, equal treatment, employment stability, social protection and well-being at work, and to prevent undue exploitation and surveillance of workers, as well as discrimination and stigmatisation, in particular via management by algorithms; underlines the fact that trade unions and workers’ representatives should have the necessary access and means to assess and evaluate digital technology prior to their introduction; emphasises that new digital technologies and artificial intelligence should not replicate existing discrimination and societal biases but should help the social inclusion and participation of diverse groups; highlights the need to apply the ethics-by-default principle throughout the entire life cycle of the digital technologies in order to harness their full potential and avoid biases; stresses that social dialogue structures, sectoral collective bargaining, the provision of information to trade unions and workers’ representatives, and the consultation and participation thereof are key to providing the necessary support for workers to better build and participate in the uptake and monitoring by social partners of digital technology at the workplace;