60 Amendments of João PIMENTA LOPES related to 2016/2095(INI)
Amendment 1 #
Draft opinion
Recital A
Recital A
A. whereas the Commission willintends to present a proposal for a binding European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR), which should deliverwill address key social rights, in particular equality between women and men;
Amendment 11 #
Draft opinion
Recital B
Recital B
B. whereas gender inequality is enshrined in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rbetween men and women has worsened in recent years in the EU as a result of austerity policies and policies attacking social and labour rights; whereas, nevertheless, the employment rate for men stands at 75.6 % compared with 64.5 % for women, and whereas the gender pay gap is 16 % and the gender pension gap 39 %;
Amendment 22 #
Draft opinion
Recital C
Recital C
Amendment 32 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Calls for the EPSR to have a binding mechanism for botonsiders that the EPSR should be merely a repository for social benchmarks and best practices for Member States, which they monitoring and implementation ofay use to benefit workers and people, particularly with regard to existing and updated social rights, especially as regards equal opportunities, including female participation in the labour market, fair working conditions, and adequate and sustainable social protection for women;
Amendment 38 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 a (new)
Paragraph 1 a (new)
1a. Reiterates that the inclusion of so- called social indicators in economic governance objectives and procedures, particularly the European Semester, in no way alters the basic objectives of these mechanisms, which have been responsible, beyond the increase in unemployment and poverty, for ever- increasing levels of social inequality and inequality between men and women;
Amendment 55 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Urges the Commission to come forward, in coordination with the Member States, with a package of legislative and non-legislative measures regarding work- life balance with a view to achieving gender equality between men and women, including revising the directives on maternity and parental leave and proposing directives on paternity and carers’ leave;
Amendment 85 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Recalls that the EPSR will not deliver without social investment, especially in available and affordable high-quality childcare infrastructure, withany attempt to address the social problems of the Member States will entail major investment in society, and could benefit from the support of the European Social Fund (ESF), the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI); stresses that social conditions can only be improved and inequalities between men and women can only be overcome by means of employment policies focused on boosting wages, ensuring equal pay for equal work, regulating working hours – based on the principle that a working day should not exceed eight hours – enhancing collective bargaining, ensuring and consolidating robust social-protection systems and providing a high-quality universal, free public network of pre- and post-school care and health-care systems, as opposed to policies primarily oriented towards the profit motive and attacking workers’ rights;
Amendment 93 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A
Recital A
A. whereas the European Union needsneed for a paradigm shift towards a strong European social model based on solidarity, equity, equality and social justice, a fair distribution of wealth, gender equality, aequality between men and women, a universal, free and high-quality public education system, secure, quality employment with rights, high standards and sustainable growth - a model that ensures good social protection for all, empowersfocusing, in particular, on vulnerable groups, enhances participation in civil and political life, and improves the living standards for all citizens, delivering on the objectives and rights set out in the EU Treaties, the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the European Social Charterquality of life for all citizens;
Amendment 119 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A a (new)
Recital A a (new)
AA. whereas the EU, regardless of the rhetoric about peace and social and territorial cohesion, is centred around class, as it is a capitalist integration process which is federalist and militarist in nature and focused on the concentration of political and economic power;
Amendment 124 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A b (new)
Recital A b (new)
Ab. whereas the austerity policies imposed on a number of Member States are representative of its nature, promoting deregulation of the labour market and the scrapping of social rights, devalorising salaries, attacking social security systems, and increasing job insecurity and unemployment, exploitation, poverty and social exclusion (which affects one quarter of the EU population);
Amendment 126 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A c (new)
Recital A c (new)
Ac. whereas the consequences of the EU’s policies contribute to and stoke the rise in social and political influence of far right, intolerant, xenophobic and racist organisations, and the resurgence of fascism;
Amendment 132 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital B
Recital B
B. whereas the Commission is expected tohas announced that it will come forward in the spring of 2017 with a proposal for a binding European Pillar of Social Rights;
Amendment 157 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Emphasises that the European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR) cannot be limited to a declaration of principles or good intentions but must consist of real matter (legislation, policy-making mechanisms and financial instruments), delivering positive impact on citizens’ lives in the short term and enabling support for European construction in the 21st century by effectively upholding sis an evasive approach to the current crisis in and faced by the EU that seeks to cover up the mechanisms and consequences of economic governance with social cosmetics; points out that with regard to the economic and social development of the Member States and to the supposed cohesion objectives, European integration always prioritised the centralisation of power together with economic and financial concentration, and that the Pillar of Social rRights and Treaty objectives, strengthening cohesion and upward convergence, and helping to completeis clearly one of those instruments which embodies that choice, as do the Treaties and EMU;
Amendment 184 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
Amendment 221 #
Motion for a resolution
Subheading 1
Subheading 1
Amendment 230 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Calls for the enactment of a directive on fair working conditions for all forms of employment, ensuring for every worker a core set of enforceable rights, including equal treatment, social protection,Takes the view that Member States should oppose policies which attack workers’ rights, instead favouring legislation that encourages regulation and labour rights with a view to improving the quality of life and social protection of all workers, which hinges, among other issues, on guaranteeing equal treatment, valorising wages, combating social and wage discrimination, including between men and women, tackling job insecurity, bogus self-employed workers and other atypical forms of employment, providing protection in case of dismissal, and health and safety protection, provisions onregulating and reducing working timehours and rest time,periods, providing for freedom of association and representation, defending and appreciating collective bargaining and hiring, collective action, access to training, and adequateproper information and consultation rights; underlines that this directive should apply to employees as well as to all workers in non-standard forms of employment, such as fixed-term work, part-time work, on-demand work, self-employment, crowd-working, internship or traineeship; requests that the EU acquis be updated accordingly so as to apply to all workers;
Amendment 282 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 – introductory part
Paragraph 4 – introductory part
4. Calls foron the Member States to take decisive steps towards legal certainty on what constitutes ‘employment’, also for work intermediated by digital platformsfor all forms of work; underlines that open- ended contracts should remain the norm given their importance for socio-economic security; calls for the directive on fair working conditions to include relevant minimum standards to be ensured in more precaradoption of legislation that strictly limits the use of insecure forms of employment, and at the same time considerably improves labour conditions for insecure jobs with a view to bringing the conditiouns forms of employmeninto line with those of permanent work for the same post, in particular:
Amendment 302 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 – point a
Paragraph 4 – point a
a) decent working conditions for internships, traineeships and apprenticeships, prohibiting those that are unpaid or paid so little that they do not enable workers to make ends meet, bringing labour conditions into line with conditions set out in collective employment contracts or the minimum laid down in labour legislation for the same professional category;
Amendment 324 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 – point b
Paragraph 4 – point b
b) for work intermediated by digital platforms, a defhindering recourse to bogus temporary work, a very common reality in large companies or multiniation of employment that is less dependent on full cumulation of the relevant criteriaals, which outsource services to reduce labour costs, thereby contributing to the degradation of working relationships, wage devalorisation and permanent job insecurity;
Amendment 346 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 – point c
Paragraph 4 – point c
c) limits regarding on-demand work: zero-hour contracts should be banned and certain core working hours should be guaranteed to all workers, the regulation of which and exceptions to which should be laid down in collective employment contracts;
Amendment 359 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Emphasises the need for renewed upward convergence in wages throughout the EUeffective and balanced distribution of wealth, which inevitably hinges on the valorisation and increasing of wages in Member States; calls on the Commission to actively support a wider coverage for collective bargaining and hiring; considers that to ensure decent living wages, minimum wages set at a decent level are necessary; recommends the establishment of national wage floors through legminimum wages must be increased to a level which addresses the negative impacts of decades of wage devalorislation or collective bargaining, with the objective of attaining at least 60 % of the respective national average wag, with the objective of guaranteeing wages that enable workers to lead a decent life;
Amendment 390 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Recalls that the right to healthy and safe working conditions also involves limitations on working time and provisions on minimum rest periods and annual leave; awaits Commission proposals formaintains that the basic reference point for regulation of working time should be the long-standing ILO recommendation of eight hours’ work, eight hours’ legislation and other concrete measurure, and eight hours’ rest; notes that if working time is extended beyond the eight-hour day, the risk of occupational accidents increases by up to 61%1a; awaits proposals from the Commission and the Member States to uphold this right for all workers, reflecting all current knowledge about the health and safety risks; entailed in longer working hours; __________________ 1a According to a scientific article entitled ‘The impact of overtime and long work hours on occupational injuries and illnesses: new evidence from the United States’, Occup Environ Med 2005, 62:588-597.
Amendment 408 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Stresses the importance of collective rights; expecturges the Commission to step up concrete support for strengthening social dialogue in Member States and sectors where it is weakpromote collective bargaining instruments, and calls on the Member States to help actively to strengthen them, especially in regions and sectors where collective bargaining has less impact owing to the prolonged crisis or the prevalence of non-standard forms of employment;
Amendment 439 #
Motion for a resolution
Subheading 3
Subheading 3
Amendment 442 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. SupportCalls mfore integrated provision of social protection benefits and social services as a way to make the welfare state more understandable and accessible while not weaken a reversal of the policies pursued in recent years, which have consisted of disinvestment in social security schemes and cuts ing social protection; points to the importance of informing citizens about social rights and to the potential of e-government solutions, possibly including a European social security card, which could improve individual awareness and als benefits and social services, and considers that such benefits should be treated as a social function of the State and their funding and scope increased; points to thelp mobile workers clarify their contributions and entitlemen importance of informing citizens about their social rights;
Amendment 459 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8 a (new)
Paragraph 8 a (new)
8a. Believes that the fact that workers can be deployed or posted for particular purposes or employed under some other mobility arrangement could lead Member States, coordinating and pooling their efforts, to devise a European social security card, which, without replacing or undermining the sustainability of national systems, could help to safeguard workers’ entitlements regarding their contributions and benefits and to maintain the flow of up-to-date information at the necessary level;
Amendment 463 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9
Paragraph 9
9. Agrees with the importancMaintains that there has to be a guarantee of universal free public access to timely, goodhigh-quality and affordable preventative and curative health care; emphasises that all workers must be covered byhave access to high-quality free public health insuranservices;
Amendment 483 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
10. Is aware that rising life expectancy and workforce shrinking might pose a challenge to the sustainability of pensions systems and to intergenerational fairness; reaffirms that the best response is to increase the overall employment rate; considers that pensionable ages should reflect, besides life expectancy, other factors including labour market trends, the economic dependency ratio, the birth rate and differences in job arduousnesscognises that the sustainability of pension systems has been undermined by policies that drain away social security contributions and promote the privatisation of social protection systems; reaffirms that the best response is to increase the overall employment rate, as well as raising salaries in real terms and bringing about more even distribution of wealth; considers that pensionable ages should reflect workers’ contribution history and the right to ageing without need to stay on the labour market for good;
Amendment 511 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11
Paragraph 11
11. Insists that all workers should be covered by insuranceenjoy integrated social protection under universal public social security systems in order to safeguard them against involuntary unemployment or part-time employment, coupled with job-search assistance and investment in (re)-training;
Amendment 549 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12
Paragraph 12
12. Calls for a European framework for minimum income schemes; highlights the importance of such schemes for maintaining human dignity as well as their role as a form of social investments enabling people to undertake training and/or look for work; maintains that this concept needs to be analysed and studied in greater depth, so as to ensure, given the serious economic crisis in the EU and its Member States, that the amount set, which should never be less than 60% of the median income in Member States, is appropriate to the specific circumstances in each case, thus ensuring that minimum income will achieve its intended aims, especially as regards overcoming poverty;
Amendment 555 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13
Paragraph 13
13. Agrees that all persons with disabilities must be ensured enabling services and basic income security allowing them a decent standard of living and, as well as enabling services and social security guaranteeing their social inclusion;
Amendment 575 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14
Paragraph 14
14. Considers access to quality and affordable long-term care services, including home-based care, to bemust be guaranteed under high-quality free universal public health systems, given that this is a right that should be upheld with the help of suitably qualified professionals employed under decent conditions; believes that families, and low- income households in particular, should therefore be targeted by adequate public services and tax deductions; repeats its call for legislation on carers’ leave accompanied by adequatecent remuneration and social protection;
Amendment 602 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15
Paragraph 15
Amendment 636 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17
Paragraph 17
17. Calls for legislation ensuring fair access for all to good-quality and affordable social services of general interest and other essential services, such as e-communications, energy, transport and financial services; highlights the role of social enterprises;
Amendment 706 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 19 – point b
Paragraph 19 – point b
b. all workers should have a personal activity account, easily accessible throu and a guaranteed right a website and/or a smartphone application, where they could consult their social entitlementffording them ease of access enabling them to consult their social entitlements, be it on physical social security premises or using the many and varied new digital technologies;
Amendment 727 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 21
Paragraph 21
21. Calls for full implementation of the Youth Guarantee for all people under 30 and of the recommendation on the long- term unemployed; highlights these as important structural reforms and social investments that are in need of adequate financingis as a social investment that is in need of adequate financing; maintains that the above measure must never be a substitute for stable, secure work with rights and that it must be dovetailed into employment policies so as to ensure that there would have to be a contract for every job and all permanent jobs would have genuine contracts to match; believes that this measure must not serve as a tool of precariousness, a form of employment status that will have to be combated, given that it is the most effective way to perpetuate unemployment, especially among young people;
Amendment 745 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 22 – introductory part
Paragraph 22 – introductory part
22. Considers that decisive progress is urgently needed in the area of gender equality between men and women and work-life balance; in particular:
Amendment 766 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 22 – point b
Paragraph 22 – point b
Amendment 786 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 23
Paragraph 23
23. Calls on the Commission and Member States to set out new concrete measures to ensure non- discrimination and equal opportunities;
Amendment 811 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 24
Paragraph 24
24. Emphasises that labour mobility within the EU is a right whose exercise must be supported but which should not be forced on workers by poor conditions in their home regions, and should not undermine host countries’ social standardeither be imposed on workers who face unemployment or precarious conditions in their home regions, nor undermine host countries’ social standards; points out that the revision of the Posting of Workers Directive is currently suspended and should be resumed, based on the principles of non-regression with regard to the labour rights of posted workers and the guarantee of equal pay for equal work in the host country, and in particular observing the conditions laid down by collective employment contracts;
Amendment 834 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 25
Paragraph 25
Amendment 850 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 26 – introductory part
Paragraph 26 – introductory part
26. Considers that the objective of upward social convergence should be underpinned by a set of targets, building on the Europe 2020 strategy and the Sustainable Development Goals and serving to guide the coordination of economic, employment and social policies in the EU; believes that these targets could also form part of the Convergence Code currently being discussed for the euro area, and could be based on the following indicators which are directly affected byMember States should take particular account of the following indicators when defining public policies:
Amendment 880 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 26 – point c
Paragraph 26 – point c
c. the proportion of young peoplpeople of working age not in employment, education or training (NEETs);
Amendment 893 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 26 – point e a (new)
Paragraph 26 – point e a (new)
ea. the poverty threshold;
Amendment 902 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 26 – point g a (new)
Paragraph 26 – point g a (new)
ga. access to maternity support services and care;
Amendment 905 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 26 – point g b (new)
Paragraph 26 – point g b (new)
gb. access to health care;
Amendment 928 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 27
Paragraph 27
Amendment 943 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 27 a (new)
Paragraph 27 a (new)
27a. Takes the view that including more social indicators in the European Semester will not alter its profoundly anti- democratic nature, nor that of the country-specific recommendations – mechanisms which are at the core of the EU’s economic governance and are deeply damaging to national interests and the interests of workers – , which compromise the sovereignty of states, imposing the interests of big capital and of the major powers in the EU;
Amendment 956 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 28
Paragraph 28
28. Calls for a ‘silver rule’ on social investment to be applied when implementing the Stability and Growth Pact, namely to considerRejects the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP); takes the view that the fact that no account has been taken of certain public social investments having a clear positive impact on economic growth (e.g. childcare or education and training) as being eligible for favourable treatment when assessing government deficits and compliance with the 1/20 debt rule demonstrates the predatory nature of the SGP and of the macroeconomic objectives which define the EU;
Amendment 973 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 29
Paragraph 29
29. Highlights that today’s phenomena of capital-intensive production, high rates of inequality and the continuing rise in ’atypical’ work imply a nereflect the European Union’s pred ato increase the role of gry neoliberal policies; reiterates that these economic concenetral tax revenue in cofinancing social insurance schemes in order to provide decent social protection for alltion policies have been implemented at the cost of destroying the manufacturing base, particularly in countries on the periphery, accompanied by an increase in exploitation and an attack on workers’ rights, labour deregulation, falling wages, unemployment, poverty and the increasingly unequal distribution of wealth;
Amendment 983 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 29 a (new)
Paragraph 29 a (new)
29a. Points out that effective social improvement policies are not compatible with the EU’s principles and policies; stresses that boosting workers’ social and living conditions demands development policies that will be possible only through taking back economic and political sovereignty mechanisms, alongside policies based on public control of strategic sectors ranging from banks to industry, transport and electricity, among others;
Amendment 1014 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 30 – point c
Paragraph 30 – point c
c. the establishment of a new instrument, to be financed, for example, from EU revenue arising from competition law enforcement, to support the implementation of the Child Guarantee;
Amendment 1030 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 31
Paragraph 31
31. Calls on the Commission and the EIB to refocus the EFSI on job creation and social investment in social responses and adapt its risk/return requirements accordingly; stresses that the EFSI has been a slave to the interests of high finance and large multinationals and favours public-private partnerships, injecting public money into the financial system and even financing privatisations;
Amendment 1040 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 32
Paragraph 32
Amendment 1051 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 32 – point a
Paragraph 32 – point a
Amendment 1072 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 32 – point b
Paragraph 32 – point b
Amendment 1089 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 33
Paragraph 33
Amendment 1091 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 33 a (new)
Paragraph 33 a (new)
33a. Notes that the Member States will face challenges that will require sustainable responses, such as poverty and social exclusion, unemployment, the integration of refugees and migrants, the climate crisis, geopolitical realignment and the rise of fascism and militarism; reiterates that the profound crisis both in the EU and affecting the EU itself cannot be reversed by the very policies that helped to cause it (EMU, economic governance and European Semester; Stability Pact);
Amendment 1093 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 34
Paragraph 34
Amendment 1102 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 35
Paragraph 35