Tariffs, tensions, and the cost to workers: CESI on the U.S. trade measures

Today, June 23rd, is the United Nations Public Service Day. On this occasion CESI pays tribute to all the workers in the public services, who provide citizens with inclusive and qualitative access to essential services.

As the pandemic revealed, the role of public services in delivering core services for well-functioning societies is essential. Despite the challenging working conditions during the pandemic, the increased pressures on service delivery and the occupational dangers faced, the public sector showed time and time again commitment, resilience, flexibility and solidarity with the people they serve.

After years of austerity policies, severe deteriorations of the working conditions during the pandemic, and now an exploding inflation, public service workers face pay stagnation, staff shortages, longer working time and an overall worsening of their working conditions.

It is now high time that their efforts are valued according to their commitment and hard work. Policymakers should ensure necessary investments in public services to ensure their full and adequate functioning.

We ask EU member states to raise to the occasion and to invest in public services and their workforce, so to build reliable and resilient public services – an imperative for cohesive and sustainable societies.

On #PublicServiceDay, CESI´s representatives share their messages of appreciation and support via Twitter @CESIpress.

In its position, which was developed as a response to a recent consultation by the European Commission on ‘Brain drain: Mitigating challenges associated with population decline’, CESI:

• supports the EU Single Market’s principle of free movement of workers, goods, services and capital and notes that brain drain emigration may help to meet skills shortages in the labour market of Member States with the most advantageous working conditions and social protection coverage, but is deeply concerned about the long term effects of such migratory flows of workers for the countries of origin. These face depopulation of vast regions that are left un-serviced and deprived due to lack of professionals, to the detriment of the population and the economic perspective of the country at large. They lose out financially when they educate their workforces in the public education systems, only to see them move away afterwards to work elsewhere. Such developments, in time, widen the financial disparities, living standards and economic performance between more and less advantaged countries and regions. In an EU Single Market with free movement of labour, there is a strong role of the EU to set the frame for ethical, sustainable and fair labour migration in Europe and help balance out push and pull factors of labour migration and address its complex and diverse socio-economic consequences.
• notes that in the next 10 years it is estimated that in 1 out of 5 EU Members States 25% of the current workforce will retire and that the working age population will shrink by 4%. This puts pressure on the sustainability of social protection systems. The challenge of brain drain is not only about balancing out push-and-pull factors between countries in Europe but also about a strategic and integrated approach to address the consequences of overall shrinking workforces in Europe. The EU brain drain initiative should be sensitive to this.
• acknowledges that shrinking workforces mean that labour availability is becoming increasingly scarce, which in turn increases competition for workers among regions and countries. In theory, this competition should lead to better working conditions. However, experience has shown that the opposite may occur: The desire of professionals from disadvantaged regions and countries move to more wealthy regions and countries is often so strong that many accept working conditions which are worse that these region’s or country’s standard (even if still better than the standards in the region or country of origin). The EU brain drain initiative should be sensitive to this too.
• notes that brain drain is especially critical in the area of essential services, which are often public services. The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted to what extent access to essential public services, such as health and care, is key for a strong, resilient and healthy society and economy especially in times of crises. Essential services must always be readily available, sufficient in scope and adequate in quality for all EU citizens. During the Covid-19 pandemic, this was not the case. For accessible, available and high quality essential services, adequate investments must target both facilities and infrastructure as well as equipment and, above all, human resources. Many essential public services are understaffed while working conditions are precarious and pay for personnel is often inadequate. As long as these shortcomings persists, quality services cannot be delivered. This is confirmed by a recent study commissioned by the European Parliament on ‘Revaluation of working conditions and wages for essential workers’. In light of potential future crises, which are sure to occur, the EU brain drain initiative should put an emphasis on addressing brain drain issues in essential public services.

CESI Secretary General Klaus Heeger said: “Implementing the EU brain drain initiative will require that above all that EU cohesion policy and the EU’s structural and investment funds are further tailored to mitigate causes and consequences of brain drain, that the EU’s economic governance framework is sensitive to allow necessary investments by Member States to structurally address brain drain, and that brian drain is addressed systematically in the European Semester process and its country reports and country-specific recommendations.”

The full position of CESI is available here.

The event served above all to exchange with policy makers from the EU institutions and trade union practictioners from CESI about priorities for workers, and women-workers in particular, in matters of a new EU directive on pay transparency which was proposed by the European Commission last year.

MEP Samira Rafaela, co-rapporteur of the European Parliament, presented expected crunch issues in the negotiations on the file with the Counil; Eva Fernández Urbón from the Spanish CSIF union, President of CESI’s statutory Commission on Employment and Social Affairs, introduced a resolution of amendments that should, according to CESI, be pursued by the Euroepan Parliament and the Council to further strengthen the proposal of the Eruopean Commission. Romana Deckenbacher (Eurofedop), Vice-President of CESI’s statutory Commission on Women’s Rights, presented further insights about regulatory improvements needed to move further towards effective pay transparency in Europe.

Members of CESI made clear that, above all:

• in the European Commission’s proposal for a new directive, which stipulates that provisions on pay transparency should apply to employers with at least 250 workers, this figure should be reduced significantly in order to not exclude a too large number of workers from the scope of the directive.
• in the final directive, employers should be obliged to “provide” workers with information on their individual pay level and the average pay levels (broken down by sex, for categories of workers doing the same work as them or work of equal value to theirs) rather than workers having mere “the right to receive” it, as the European Commission has suggested.

The ALE-CESI Railway Days aimed to bring the priorities of train drivers to the front of the EU’s transportation policy agenda. The moment chosen for the Railway Days was timely: The European Commission has just launched a consultation process on a revision of the EU train drivers directive 2007/59/EC, the implementation of the EU’s Fourth Railway Package is ongoing, challenges of personnel in the rail sector following the Covid pandemic need to be addressed urgently, and discussions about the contribution of the railway sector to the EU’s Green Deal gain momentum.

Against this background, an ALE-CESI delegation led by ALE President Juan Jesús García Fraile and CESI Secretary General Klaus Heeger convened in Brussels for a series of bilateral meetings including with:

• the cabinet of European Transport Commissioner Adina Vălean
• the leadership of the European Commission’s Directorate for Land Transportation in the Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport (DG MOVE)
• the President of the European Parliament Committee on Transport and Tourism (TRAN), MEP Karima Delli
• the coordinators of the EPP, S&D, Renew and Greens/EFA groups in the European Parliament TRAN Committee, MEP Marian-Jean Marinescu, MEP Petar Vitanov, MEP José Ramón Bauzá Díaz and MEP Ciarán Cuffe

ALE President Juan Jesús García Fraile said: “After having exchanged our train driver perspective on EU railway policy directly to key representatives of the EU institutions, we have agreed to continue this relationship in order to pass on first-hand information from the representation of train drivers in Europe.”

CESI Secretary General Klaus Heeger added: “In the area of railways, which connect firms and citizens across Europe, it is key for stakeholders to have a voice in Brussels. In particular train drivers know about the challenges that railways, and cross-border rail in particular, faces in Europe and what solutions can work in a sustainable way, taking the interestes of operators, employees and customers into consideration. The voice of train drivers matters, and we are glad that it was listened to and heard.”

In light of the forthcoming EU-NATO EU-NATO Summit in Madrid (June 29-30) and the signing of the third EU-NATO joint declaration, Thomas Sohst, President of CESI’s Expert Commission ‘Defence’ declared:

“For the EU to become a credible and efficient security and defence global actor, the Union should focus on two pillars – getting its citizens in line with a common position regarding the deployment of military forces and providing the necessary financial investments for its capabilities. The implementation of the Strategic Compass, in particular with regards to its operational capability through a Rapid Deployment Capacity, should be the first priority. The re-assessment or revision of current European missions and operations must consider the Russian aggression and the threat it brings to global peace.”

He added: “The next steps to foster a genuine EU defence policy will include the strengthening the EU’s neighbouring policy and the relation with the six countries included in the Eastern Partnership (EaP): Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine.”

Apart from the European Parliament’s recommendation of June 8, also the previously adopted Euroepan Parliament report on the security in the Eastern Partnership area and the role of the Common Security and Defence Policy refers to this subject matter.

According to the European Defence Agency’s ‘EDA On the Record: Energy & Defence’, the European defence sector is a first category consumer of energy in Europe, similar to the consumption of a small EU member state. In this context and in light of the European ambitions for climate neutrality by 2050 it is important for the European armed forces to take all the necessary steps to reduce their footprint in energy. The 2015 Paris Agreement does not make specific reference to the defence sector, leaving it open for the military to decide on how to reach its CO2 targets separately. Of the 27 Member States, France was the most ambitious in adopting a clear Defence Energy Strategy with 34 recommendations to reduce and optimise the energy consumption of its armed forces and to enhance its energy security. Germany has also released its first report on the topic of improving the energy consumption in the military sector.

CESI, through its Expert Commission ‘Defence’, advocates in favour of energy professionals to join armed forces in light of reaching collectively the Union’s carbon neutrality targets. It emphasises the need for consultation with representatives of armed forces in order to mitigate ways to reach those targets without putting pressure on the missions in place or jeopardizing other capabilities the army might need in order to conduct their military or humanitarian operations. It believes that the EEAS’ Roadmap, which the European Parliament report refers to, remains too vague in its approach on how to find and adopt cost-competitive renewable energy and alternative fuels in the armed forces.

Thomas Sohst, President of the CESI expert commission ‘Defence’ underlined: “Armed forces are an integral part of our societies and as always the citizens-in-uniform will go above and beyond to serve the new European climate objectives. In order for this green transition to succeed, representatives of military and civilian armed forces should be more included through consultation and demand for expertise in the decision-making of policies and their implementation. Representatives of armed forces know already and operate under extreme climate conditions and know what best solutions there are in order to mitigate these challenges and ensure a green transition for its sector.”

The full report, as adopted by the European Parliament, is available here.

The event featured a presentation of CESI’s new discussion paper on the the regulation of remote working in a post-Covid New Normal by Sara Rinaudo, Deputy Secretary General of the Italian Confsal-Fismic union and Chair of CESI’s Working Group on the Future Work which had developed the text.

It sought to answer questions such as: How is remote working regulated (or not)? Does it tend to be imposed unilaterally by employers or is it implemented together with staff and their representatives, to the benefit of flexibility for employers and improved work-life balance for employees? Can or should everyone have a right to remote working? Concretely, who does and should bear equipment-related and other costs incurred by remote working? How to ensure regulated working time and prevent permanent availabilities of workers? Who is in charge of health & safety and insurance liabilities? How to assure data protection and prevent potential invasive digital surveillance of staff? What is expected from unions, social partners and policy makers?

It continued with a presentation on the regulation on remote working in Europe by Oscar Vargas from the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) and with case studies on remote working practices in selected Member States, delivered by Carmen Jaffke from the Luxembourgish CGFP union, Mantas Stanžys from the Lithuanian RJPS union and Javier Jordán de Urries from the Spanish CSIF union – all CESI affiliates.

CESI Secretary General Klaus Heeger said: “Remote working has come to stay, also beyond the pandemic. We need to ensure that it is regulated in a symbiosis by trade unions, social partners and policy makers, and this at the company and administration level as well as the national and sectoral and EU levels. In this context, our discussion paper serves as a set of overarching guidelines and principles from the perspective of the EU level that all actors involved in the regulation of remote working are welcome to use as a reference and inspiration.”

CESI’s full discussion paper on the the regulation of remote working in a post-Covid New Normal is available here.

Two years into the pandemic, one neighbouring war impacting the global supply chains and escalating food and energy prices, coupled with the launch of the European Commission ambition for a twin transition (both green and digital) have all added additional pressure on the provision of public services across the EU and its Member States.

In this context CESI’s President Romain Wolff, Secretary General Klaus Heeger and Otto Aigslperger, President of the Expert Commission (Eurofedop) took the occasion of the meeting to agree on the need to address these trends in a systematic way. It was decided to develop internal research steps to understand better how public administration service provision works in different European member states, what shortcomings and bottlenecks there are, and what could be a standardised way on reporting back on public service performance and working conditions. Otto Aiglsperger stated: “We want to have objective key figures on how public administrations function, both in terms of performance but also in terms of working conditions. They will enable us to have arguments in our negotiations at national and European level for adequate resources for public administrations and services.”

The meeting touched on the issue of digitalisation, which brough forward controversial opinion. Although teleworking and remote working were considered advantageous for both workers and employers, a number of limitations and negative externalities were mentioned. For example in Austria the introduction of teleworking solutions in public administration had a positive impact for organisations and workers – especially in terms of increased productivity, more qualitative services, a better work-life balance for the public sector employees – but many are concerned about the social cohesion within organisations with fewer direct interactions between employees.

As follow up to CESI’s DiWork report on digital transitions in public sector service delivery, Dirk Anton van Mulligen, founder of Better Leadership, presented the theory of change management in organisations and emphasised the importance of public servants to become involved in the green and digital transitions: “Digitalisation is a very challenging development and what the pandemic brought forward was a imposed and emergency-led digital change. For it to succeed, trade unions must learn to master change management and to be able to proactively protect workers interest while navigating these transitions towards the future.”

CESI’s Expert Commission ‘Public Administration’ continued with visits to the European Comission Directorates General on Structural Reforms and on Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion. The objective of the meetings was to engage with the main stakeholders for public sector reforms and in charge of the European Semester process and showcase CESI’s related trade union demands. The exchange of information during the two visits were very much appreciated by both parties, national stakeholders of CESI and EU representatives. Klaus Heeger, CESI Secretary General, said: “It is very reassuring to see the interest that EU institutions have in meeting the real practitioners, unionists, which are carrying out their work on the ground. It is our role as CESI to facilitate the European institutions’ access to the knowledge, experience and know-how of our national public sector representatives and to ensure that the EU takes into account their position and demands. Now it is the right time to let everyone understand why we need a stronger EU public sector agenda.”

The next meeting of the Expert Commission is scheduled to take place on October 11.

CESI SG Klaus Heeger met today the representatives of SDMCG and SLFS to talk about the digital transformation of public services.

I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.” -Jimmy Dean (1928-2010)

We are living through the first moments of a new era for the world: a new era for Europe. After 2 years of experiencing a catastrophic pandemic, our societies have started taking tentative steps towards a new normal which is here to stay. At the same time, the war in Ukraine, a war in Europe, has already heavily disrupted global geopolitical stability and is expected to leave its mark on the international community for good. The result? A Europe in transition in a rapidly changing world.

The European Union has long recognised that in order to deal with these unprecedented challenges of our time, we need deep structural, economic and social reforms that will help us to build resilience and achieve far-reaching sustainability. In its attempts to mitigate the impact of these multiple crises, protect its citizens from current and future risks, and preserve its role as a global leader, the EU has adopted a series of ambitious plans mainly focusing on our energy autonomy, digital transformation and the green transition.

While our societies undoubtedly need to adapt to current tensions and shifting needs, it is of the utmost importance to identify the potential effects that these plans will have on employment, workers and citizens at large and, of course, make sure that they are socially fair and do not leave anyone behind. Indeed, if correctly implemented, these interventions can benefit workers, citizens and businesses but we also know from our experience that the professional, sectoral, regional, national and international competition following these changes may lead to a race to the bottom and not to the top.

This is exactly why we must strengthen the voice of workers and citizens and involve them in the processes that will determine their future. Radically reforming our societies will be only successful if the needs and demands of workers and citizens are given due consideration. As Sara Rinaudo, Chairwoman of CESI’s Working Group on the Future of Work, states in her draft discussion paper ‘Priorities of independent trade unions for socially fair green-digital transition processes in the European labour markets and economies’, these transitions must be done ‘with’ the workers and not ‘to’ them. Otherwise, they will not be sustainable. And for this, we need strong representatives of the different interest groups and, of course, strong and efficient trade unions.

On the occasion of our upcoming flagship event ‘Summer Days 2022’, we have invited a number of policy-makers, experts and representatives from European think tanks, trade unions and employer organisations, European and international institutions as well as civil society to discuss possible ways to ensure that the ambitious transitions towards a more green and digital Europe happen in a socially fair way. Via keynote speeches, plenary debates and a series of interactive workshops, the participants will have in-depth discussions on the socially-friendly supporting elements needed for the transitions and the role of social partners and trade unions in this regard.

Please join us in the debates at our Summer Days on June 30 and July 1 and register now!

Because… we may not be able to change the direction of the wind, but we can adjust our sails to always reach our destination.

CESI SG Klaus Heeger met today in Paris the representatives of Fédération nationale des SPELC , FA-FPT, Snspp-Pats , and Avenir Secours to talk about the digital transformation of public services.

In the position, CESI welcomes an announced initiative of the European Commission to take stock of challenges pertaining to access to essential services for all European citizens and notes in this respect that:

• The succession of recent crises – the Covid pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine – combined pressure on labour markets with disruptions on global production and supply chains and scarcity of food and energy resources. The result has been rising unemployment and/or lower incomes coupled with rising prices and financial instability of increasing numbers of low- and middle-income households. More and more people become vulnerable. This means that many public services are under additional pressure.
  
• The EU and the Member States should step up their efforts and commitments for an improved access to essential services which guarantee a decent level of healthcare, education and well-being for all citizens and in particular for the most vulnerable that cannot buy in private substitutive services, in line with the European Pillar of Social Rights.
• A strengthening of essential services is all the more important as a lesson learnt against the experience of the multiple unpredictable crises that Europe has been facing during the last years: Essential services must be sufficiently prepared and resourced to be performing to also deliver in difficult times.
• This necessitates adequate levels in public investments at the EU and national Member State level. The costs of the digital and green transitions must not be borne by the most vulnerable. Rather, the opposite is true: They are in need of support and assistance to face these transitions, including through and improved provision of essential services.
  • In particular, the EU’s new Recovery and Resilience Facility should be mapped considerably more against social considerations (which includes access to essential services) next to its two priorities on climate change mitigation and digitalisation.
  • Moreover, the funding of essential services should be taken into consideration in the context of the current review of the EU’s economic governance. The EU should make it easier for Member States to pursue necessary adequate investments in essential services without being penalised straightaway by the EU’s fiscal deficit rules of the Stability and Growth Pact.
  • A improved essential services can also be counter-financed by increasing capital taxation and VAT for high consumption and luxury products, as well as by the closure of loopholes for tax avoidance and tax evasion by investors and multinational companies. This remains an important playing field for the EU to deliver, together with Member States and further international actors such as the OECD.
• For high accessible, available and high quality essential services, these investments must target both facilities and infrastructure as well as equipment and, above all, human resources. Many essential services are understaffed while working conditions are precarious and pay for personnel is often inadequate. As long as these shortcomings persists, quality services cannot be delivered. This is confirmed by a recent study commissioned by the European Parliament on ‘Revaluation of working conditions and wages for essential workers’

The full position of CESI is available here.

The green, the digital and the social: Ensuring fair green-digital transitions in Europe

Two days of interactive workshops and plenary debates brought to you by the European Confederation of Independent Trade Unions (CESI), the Bertelsmann Stiftung and EU Observer (media partner)

Thursday, June 30 2022, 14.00-18.30 followed by BBQ

Friday, July 1 2022, 9.00-13.45 followed by light lunch
Le Bouche à Oreille, Rue Félix Hap, 1040 Bruxelles

Full programme

For Europe’s economies to re-emerge stronger from the Covid crisis and to set the pace for innovative and future-oriented green and digital societies, the European Union pursues an ambitious green-digital transformation policy agenda. To ensure that this twin transition is rolled-out in a sustainable manner which leaves no one behind, it needs socially-friendly support elements for and with workers at its core.

Via keynote addresses, plenary debates and a series of interactive workshops, experts and representatives from think tanks, trade unions, employer organisations, institutions and the civil society shall debate on ways to ensure that Europe’s bounce-back from the pandemic targets climate neutrality, digitalisation and social fairness and opportunities alike.

With the participation of

Nicolas Schmit, European Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights

MEP Dimitrios Papadimoulis, Vice-President of the European Parliament

MEP Eva Maydell, President of the European Movement International

Maria Teresa Fabregas Fernandez, Director of the Recovery and Resilience Task Force of the European Commission

Romain Wolff, President of the European Confederation of Independent Trade Unions (CESI)

Klaus Heeger, Secretary General of the European Confederation of Independent Trade Unions (CESI)

Oliver Röpke, President of the Workers’ Group of the European Economic and Social Committee

Mark Keese, Head of the Skills and Employability Division in the Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs at the OECD

Moustapha Kamal Gueye, Global Coordinator of the Green Jobs Programme of the ILO

MEP Dragoş Pîslaru, Chair of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs of the European Parliament
MEP Leila Chaibi, Vice-Chair of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs of the European Parliament

Kerstin Born-Sirkel, Founder of BSC International (moderator)

… and others

Workshop Partners

Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS)

CESI Youth

European Commission

European Policy Centre (EPC)

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
ifok

Covid notice: At the premise, the sanitary rules set by the Belgian authorities apply.

Benefit from a 50% discount for a yearly subscription to the EUobserver. Support independent journalism and benefit from clear and concise news. Enter PARTNER50 on check-out at http://www.euobserver.com/join

(media partner)

–

European Confederation of Independent Trade Unions (CESI)
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[email protected] | +32 (0) 22821870

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Towards a New Normal: How to Regulate Remote Working?

An online CESI@noon brought to you by the European Confederation of Independent Trade Unions (CESI)

Wednesday, June 8 2022, 12:00-13:30
Online (Zoom) – Registration

After more than two years of actue pandemic, the world of work is moving towards a New Normal. As predicted and expected by most scholars, politicians and social partner organisations, widespread and sustained remote working is an integral part of this. Even if many workers and employees will not work 100% from home as they were forced to during hard Covid lockdowns, 2/5 or 3/5 distant working schemes are becoming widespread and are in many cases foreseen to stay in the long-term.

How are these remote working schemes regulated (or not)? Do they tend to be imposed unilaterally by employers or are they implemented together with staff and their representatives, to the benefit of flexibility for employers and improved work-life balance for employees?

Can or should everyone have a right to remote working? Concretely, who does and should bear equipment-related and other costs incurred by remote working? How to ensure regulated working time and prevent permanent availabilities of workers? Who is in charge of health & safety and insurance liabilities? How to assure data protection and prevent potential invasive digital surveillance of staff?

What is now expected from unions, social partners and policy makers?

Join our next CESI@noon as we launch CESI’s discussion paper on ‘Telework or ICT-based mobile work in the post-pandemic world of work.

Sara Rinaudo
Chair of CESI’s Working Group on the Future of Work and National Secretary of the Italian Fismic-Confsal union

Oscar Vargas

CESI Secretary General Klaus Heeger met in Romania the representatives of USLIP IASI News to talk about the war in Ukraine, the challenges for workers in the education sector, and the digital transformation of public services.

More about DiWork – Digitalising public services: Making it work for citizens, business and workers: https://lnkd.in/dFrbQue4

On the occasion this year’s VET week, CESI Youth and its members welcome the initiative of the European Commission to address existing challenges in labour markets for young people by improving VET systems European-wide. CESI Youth considers that it is high time to improve approaches to school-to-work transitions, including by promoting a higher value of VET as a way to create more quality jobs and inclusive labour markets.

The EU is currently faced with huge labour shortages, partially due to skills shortages and mismatches, digitalisation and the green transition – despite a general availability of labour force, as is exhibited by high unemployment rates amongst youngsters. Recent research by Eurochambers confirms that most EU companies report that their main challenge, following the pandemic, is a shortage of available skills. The European Commission Company Survey also shows that 70% of companies in Europe struggle to find candidates with the right profiles despite quite high levels of unemployment and thus a general availability of workforce. Digitalization is also changing a lot the labour spectrum, at a rate and with an intensity hard to control. The green transition is probably adding to the pressures of reforming labour markets.

CESI welcomes that, to mitigate the challenge of building better transitions from education to the world of work, the European Commission has taken a set of initiatives.

CESI Youth believes that:

1. interventions to address the skills mismatch should start earlier in life by ensuring skills intelligence, meaning the knowledge on which shortages of skills exist in order for policy makers, the business environment and educators to adapt accordingly. Education and training providers -trade unions included- need to ensure that based on the real needs of the society and economy they are ready to adjust and to adapt their curricula and trainings to the needs of the labour market.
2. more support and guidance in the form of early career counselling should be implemented by educational and training facilities and provided to all children from early school years. More public investments in career guidance in the form of one-stop-shops are needed to provide information on labour market needs together with corresponding educational pathways.
3. the aspect of mobility within the EU is key for supporting labour matches. For this reason skills and qualifications need to be more easily recognized. A focus on the real opportunities provided by VET systems is key for addressing current labour shortages.
4. empowering young persons as individuals to take up training is key for overcoming the current crisis on the labour market and establishing a culture of life-long learning. Moreover, consultation mechanisms between education institutions, authorities and companies as well as social actors, including unions and their youth representatives, should be strengthened as this can contribute in the drafting of realistic and effective education-to-work strategies.
5. Europe needs accessible and inclusive labour markets; for this reason reskilling and upskilling should be encouraged throughout one’s life. Vulnerable groups should be offered special attention and policies since they are experiencing more difficulties in adapting to transitions.
6. the EU should also encourage more effective labour matchings by organising skills (VETs included) in a more transparent way and making qualifications more easily recognised for everyone across the European Union. Further apprenticeship and job exchanges among enterprises in the EU could support ‘brain exchange’ opportunities for young people and even encourage diversity in the workplaces.
7. the question to ensuring qualitative and stable working conditions once employed should be answered also by enforced EU frameworks on minimum wages and on working conditions for platform workers as well as by legislation against precarious work contracts.

This year’s VET Week should take full advantage of the European Year of Youth and contribute, to the largest extent possible, to a social recovery for young people.

Julija Skerniškytė from the Lithanian consultancy Visionary Analytics presented the final results of previous CESI research on digital transitions in public sector service delivery, underlining how trade unions can play a major role in the way teachers perceive digitalisation. In the ensuring debate, participants welcomed the findings of the research and stressed the importance of proper investments in digital equipment and digital skills for the teachign workforce, also to ensure a sustainable digital transition in the sector. The President of the Expert Commission, Salvatore Piroscia from the Italian Confsal trade union, added: “There is a need of a cultural shift to ensure a smooth digital transition. The education sector has to promote an approach that looks more towards technology innovation, one that both students and teachers can better understand and take ownership of.” The reasearch, concluded by study carried out by Visionary Analytics on behalf of CESI, is now available in English here.: It explores the impact of digitalisation on different fields of the public sector and public sector workforce, including in education. The study will be officially presented later on this year during the final conference of CESI’s project “DiWork – Digitalizing public services”.

The Expert Commission also welcomed Ulrike Storost from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Education and Culture (DG EAC) as an external guest speaker, who presented the European Commission’s view on the role of blended learning for high quality and inclusive education, both during the active phase of the pandemic and the post-Covid recovery. In particular, she highlighted how digital tools can, and should, enhance the possibilities of teaching – Just like other forms of learning such as outdoor activities or apprenticeships, the ultimate meaning of ‘blended learning’ being that “school can be everywhere”, thus opening to innovation and changes in pedagogical approach. In this context, Luc Viehé, Vice-President of the Expert Commission from the French SPELC union stated: “Distance is not absence: Remote teaching thanks to digital tools and methods shall complement – and not replace – the human factor of teaching, and rather support teachers in an increasingly evolving education landscape.”

The meeting continued with an exchange on the status quo and challenges of education in the Member States, taking into consideration both the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic and its ‘legacy’ on the education systems as well as a new complex context brought by the tragic war in Ukraine and the consequent humanitarian crisis. Members stressed that this latter constitutes a further challenge for the education systems of many Member States, in particular in Eastern Europe, which are struggling trying to find systemic and sustainable solutions to the integration of refugee children in education on the longer term.

The Expert Commission concluded by voicing the need for an inclusive education system with decent working conditions for the education professionals of all levels of education, a matter which they will follow-up with an update of CESI’s Teaching Manifesto of 2018.

The Expert Commission will gather for a second meeting this year on 10 October.

CESI broadly welcomes the initiative of the European Commission to issue guidelines for the Member States to carry out ex-ante distributional impact assessments (DIAs) in their national policy making in order to prevent new legislation from having direct or indirect adverse effects on poverty levels and household incomes.

CESI agrees with the objective of the initiative. CESI has for long proposed a new European Social Deal, analogous to the European Green Deal, which is placed in the centre of the EU institutions’ activities, making social fairness, decent work and equal opportunities an overarching priority. Like environmental and climate protection, social measures often fall victim to allegedly necessary policies to stay ‘economically competitive’ and not ‘overburden’ businesses and employers. After the post-2007 crisis, recent years have seen a shift away from the social and towards climate protection, and green policies have remained a priority in the post-Covid recovery response by the EU and the Member States. Social policy priorities appear to be pushed further aside as the Ukrainian crisis evolves and impacts on the EU’s economy. While climate protection and economic growth is undoubtedly centrally important, social inequalities persist in Europe and must not be pushed to the background. Therefore, as the EU agrees to set concrete targets to become climate neutral and rebounce economically strong from the Covid crisis, it should set equally ambitious targets for social fairness, decent work and equal opportunities – via a new European Social Deal.

While the European Commission’s initiative on DIAs goes in the right direction of a European Social Deal, CESI criticises that it falls short of it.

The policy instrument envisaged by the European Commission to realise DIAs in the Member States – guidelines issued by means of Communication – is unfortunately not as effective as binding targets via a directive or a regulation.

In the absence of hard regulation, it appears that at least the European Commission’s envisaged monitoring process of the implementation of DIAs by the Member States – regular informational provided to the Social Protection Committee and the Employment Committee and regular reviews of DIA practice in Member States and mutual learning events aimed at further improving tools and methodologies used to conduct DIAs – could be strengthened.

Moreover, the guidelines should make clear and explicit that DIAs should be streamlined and applied in all policy fields. Their scope should not remain vaguely defined.

CESI’s full position is available here.

The meeting focused in particular on:

1. establishing a trade union approach to the initiatives of the European Commission on a new EU Care Strategy and a potential EU framework for EU adequate working conditions for essential workers (which many health care professionals are) and to the recent European Parliament report on reducing inequalities in the health sector through the EU cohesion policy;
2. determining how to assist healthcare workforces to overcome digital skills gaps in their sector;
3. assessing the effects of the Covid pandemic on the health care workforce and finding ways for their improved support and appreciation by politics and society;

Participants made clear: The Covid crisis revealed the weaknesses in our health systems, most importantly the lack of sufficient care professionals per patient. As the pandemic situation fades out, our political actors seem to have forgotten the high price nurses and other health professional paid due to previous under-investments in the health sector. It is sad that even after such a ‘make-it or break it’ crisis still too often the hard work of nurses and other health professionals remains invisible and underappreciated.

Esther Reyes from the Spanish SATSE nurses union and President of CESI’s Expert Commission ‘Health Services’, said:

“Two years into the pandemic we notice that the healthcare workforce has been affected profoundly by high levels of anxiety and stress, burnout, violence and harassment, underpayment, no respect for rest days and poor work-life balance. We need to change this in order to save the health care workforce and to avoid losing nurses to other, more attractive professions. On the occasion of the 2022 International Day of Nurses, I plead we all take a stand and ask our stakeholders and politicians to stop the underappreciation of nurses. We need to invest better in the health workforce!”

CESI’s demands to this end include:

1. Nurses and doctors should always have a safe working environment.
2. A reasonable European patient-nurse quota should be established for everyone’s safety.
3. Equal work deserves equal pay and no kind of discrimination should occur when employing health care workers.
4. More investments in our health systems are needed in order to ensure that sufficient means and resources are made available for everyone’s care and well-being, without discrimination.
5. Access to social protection should be made available to all workers in the healthcare sector and the use of precarious temporary contracts be reduced in exchange for more stable and secure forms of employment.
6. Access to mental health remedies for all health workers suffering from the psychosocial effects of the pandemic should be made available.
7. Attracting new talent and skills in the health care sector should be pursued also via EU cohesion policy and not at the expense of the pool of specialists of third countries so that they will face great structural brain drains.
8. Real and meaningful access to interest representation should be made available for all the health workforce.
9. A full enforcement of the EU working time directive should be guaranteed to all the representatives of the nursing profession, not least also to ensure an adequate work-life balance for them.

As part of CESI’s EU co-funded project ‘DiWork – Digitalising public services: Making it work for citizens, business and workers’, the study was elaborated against the background of an EU digitalisation agenda that is becoming increasingly comprehensive. An enhanced interoperability of public services, the regulation of telework and employment in the platform economy, a promotion of digital education and skills, a functioning design of cyber data protection, a better support of companies in their digital transformation, the development of sustainable and secure digital infrastructures, … The list of EU projects is ambitious. Together with the European Green Deal, the goal of climate neutrality by 2050, a comprehensive digitalisation is intended to make the EU and its Member States global frontrunners in terms of economic innovation, swift administration and climate-friendly environmental protection.

In this context, the study stresses that it must be a central priority of trade unions that digitalisation is made inclusive and that the concerns of employees in companies and staff in public services are always taken into account in digital transformations. Generally, they should see digitalisation as an opportunity rather than a danger; ignoring or plainly dismissing it as anti-worker is shortsighted and cannot be in the interests of the employees, the study notes.

Rather, according to study, open-mindedness and proactive participation are the best way to find concrete solutions for a social digitalisation together with employers and politicians. Specifically, it states: “Trade unions should be active in consultations and negotiations on the implementation of new technologies in workplaces in order to represent workers’ need regarding digital tools and how they could be applied.” And: “Trade unions can shape workers’ attitudes towards digitalisation in order to create an environment where workers do not fear the change and are willing to support it.”

Klaus Heeger, Secretary General of CESI, underlines this finding: “Especially in turbulent times, trade unions have always been an anchor for their members that they rely on and trust. The trade unions should use this capital to mediate and, above all, to help shape digitalisation processes. Certain fears and concerns of employees are justified but they must not lead to fundamental opposition. This cannot be in the interest of the members in the medium term. Because digitalisation is taking place, with or without us. Only through our intervention can very concrete dangers of digitalisation be averted. This is probably the most important finding of the study.”

The full study is now available online, including various annexes and separate sector and case studies, under the following links:

• Full main study
• Executive summary
• Annexes with case studies on the defence, security, transportation and manufacturing sectors
• Sub-studies
  • Education and training sector
  • Health sector
  • Postal services sector
  • Central government and local and regional administration sector

Dear members, colleagues, friends, and partners of CESI,

May 1 was the International Workers’ Day – May Day.

May Day. Mayday?

My last two editorials focused on the challenges that the crisis in Ukraine means for us: first and foremost a humanitarian disaster; but also inflation, disruptions, shortages, economic instability, social hardships, military insecurity.

Last December, I wrote on possible implications of the recent Covid-Omicron-resurge – additional supply chain disruptions and shortages of essential goods across many industries, further job and financial insecurities for many workers.

And before that, I warned against obstacles on the way towards socially fair and worker-friendly green-digital transitions, and pleaded for the need of a strong public service agenda to be equipped for the next crises – crises which, as we see, keep popping up.

Fighting terrorism, saving the Euro, managing immigration, limiting climate change, containing Covid, facing war. On top: Demographic ageing which burdens welfare states, societies that get increasingly inequal, digitalisation which is stalling, public services that are under-staffed and under-resourced and struggle to cope, labour markets and employment relationships which evolve and change at almost inconceivable speed – sometimes too fast to be regulated by policy makers and social partners.

What will be next? And: Will we manage? Is May Day, this year, ‘Mayday’?

We face challenges on all fronts. Crises and socio-economic transformations overlap each other and accumulate before we can manage them and bring them down one-by-one. While workers´ and citizens´ major interests are at stake, trade unions´ commitments are more important than ever.

In the light of the diverse and complex crises and fundamental evolutions and transformations that we currently witness and experience, it is most central to stick together, to support each other. This is why I stressed in my video message on the occasion of May Day, the International Workers’ Day: “We can face the challenges of our time only in unity and solidarity.”

Because the overarching, transversal challenges that we face do not stop at national boundaries. They are European, if not global. ‘Unity and solidarity’ allow us to face crises; cooperation and support enable us to turn challenges into opportunities; and human interaction gives us courage and optimism – even, or especially, in these difficult times.

Trade unions and cross-border trade union cooperation embodies this: we show and live this unity and solidarity, this cooperation and support, this human interaction every day. So maybe it is not yet ‘Mayday!’ in the end. Maybe it is May Day after all. A day to praise, celebrate and honour work and workers. A day to defend them.

All workers count.

In the position, which was developed as part of a dedicated hearing carried out by the European Commission on April 7 on a new EU Care Strategy, CESI welcomes the initiative of the EU to address existing and rising challenges in the child care and long-term care sector in a holistic, European-wide manner.

In the position, CESI highlights in particular that an EU Care Strategy should:

1. match the supply of affordable and high quality care to increasing levels of demand. Considerable investments, in particular public investments, are needed in many Member States to improve the availability of accessibility, affordability and quality of long-term care and early childhood education and care services. This concerns above all facilities and care infrastructure. In particular, an EU Care Strategy should help ensure that the sector is well prepared and sufficiently resilient to provide quality services also during crises, in particular by taking lessons learnt from the Covid pandemic.
2. help step up staff attraction and staff retention. This will most notably require measures for better employment and working conditions in the care sector. Measures should span to pay levels, stress and strain exposure, occupational health and safety standards, and an improved public perception of care professionals and the important work they carry out.
3. better formalise the long–term care sector. Beyond the necessities about generally better working conditions in the care sector, and in conjunction with point 1 above, there is a need for informal and home–based carers to receive an adequate training, recognition, and qualification of the care services they provide. They should benefit from the experience and know–how gathered by already highly qualified personnel, who could act as facilitators and case managers of the persons looked after, flagging potential problems and helping, on a regular basis, to improve the care system and practices. The integration between the social and the health aspects in the context of home care is central: providing direct care, detecting needs and referring to professionals and institutions when needed.
   Moreover, as part of the European Strategy for Active and Healthy Ageing, an EU Care Strategy should help make more tools available at national level for recognizing the skills of carers. Nurses, physiotherapists, auxiliary and technical staff and social workers give important support to both formal and informal caregivers and their role and work is not always sufficiently recognised at the national level. Through an EU Care Strategy recognising their role as case managers, their skills and competences should be better evaluated and used in local contexts.
   
4. further professionalise the child care sector. An EU Care Strategy should encourage the inclusion of social–health experts in all child care programmes.
   
5. create a level-playing field to ensure a balance in the provision of accessible, affordable and high-quality care services across regions and countries. Care-related disparities, which are fostered by a borderless Single Market to the detriment of less advantaged countries, need to be mediated and tackled by the EU. The Single Market needs a social dimension which also addresses structural imbalances in labour migration, especially in the care sector.
   An EU Care Strategy should be sensitive to push-and-pull factors of care professionals. It should help strike a balance between the principle of free movement of (care) workers and (care) services on the one hand and the fostering of framework conditions in the care sector that do not make care professionals leave for other places. The framework should also consider the difficult situation of countries outside the EU, e.g. in the Balkan region, which lose care professionals to a degree that this poses a threat to their own care structures.
   An EU Care Strategy should integrate the EU’s social, cohesion, structural and investments funds to put a particular emphasis to improve the employment and working conditions in less developed regions of the EU, in order to prevent brain drains of health professionals and reduce push factors of labour towards the more well-off Member States and regions. Likewise, an EU Care Strategy should gear EU pre-accession assistance and neighbourhood policies increasingly in this direction. In addition, an EU Care Strategy could encourage bilateral or multilateral intergovernmental agreements to establish frames for ethical, sustainable and fair migration (and returns) of care sector workers.
6. ensure inclusive consultation and social dialogue for affordable, accessible and high quality care services. The European Commission should ensure the organisation of a social dialogue among sectoral unions and employers and their effective coordination with policy makers in order to help accompany the monitoring and implementation of an EU Care Strategy. At EU level, this should translate into a social dialogue on care/social services which is inclusive: All actors which, as per applicable representativeness study of Eurofound, fulfil the conditions of Commission Decision 98/500/EC to be fully recognised social partners, should be given the opportunity to participate in a European social dialogue care/social services sector – including CESI.

The full position is available here.

As war in Ukraine takes a terrible humanitarian toll, the world is facing far-reaching and unpredictable political, economic, social and geopolitical consequences.

For European citizens and workers, inflation is becoming an increasing threat. Already before war broke out in Ukraine, prices were getting higher in the EU across many commodities and outpaced wage increases in many places. Since then, the Russian invasion of the country has caused further soaring prices especially for energy. This concerns above all gas and oil for heating, fuel for transportation, and electricity.

Amid the turmoil in Ukraine and a difficult Covid recovery, citizens, workers and consumers face increasing challenges to their wealth and social standards and see their financial security and purchasing power at stake. Especially the low and even the middle-income households are exposed to imminent poverty risks if wages or other support mechanisms cannot compensate price increases.

On Friday, April 8, CESI shed light, as part of a CESI@home event, on impacts of energy inflation on citzens as workers and consumers as well as on the consequences that this will have on unions. During the event participants made clear:

• The issues that citizen-workers and citizen-consumers face go beyond just energy inflation and acute impacts of the war in Ukraine. Prices also for basic commodities other than energy, including for rents and basic nutrition, have been rising starkly and this already before the current military escalation in Ukraine. Moreover, there is no reason to believe that inflation will decrease by itself in the foreseeable future. Just accepting inflation climbing towards 2-digit levels and beyond cannot be an option. The decrease in living standards for tens of millions of hard-working people across the EU would be enormous.
• Urgent measures have to be found to keep inflation at bay and maintain the meltdown of purchasing power of workers in Europe. In the short-term, substantial relief measures financed by the state are needed especially for lower income groups and spanning across at least the goods that make up their largest shares of expenditure: energy, foodstuffs and rents.
• Policy makers and central bankers need to be find ways to enable the European Central Bank (ECB) to return to its raison d’être and mission: price stability and the maintenance of inflation at just around 2%. This may require an end of the ECB’s asset purchase programmes. If these are phased out, this could bring adverse financial and socio-economic impacts in the more indebted Euro countries. New political measures would need to be designed to mitigage these impacts.
• Measures by the ECB and policy makers to bring down inflation and support the most vulnerable must be accompanied by an extraordinary, one-off wage, pension and social security benefits increase to ensure that living standards are maintained over time. This would prevent potentially dangerious wage-price spirals. Unions together with employers, as social partners, need to make an extra effort to achieve this.

The event brought together speakers including CESI Secretary General Klaus Heeger and Elena Donnari from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Energy as well as Javier Jordán de Urries from CESI’s Spanish member CSIF and Patrick Fey from CESI’s Dutch affiliate CNV-Connectief – both also Vice-Presidents of CESI.

In Europe, important steps forward for health and safety at work have already been made through the EU strategic framework on health and safety at work 2021-2027, the ‘Healthy Workplaces’ awareness raising campaigns of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, or the recently adopted fourth revision of the EU directive 27/2004 on the protection of workers from risks related to exposure to carcinogens or mutagens at work. Against this background, data from 2018 reveals that there are still approximately 3,300 fatal accidents and 3.1 million non-fatal accidents taking place every year in the EU-27. Moreover, as the Covid pandemic revealed, many essential workers have suffered disproportionally from mental health issues and burnout. According to CESI, health is one of the most important assets for anyone and protecting workers’ safety should be a priority in any workplace. For this reason CESI advocates for:

1. more efforts, via the Framework Directive on the safety and health of workers, by both workers and employers to protect the wellbeing of the workforce. This should be the premise of each work relationship; it should be effectively safeguarded by independent bodies, such as labour inspectorates.
2. mitigating the risks associated in the workforce through training and continuous investments in the workforce, most notably in the areas of up-skilling, infrastructure and personal protective equipment.
3. better combatting psychosocial risks, violence and harassment at work and making mental health a priority in the workplace as an integral part of the post-Covid pandemic recovery. Many stress-induced diseases could be more easily prevented if early detection, care at initial stages and a better understanding of their realities would be shared in the workplace.

Klaus Heeger, CESI’s Secretary-General, declared: “Let’s learn from the Covid pandemic and together with employers and members states, let’s make the necessary changes and investments at European level so that we better avoid the risk of work-relates injuries or diseases and save lives and preserve the well-being of our workforce.”

The proposed new legislative framework is aimed to streamline residence permit procedures, a recognition of skills and migrants’ integration in the labour markets. The initiative, part of the New Pact on Migration and Asylum, targets about three million legal migrants from third countries coming to the EU to work and reside. In also concerns third-country nationals arriving in the EU following the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.

As highlighted by the 2021 Eurofound report on ‘Tackling labour shortages in EU member states’, the European Union faces a structural scarcity of labour – already before and still after the pandemic. In particular in the context of the EU’s ageing workforces and widespread skills mismatches, migration by qualified third country nationals could be a possible short- and medium-term solution to ensure a sufficient supply of qualified labour resources in the EU.

CESI Secretary General Klaus Heeger said: “The new EU initiative on ‘Attracting skills and talent to the EU’ can be a useful solution to help strengthen cooperation on migration and the free movement of persons in the Single Market and to contribute to avoid the exploitation of irregular markets with precarious work contracts in the EU. We welcome the initiative also for its potential to reduce skills shortages in the EU. However, any new policy should be implemented in line with EU cohesion, neighbourhood and development policy targets which consider that the countries of origin which are loosing talents will be faced with structural brain drain problems.”

It’s been well over a month now, and counting. Russia’s military aggressions in Ukraine continue apace. Confronted with unexpectedly fierce (and successful!) Ukrainian resistance, Vladimir Putin has added civilian terror as a new strategic element to his war, hoping that this will be the way he can finally break Ukraine. I fear that the brutal murder of uninvolved and unarmed civilians by Russian soldiers in Bucha near Kyiv is only the beginning of further war crimes for which Putin is personally accountable.

It goes without saying that Europe needs to provide shelter for all those fleeing the country and step up humanitarian support for all citizens that have been displaced in Ukraine: so far, 4 million and 7 million respectively. Europe must also demonstrate further solidarity with Ukraine, and this should also extend to significant provisions of military equipment. The only way that Russia can be stopped is with sufficient solidarity towards Ukraine and sanctions that hit Putin hard.

As Europe, as the EU, we need to stick together, show solidarity towards each other, and evaluate our own defence and deterrence capabilities and capacities: for our own security. This has become particularly clear to me during my visits in recent weeks to our member unions LVIPUFDA in Latvia, RJPS in Lithuania and WZZ F-O in Poland. Eastern European Member States are in need of our support and security assurance, and we need them in the EU. We must strengthen our bonds at all levels. Demonstrating this was also one of the purposes of these visits to our friends at LVIPUFDA, RJPS and WZZ-F-O.

To shed some light on the new geopolitical challenges we are facing, CESI recently hosted a public European Defence Round Table (ERDT). Based on a resolution that CESI’s statutory Expert Commission Defence had adopted in advance, it made clear: NATO is not obsolete; its (nuclear) deterrence is the basis for Russia not displaying aggression towards its territories. Moreover, the EU cannot entirely rely on the USA for its own defence in the long run; it needs to develop its joint defence capabilities significantly more, as a fully-fledged European Defence Union (EDU). And more military spending will be necessary to achieve this, – but money spent in the military must be spent wisely.

After all, Europe faces multiple challenges alongside security and defence which require significant investment, including on social equality and performing public services for citizens and business. And welcoming and integrating Ukrainians refugees into our welfare, education and public health systems will cost money, at least in the short run.

Ultimately, every Euro can only be spent once. For us as unions and workers, it is essential that public spending is carefully balanced. Support for Ukraine and Ukrainians as well as our own security are important – but so is climate protection, digitalisation, the provision of quality public services and so on.

And what will sanctions, what will a military re-focus, what will a “wartime economy” mean for us as a society, as citizens, as consumers, as workers? With the war ongoing, a further problematic dimension is beginning to bite for workers. Sanctions against Russia are starting to have a serious effect on public finances and the purchasing power of citizen-workers and citizen-consumers: notably, inflation increases for core expenditure items such as energy and foodstuffs, which hit lower and medium income households particularly hard.

On Friday, April 8, at a CESI@home on energy inflation organised for our members, we explored this issue in greater depth. Workers and consumers must not bear the indirect costs of the war in Ukraine. They must be protected from excessive adverse financial impacts, and substantial public relief measures will be needed. The state, public authorities and we as unions and social partners need to work together and come up with solutions.

Failing to do so would not only be unfair and endanger the living standards that workers have been working hard to acquire. It could also quickly yield a further divide of our societies, and even social unrest. To prevent this from happening is also our responsibility as trade unions.

Despite the manifold challenges we face, we continue to remain hopeful: hopeful because we stand united. Hopeful because we offer support and solidarity – This is our DNA. And hopeful because humanity will and must prevail.

I wish you all a Happy Easter and pleasant times with your families and friends. Take care of yourselves!

Beyond straightforward restrictions for mobility faced during the Covid pandemic, many young people often still face specific barriers to volunteering abroad in other Member States – including a lack of a harmonised set of rules for volunteers, insufficient access to transnational social security and health coverage, and an inadequate recognition of the skills and competences developed during a mobility scheme. These bottlenecks impede the opportunity for many young people to gain important intercultural and social competences for their lives as well as skills for a better school-to-work transition.

The Council Recommendation on the mobility of young volunteers across the European Union, adopted by the Member States today, could facilitate better transnational youth volunteering in the EU, also as part of or complementary to the already existing European Solidarity Corps or other national-level schemes. It provides a set of proposals for policy guidance in the Member States to enhance the inclusiveness, quality, recognition and sustainability dimensions of transnational youth volunteering, with a view to allowing for better mutual learning and networking experiences of volunteers.

In line with adopted motions at its 2021 Congress, CESI Youth welcomes the Council Recommendation. CESI Youth is convinced that a boosted mobility of youth volunteers in the EU could help youngsters to broaden their knowledge of foreign languages, be more inclusive and tolerant and better internalise better EU values, gain experience in different domains and skills, effectively exercise their freedom of movement, and build bridges to other EU societies and cultures. In the long term it could improve the employability of young people through better recognised training and education pathways.

CESI Youth Representative Matthäus Fandrejewski said: “I am a great supporter of EU mobility schemes for their potential to enhance EU democratic culture and values: European young people need opportunities to understand on a deeper level what is truly great about EU democracy and the four pillars or freedoms of our EU Single Market in order to foster these values throughout their lives. I welcome the Council Recommendation and I expect that all Member States, with the help of unions, social partners and youth organisations, will swiftly streamline their national rules, guidelines and regulations to implement the Council Recommendation.”

In 2022, a campaign of the Regional Office for Europe of the World Health Organisation (WHO) focuses on the One Health approach, which emphasises the interdependence of animal, human and environmental health and the link between individual choices and social behaviours and their impact on our environment.

In line with the One Health approach, CESI underlines the need to increase investments in public health in order to ensure sufficient human resources and adequate infrastructure for safe and quality health care for all in the EU.

One of the most important lessons learnt during the Covid-19 pandemic has been the need to build strong and resilient national healthcare systems which able to face critical situations that put at risk, either collectively or individually, the health and quality of life of EU citizens.

In line with this, the co-creation of a European Health Union envisages all EU countries to be able to prepare and respond together to health crises, with full medical supplies availability, affordable and innovative prevention, treatment and aftercare for diseases.

Against this idealistic background, as reported by many CESI trade union organisations active in the health sector, national budgets for health have been decreasing rapidly after the third wave of the Covid pandemic, which on the long term will lead to serious structural deterioration of our healthcare systems.

Esther Reyes, President of CESI’s Expert Commission ‘Health Services’ said: “Many national health systems face significant deficits in terms of staffing, infrastructure and funding. This makes them vulnerable and keeps them short from performing at their highest capacity. If we really care for the world, then we should start making the necessary investments for all people to be able to enjoy the most essential health care and go on from there to build resilient and strong healthcare systems which can protect the entire world and its populations.”

The conclusions, as adopted by the national education ministers, call on the Member States to

• foster opportunities for European mobility of teachers and trainers, for example by removing existing barriers, offering organisational and financial support, sharing solutions with regard to arranging substitute teachers and trainers, and promoting mobility programmes;
  
• integrate mobility in teacher and trainer education and training systems for both initial and in–service education and training and promote the use of training modules that are relevant and focused on Europe within this education and training; and
• facilitate the formal recognition of outcomes of mobility periods.
  

The conclusions also ask the European Commissin to

• promote opportunities for teachers’ and trainers’ mobility through the Erasmus+ programme;
  
• explore the possibility of developing a policy framework at European level for increasing the number and quality of learning mobility opportunities for both prospective and practising teachers and trainers in Europe based on their actual mobility needs; and
• promote the automatic mutual recognition of qualifications, and in particular of mobility periods abroad in teacher and trainer education and training.
  

CESI Secretary General Klaus Heeger said: “Education policy is foremost a national level competence, but the EU has important facilitating and coordinating functions. We appreciate the openness of the Member States in the Council to foster cooperation among each other and with the European Commission to achieve a higher degree mobility of teachers in Europe. If exchange programmes and stays abroad are part of the everyday lives of pupils and students, why should it not be for teachers? Their careers and their teaching would definitely benefit. I call on the Member States and the European Commission to put the suggestions of the Council’s conclusions into practice.”

CESI Secretary General Klaus Heeger travelled to Bydgoszcz in Poland to meet the WZZ F-O President Sławomir Wittkowicz and representatives of the Polish Free Trade Union “Forum – Education”.

In the position, which was developed as part of a Call for Evidence by the European Commission on a possible new EU initiatve to strengthen minimum income schemes in the Member States, CESI welcomes the initiative of the EU to increase the adequacy and effectiveness of national minimum income schemes as an integral part of a social dimension of the EU’s Single Market – and makes a case for binding targets for Member States to achieve.

In the position, CESI highlights that an EU initiative on minimum income schemes should above all:

1. ensure that gaps in the coverage of benefits as a result of inappropriate eligibility criteria as well as of gaps in the take up of benefits due to unawareness of eligibility are reduced to a minimum. The former will require clear stipulations of rules, principles and possible exemptions in the EU initiative for the Member States, as well as measures to prevent fraud and abuse. Concerning the latter, more support and resources will be required for public authorities, and public employment services in particular, to inform concerned citizens.
2. help ensure that minimum income schemes – which are set, as in most Member States, at below the national poverty thresholds – are increased to a level that prevents people from falling into poverty. In well-justified cases, it should be allowed to integrate minimum income schemes with other social benefits or income support, but the EU initiative should make clear that the final result should never be that persons fall into poverty. Regularly and in a transparent manner, the rules, coverage and adequacy of minimum income schemes should be reviewed and updated against price indexes to ensure that people fall do not fall into poverty over time. In doing so, naturally, minimum incomes should remain below full-time employment earning equivalents under national minimum wages, which must be high enough to enjoy living standards well beyond poverty thresholds. Incentives to work must remain for all those that can, while a poverty-free standard of living for all those that cannot must be guaranteed.
3. help all people that can work make the step into labour markets and higher living standards, the EU initiative should promote more tailor-made and effective activation measures. Beyond simplified administrative procedure and better interconnectedness and internal coordination within and among local authorities, public employment services and social security institutions, this will require investments in their resources and equipment as well as in their personnel and further training. When improved services bring people back into work, this is a forward-looking investment that quickly pays off in economic and social terms.

In the position, CESI states its disagreement with the envisaged policy instrument suggested in the European Commission’s Call for Evidence to realise the EU initiative – a Council Recommendation – to strengthen minimum income schemes in the Member States along the above considerations. Without minimum standards based on a binding legislative act (e.g. a directive), a cross-cutting implementation and enforcement of EU provisions on minimum income schemes in the Member States is unlikely. CESI proposes as legal base article TFEU 153(1)h on the integration of persons excluded from the labour market, in combination with article TFEU 153(2)b which provides for the adoption of a directive under the ordinary legislative procedure with qualified majority voting in the Council. This could combine legally binding objectives for Member States with their ability to set their own ways of how to achieve them.

The full position is available here.

In the position, which was developed as part of a Call for Evidence by the European Commission on a new EU Care Strategy, CESI welcomes the initiative of the EU to address existing and rising challenges in the child care and long-term care sector in a holistic, European-wide manner.

In the position, CESI highlights in particular that an EU Care Strategy should:

1. match the supply of affordable and high quality care to increasing levels of demand. Considerable investments, in particular public investments, are needed in many Member States to improve the availability of accessibility, affordability and quality of long-term care and early childhood education and care services. This concerns above all facilities and care infrastructure. In particular, an EU Care Strategy should help ensure that the sector is well prepared and sufficiently resilient to provide quality services also during crises, in particular by taking lessons learnt from the Covid pandemic.
2. help step up staff attraction and staff retention. This will most notably require measures for better employment and working conditions in the care sector. Measures should span to pay levels, stress and strain exposure, occupational health and safety standards, and an improved public perception of care professionals and the important work they carry out.
3. create a level-playing field to ensure a balance in the provision of accessible, affordable and high-quality care services across regions and countries. Care-related disparities, which are fostered by a borderless Single Market to the detriment of less advantaged countries, need to be mediated and tackled by the EU. The Single Market needs a social dimension which also addresses structural imbalances in labour migration, especially in the care sector.
   An EU Care Strategy should be sensitive to push-and-pull factors of care professionals. It should help strike a balance between the principle of free movement of (care) workers and (care) services on the one hand and the fostering of framework conditions in the care sector that do not make care professionals leave for other places. The framework should also consider the difficult situation of countries outside the EU, e.g. in the Balkan region, which lose care professionals to a degree that this poses a threat to their own care structures.
   An EU Care Strategy should integrate the EU’s social, cohesion, structural and investments funds to put a particular emphasis to improve the employment and working conditions in less developed regions of the EU, in order to prevent brain drains of health professionals and reduce push factors of labour towards the more well-off Member States and regions. Likewise, an EU Care Strategy should gear EU pre-accession assistance and neighbourhood policies increasingly in this direction. In addition, an EU Care Strategy could encourage bilateral or multilateral intergovernmental agreements to establish frames for ethical, sustainable and fair migration (and returns) of care sector workers.
4. ensure inclusive consultation and social dialogue for affordable, accessible and high quality care services. The European Commission should ensure the organisation of a social dialogue among sectoral unions and employers and their effective coordination with policy makers in order to help accompany the monitoring and implementation of an EU Care Strategy. At EU level, this should translate into a social dialogue on care/social services which is inclusive: All actors which, as per applicable representativeness study of Eurofound, fulfil the conditions of Commission Decision 98/500/EC to be fully recognised social partners, should be given the opportunity to participate in a European social dialogue care/social services sector – including CESI.

The full position is available here.

“CESI stands in solidarity with the Ukrainians who are defending their country and their freedom, and therefore also Europe’s freedom, and with all the people in Russia who are opposing this criminal war.

The independent trade unions united in CESI call upon their members to offer support in welcoming our Ukrainian neighbours who are fleeing this brutal war.

It is time for Europe to come together. This applies not only to politics, but to our societies as a whole. In the face of the existential threat posed by Putin’s war, democracies in Europe and the world over must stand shoulder to shoulder.

All Europeans are now called upon to do their part to defend democracy and freedom and the rights, principles and values enshrined within them; even beyond Russia’s acute acts of aggression. Our freedom has rarely faced a greater threat. And we have rarely been so keenly aware of the liberal and democratic achievements of the past and their importance to us.

There may be difficult times ahead. We must contain Putin’s aggression, prevent the spread of this war, offer assistance to refugees, integrate them into our labour markets and ensure their children receive schooling and vocational training. And there will also be economic and social consequences to face.

This all requires strong trade unions, efficient public services, a resolute civil society and, last but not least, widespread societal cohesion. Functioning social partnerships and trade union pluralism make an enormous contribution to this.

However, along with the current challenges come great opportunities to strengthen solidarity, democracy and freedom on a lasting basis. We call upon politicians to create the framework for these opportunities so that they can be properly grasped.”

Full resolution as PDF

CESI SG Klaus Heeger travelled to Lithuania to meet with the representatives of the General Trade Union of the Republic of Lithuania (RJPS).

The resolution, which was adopted in the form of thesis points, sets out key public sector trade union demands that should form the basis for further discussions on how the EU should react to Russian aggressions in economic and military terms. It stipulates, most notably that:

• NATO is everything but obsolete, as former US-President Donald Trump suggested. Indeed, NATO’s continued and functioning military deterrence infrastructure, including its nuclear arsenal, is vital to be maintained. It is the basis for non-aggression by Russia towards its territories;
• the election of former US-President Donald Trump has shown that the EU cannot entirely rely on the USA for its own defence at any time. Next to strengthened EU-NATO cooperation, the EU needs to much better develop its joint defence capabilities, including in research and development, military procurement, shared equipment and weapons, and joint operations;
• to this end, a Strategic Compass of the EU may provide a useful framework to steer the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) and its Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) to a fully-fledged European Defence Union (EDU), based on effective military, industrial and civilian cooperation;
• as the basis for transition to and implementation of the Strategic Compass, there must be an overall common understanding and mindset concerning the need for preparation of defence capabilities with all political actors. More than just military experts need to be integrated in the general outline of defence planning;
• the above will require increased military spending. It is imperative that, together, the armies of the Member States possess the necessary infrastructure in terms of staff levels, equipment, facilities, weapons and training to be operational and effective;
• however, it is vital that money spent in the military is spent wisely. Europe faces multiple challenges next to security and defence which require significant investment in other areas, above all for digitalisation, climate change mitigation and environmental protection, social protection and social fairness, as well as for performing public services for citizens and business – which need to be sufficiently resourced and resilient also to face unforeseeable major crises such as the Covid pandemic. Every Euro can only be spent once;
• next to total available financial budgets, a more intelligent and smarter pooling of know-how, resources and capabilities can significantly step up innovation, capabilities and action potential in defence. This is what the European Defence Union (EDU) should focus on above all;
• such pooling must not only take place among the EU Member States, but also with those directly concerned by it: civilian and military personnel in the armed forces and the unions which represent them. They often know best how work organisation can be rendered more effective, which operational shortcomings need to be addressed, and how new models of cooperation, coordination and joint deployment can be best put into practice on the ground. Their expertise must not be missed. To this end, they should be systematically consulted and heard in EU defence policy making just like in the national military structures they are employed in.

The full resolution with all thesis points is available here.

Since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24 2022, the political, economic and military world order has changed considerably. Today more than ever the Russian invasion of Ukraine is calling for a global reassessment of values and priorities. This is the context in which the fourth edition of CESI’s European Defence Round Table (EDRT) was held on March 21, contributing to it with very meaningful perspectives on the current state of affairs and providing solutions of moving forward for peace in Europe.

Fabian Zuleeg, Chief Executive at the European Policy Centre (EPC) in Brussels, declared: “This is a watershed moment in European history which will test the EU and liberal democracies in general.” In his assessment all the coordinates of our societies are changing following the start of the war in Ukraine, from energy policies and prices to the procurement of raw materials in European industries and migration management policies. In his opinion, solidarity and Europeanisation should prevail in addressing the upcoming crisis in order to ensure effective survival strategies for everyone.

Mary Kaldor, Professor of Global Governance at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), reminded the participants: “The Russian invasion of Ukraine is also about a battle of values: democracy versus authoritarianism.” She added: “What is needed is a rethinking of Europe’s security arrangements, along the lines of the Helsinki Accords of 1975 rather than classic geopolitical alliances such as NATO.”

Elena Lazarou, Head of the External Policies Unit at the European Parliament Research Service, was of the opinion that this war is speeding up the European efforts for achieving a European Defence Union, through the Strategic Compass and a post-Versailles agenda with EU Member States committing more investments in the area of defence. She also referred to the importance for the EU to build a stronger defensive deterrence doctrine for more peaceful cooperation.

Thomas Sohst, member of the Board of CESI for the German Armed Forces Association (Deutscher BundeswehrVerband; DBwV) and President of CESI’s Expert Commission ‘Defence’, related current changes in the world’s geopolitical setting to possible consequences for the civilian and military personnel of the armed forces and their representatives, stressing the importance of army staff to be well represented, equipped and consulted in the delivery of the forthcoming military plans, especially in light of a newly created European Rapid Deployment Capacity.

Christian Moos, a member of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) and representing CESI’s member organisation dbb (the German Civil Servants Association), presented impacts of the current geopolitical crisis and a European Defence Union on civil society organisations at EU and national level (Germany).

Klaus Heeger, CESI Secretary General concluded the EDRT by declaring: “This war obliges us to rethink and re-evaluate our policies in terms of geopolitics, security, defence, and energy security, but one matter is clear: We are all united and for the first time in a long time we should stop taking anything for granted. We should step up our efforts to defend the common values which are the foundation of our European societies: democracy, freedom and peace.”

As a result of the meeting, thesis points on the further development of the European Defence Union were adopted.

European Commissioner for Jobs and Social Security, Nicolas Schmit, kicked off the meeting, bringing youth in the spotlight of the current EU political agenda for building green, inclusive and digital transitions from school to work. He also referred to central role of the Youth Employment Support as a bridge to jobs for the next generation. Commissioner Schmit stated: “Our young people cannot have the perception they have been forgotten. An ecosystem approach is crucial for transition to work nowadays.” To this end, he stressed the importance of a reinforced Youth Guarantee for people aged 15-29 with a special focus on the most vulnerable and NEETs, improved vocational training systems, renewed alliance for apprenticeships and ALMA for disadvantaged youth. The Commissioner positioned himself in favour of fairly paid internships.

Eszter Sandor from Eurofound emphasised how, due to the Covid19 pandemic, young people have been recently particularly affected by unemployment, precarious work and poor access to education and social protection – even if various EU initiatives have been put in place to address multiple forms of social or economic exclusion and mental health threats, aiming above all at young people’s access to decent work. She added that a Eurofond survey of autumn 2021 found an alarming trend of more than 60% of young people having not experienced a positive access to online education, and that mental health professionals have highlighted the severity of the impact of restrictive Covid measures on youth. Concerns around the impact of uncertainty on young people’s ability to get back on track and their mental health require urgent intervention, she concluded.

MEP Kim van Sparrentak also underlined the negative impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on young people’s lives and referred to inequalities which have risen since the start of the pandemic to the disadvantage of the youth. MEP Dragoş Pîslaru, European Parliament rapporteur for a recent resolution of the European Parliament on ‘Empowering European youth: post-pandemic employment and social recovery’, presented the next steps for making this resolution operational at EU and Member State level. In his opinion, creating positive impacts for mental health and paid internships are two of the most pressing needs for the youth policy agenda in the post-pandemic period.

Representatives of youth organisations such as José Gonçalo Ribeiro from the Portuguese Youth Council, Jan Wilker from StartNet and Tea Jarc from ETUC Youth confirmed the multiple crises which challenge young people and necessitate further action, investments and coordination from the national to the EU level.

CESI Youth Representative Matthäus Fandrejewski concluded by highlighting the importance of investing in better school to work transitions through better career guidance paths, at early stages in an individual’s life, and constant upskilling of workers throughout their careers.

Participants agreed that the European Year of Youth in 2022 offers an excellent opportunity for young people to stand up for their social rights but that efforts should remain constant, also beyond 2022, in order to continue to address the multidimensional adverse impacts that Covid-19 has had on youth.

In the resolution, the European Parliament broadly welcomes the European Commission’s Action Plan for Fair and Simple Taxation and supports its implementation.

As regards VAT, in particular, the European Parliament positively notes the European Commission’s proposal to modernise, simplify and harmonise VAT requirements, using transaction-based real-time reporting and e-invoicing, given that such reporting needs to be taxpayer-friendly while allowing tax administrations to have an overview of the various transactions in real-time – to facilitate the prevention and detection of fraud and risky economic operators.

The report underlines that the diversity of the Member States’ tax regulations constitutes a cumbersome challenge. It is noted that particularly affected are the SMEs and start-ups, as they have to cope with up to 27 different tax systems.

In the report, the European Parliament stresses the importance of the Next Generation EU programme for the economic recovery in the Member States and highlights the opportunity that its Recovery and Resilience Facility represents pursue fiscal reforms and investments leading to a fairer, more sustainable and better digitalisation of the fiscal system.

In order to reach a stable mutual trust between tax payers and tax administrations, the principles of tax transparency, fairness and certainty based on clear respective rights and duties are emphasised in the report as being of fundamental importance.

The European Parliament also stresses that the current taxation systems could lead not only to uneven or inconsistent applications of tax regulations among Member States, but also to sensible delays in the harmonisation of tax practices or standards across the Union. For this, it calls on the European Commission and the Member States to take action in order to ensure more harmonised and consistent tax rules and their implementation.

CESI Secretary General Klaus Heeger said: “The report rightly stresses the need for more coordination and cooperation in taxation among Member States and their tax admnistrations. However, this necessitates accompanying investments in facilities, equipment, digital infrastructure and not least the staff of tax administrations – both in qualitative and quantitative terms. Rules on paper are nothing without sufficient and well-trained staff that can also executive planned coopeteration. The report could have been more clear on this.”

On March 11, CESI held a timely online debate on active labour market policies and the role of trade unions in promoting high-quality employment.

The event aimed to give to the participants the opportunity to discuss about best practices for effective active labour market policies and appropriate approaches for quality job creation with a special focus on workers and citizens that have been affected most by the pandemic.

Trade union experts and policy makers shared their views on issues such as: Which is the role of active labour market policies in mitigating the consequences of the current transitions in employment? How can they support those at risk of permanent detachment from the labour market and social exclusion? How can member states create quality jobs and improve matching between workers and jobs? And what is the role of trade unions and social partners in these interventions?

CESI Secretary General Klaus Heeger opened the debate and stressed the importance of effective social dialogue mechanisms in the design, delivery and implementation of active labour market policies.

Theodora Xenogiani, senior economist at the Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs of the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), presented the most recent challenges for the public employment services (PES) in the OECD countries and the spending of these countries on labour market services and active labour market measures.

Roberto Di Maulo, CESI Vice-President and Secretary General of the Italian Confsal-Fismic, described the Italian legal framework of labour market policies in detail and shared his thoughts on how countries with high unemployment rates can revitalise their labour markets.

CESI Youth Representative Matthäus Fandrejewski presented the current needs of the youth and the difficulties for young people to access the labour market and find quality jobs.

CESI continues to work towards inclusive policies that support workers and citizens and leave no one behind.

The resolution of the European Parliament, adopted by the full plenary, welcomes recent judgments of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) in cases C‑156/21 and C‑157/21 on the validity of EU Regulation 2020/2092 (the so-called ‘Conditionality Regulation’) on a general regime of conditionality for the protection of the Union budget.

Adopted in 2020 in connection with the EU’s new Multiannual Financial Framework for 2021-2027, the regulation allows the EU to make access to EU funding for Member States subject to the respect of the rule of law by the latter.

In particular, the mechanism set out in the regulation allows the European Commission and the Council to take action to protect the Union budget when they consider that breaches of the rule of law principles can affect the EU’s financial interests.

Hungary and Poland claimed that the regulation lacks an appropriate legal basis in the Treaties and that the procedure laid down by the Regulation exceeds the comptences of the EU and, each starting their own legal procedures, requested its annulment before the Court of Justice of the European Union.

In its judgements, the Court rejected the claims of the two Member States and confirmed the validity of the regulation, recognising the power of the EU to intervene in order to protect its financial interests when the breaches of the rule of law by a Member State affect or risk affecting them.

In the European Parliament’s resolution adopted on March 10 by a large majority of 478 votes in favour and 155 against, MEPs welcomed the judgements of the CJEU and called on the European Commission to immediately initiate proceedings and take financial measures against Member States that fail to respect the rule of law.

More specifically, the European Parliament stressed that it is “high time” for the European Commission to protect the EU finances from the breaches of the rule of law and called it to implement EU legislation also regardless of the electoral timetables in the Member States.

CESI Secretary General Klaus Heeger said: “The war in Ukraine has reminded us of our duty to safeguard our common European values and, of course, the rule of law, which is a prerequisite for stability, efficient cooperation, and security in the wider region. The resolution of the European Parliament gives a strong political dimension to the recent CJEU rulings which should be enforced properly. Europe has a historic opportunity to strengthen its cohesion on the basis of a durable system of institutions, laws, and norms and to fulfill its role as a pole of stability and prosperity.”

The cardinal point of the resolution is the human health and safety protection at work, which must be ensured in the definition and implementation of all the Union policies and activities.

The resolution’s scope spans across all aspects related to the health and safety at work, including elements such as fatal and non-fatal accidents, work-related illnesses, accidents while performing black-work activity, as well as psychosocial risks. Moreover, internal factors such as radiation, stress at work and working conditions are taken into consideration.

CESI Secretary General Klaus Heeger said: “Globalisation, digitalisation and not least the Covid pandemic have represented challenges that changed our perception and approach to work. Rightly so, mental health has obtained great relevance in the debate on workers’ health and safety – rising levels of mental work-related absenteeism, including through burnout, exhibit this. We welcome the emphasis that the report puts on this matter.”

He added: “As CESI, as a European voice of employees in all parts and layers of public services, we find it particularly appropriate that a prominent mention is made in the report of third party violence as an increasing problem in the world of work. For many of the teachers, nurses and administration staff that we represent, violence by customers and citizens is an increasing problem that policy makers and social partners need to address urgently.”

Dear members, colleagues, friends, and partners of CESI,

“We, the members of the Presidium of the European Confederation of Independent Trade Unions (CESI), strongly and firmly condemn the unprovoked Russian attack on Ukraine; an aggression which cannot be justified by any means. The attack is an unprecedented breach of international law and treaties. It violates the basic principles of the UN Charter, and it crushes the most fundamental principle inherent to the diligent exercise of leadership: the preservation of peace.”

Yes, Putin has failed Ukraine, he has failed Russia, and he has failed the entire world.

His power, his regime is not only built on increasingly brutal oppression, but also on blatant lies. The more blatant, the better. There is war in Europe. It is an act of aggression against Ukraine. It is not a ‘special military operation’ of ‘denazification’ – starting with the fact that Ukrainian President Selenskyj is of Jewish descent himself.

Authoritarian leaders seem to have a particular inclination (and interest) to perpetuate myths. In the absence of any contradiction, they can create new narratives based on blatant lies. And start believing them themselves – to their own detriment. But does it matter? Does lying change anything?

War has almost always been started based on a myth, with a story, mostly a lie: “This night regular Polish soldiers fired on our territory for the first time. We have been returning the fire since 5.45AM, and from now on bombs will be met by bombs.” Does this sound familiar to you?

This is Hitler’s address to the Reichstag on September 1, 1939, following which Germany invaded Poland. At the time, most Germans believed Hitler. They believed that Poland was responsible for the animosity. Inebriated by a feeling of injustice (Versailles) and revenge, they felt that it was time to show the world who the Germans really were.

Today, the assumption is not totally far-fetched that Russia´s war is probably felt as a justified act of self-defence by large parts of the Russian population. And we can assume that proving this justification wrong would not change anything. Because humans are inclined to believe what confirms their prior beliefs. “The chilling truth is that tens of millions of Russians readily accept the Orwellian lies promoted by Kremlin TV and share the sentiments expressed by the country’s pro-war cheerleaders.”

And a recent report from the European Parliament´s Research Service on the effectiveness of Western sanctions against Russia comes to the conclusion that “public opinion in sanctioned countries tends to ‘rally around the flag’ in defiance of international pressure.”

Meanwhile our (Russian and Western) views collide to an extent that probably nothing will make us change our minds (except perhaps a shift or change in the Russian power game). As a ‘New York Times’ commentator recently wrote, “we are all living in Vladimir Putin´s world now”. Propaganda meets propaganda, sanctions meet sanctions, threats meet threats, and slander meets slander.

It will not be easy to pick up the pieces once this conflict is over (and hopefully it will end). The truth, however, which overshadows all narratives is the fact that the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians is either willing to resist or seeks protection – in the West.

After the fall of the Iron Curtain, democracies and liberalism were on the winning side. American economist Francis Fukuyama famously prophesised in 1992 that the “universalisation of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government marks the end of history as such.”

The current situation tells a different story, and the willingness to defend democracies in times of abundance (and external threats) has unfortunately dwindled tragically in the past two decades.

Yet as democracy and self-determination have become scarce goods, the demand for them appears to have increased tremendously. The incredibly brave fight of the Ukrainian people is a more than impressive demonstration of it.

It is hence an ethical imperative to defend freedom, democracy, the rule of law, human dignity, and rights, and not least our multilateral liberal world order; to tackle the challenges of humanity, and not be subject to the bullying of the stronger one.

Yet, as the EU leaders are currently united in Versailles, their choices are not easy. Because they (and we) know, there is also a hefty price to pay.

Firstly, there is the risk of escalation and a further massive increase of loss of human lives, humanitarian disasters, an unprecedented migration crisis, and even of a nuclear conflict.

Secondly, facing war, sanctions, energy supply shortcomings and not least independence from Russian fossil fuels are enormous challenges for our economies and our wealth, and may even put a brake to the aims of greenhouse gas emission reduction and climate protection.

Thirdly, economic recession, increased military spending, support for Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees, etc, will reduce the fiscal spaces that are needed especially in the Covid aftermath. Spaces required for fair transitions, public infrastructure, public services, and support to the most vulnerable. “The money that should go to teachers, nurses and social workers would instead go to tanks, missiles, and cyber weapons”, historian Yuval Noah Harari recently wrote.

Fourthly, in times of crises (and the current war may even overshadow the Corona pandemic – in addition to reinforcing it), workers and the most vulnerable stand to lose, be they Ukrainians, Russia, German, French, Italian or Polish; as a trade unionist, a heavy price to pay.

And finally, we are painfully realising that – while the coronavirus mainly posed a threat to the older generation- our main worries in war times concern our children. Something that makes us particularly vulnerable, easy to manipulate, and very predictable.

These are significant consequences. They will require determination, perseverance, stamina, courage, and not least the ability to take clear decisions; decisions, the consequences of which cannot be predicted, especially not these days.

We are facing a “turn of eras (‘Zeitenwende’) in the history of our continent”, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared in his recent government statement. Unprecedented upheavals that will require a new thinking, the breaking of many taboos, and the reversing of previous trends and policies, which until February 24^th seemed to be carved in stone.

What gives me comfort is that, since WWII, the world´s liberal democracies have never been more united and ready to stand for what matters to us – and that must include Ukraine.

#StandWithUkraine

We, the members of the Presidium of the European Confederation of Independent Trade Unions (CESI), strongly and firmly condemn the Russian unprovoked attack on Ukraine; an aggression which cannot be justified by any means.

We express our full solidarity with and support of the Ukrainian people and nation. Today, our thoughts are with all those in the frontline: the Ukrainian soldiers who protect their borders, the men, the women, and, of course, the children.

The attack is an unprecedented breach of international laws and treaties. It violates the basic principles of the UN Charter, and it tramples on the most fundamental principle inherent to the diligent exercise of leadership: the preservation of peace.

The Russian Government decided to return to the darkest times of our history. More than 70 years after the European Convention on Human Rights has been opened for signature – also signed and ratified by the Russian Federation-, the tragedies of the past may unfold again.

We call upon the EU leadership, united today in Brussels, not to shy away from taking clear and unequivocal decisions. Decisions that demonstrate that we are willing to defend the values that are the essence of our liberalism: peace, freedom, democracy, security, justice, solidarity, rule of law, human dignity, and mutual respect.

Because this attack is not only directed against Ukraine. It is also directed against us.

The online meeting aimed at examining ways to protect and compensate victims of violence and harassment and assessing the value of the multisectoral Guidelines to tackle third-party violence and harassment at work which were adopted in 2010. Trade unionists including CESI’s members, as well as managers and researchers, had the opportunity to exchange on timely questions such as: Which is the legal basis for the compensation of the victims of violence and harassment at work at both EU and international level? To what extent have Guidelines proved useful regarding the protection and compensation of victims of violence and harassment? Should the Guidelines be updated to include a reference to sanctions against perpetrators of violence and harassment?

Jane Pillinger, independent researcher and consultant for the project, summarized the key conclusions of the previous webinar of the project which was devoted to the challenges and risks of digitalization on third-party violence and harassment at work, and then, presented the European and international legal background of the protection of victims. The researcher presented the provisions of the EU directives regulating harassment and sexual abuse; the rights, support and protection of victims of crime; as well as the objectives of the proposed directive on gender-based violence and analyzed the ILO Conventions and Recommendations that are applicable. She also gave an overview, based on her research findings and the survey, on examples of remedies, protection and compensation initiatives for victims of workplace violence, as well as victims of domestic violence, like paid-leave in come countries, counselling, sanctions for perpetrators and other type of support for victims/survivors.

Trade unionists from several EU countries shared with the audience national examples of initiatives aimed at the protection of victims. Dr. Alessandra Menelao from the Italian Labour Union UIL presented multi-sectoral initiatives against all types of violence in Italy. Kremena Dimitrova from the Bulgarian Federation of Transport Trade Unions FTTUB talked about best practices in the transport sector. Yordan Krasev from the Bulgarian Union of Teachers SEB shared the latest developments regarding the revision of the Bulgarian Penal Code.

The webinar ended with a fruitful exchange of views on the effectiveness of the multisectoral social partners Guidelines and possible improvements.

The speakers’ presentations of this fourth webinar, as well as a report in English, are available here.

For CESI, this webinar constituted the continuation of an awareness-raising action on the topic started with its own project on third-party violence at work (2019-2020) and particularly including an own #NOVIOLENCEATWORK campaign based on a video and manifesto against third-party violence at work, be it offline, or online.

About the multisectoral European social partner project

“The role of social partners in preventing third-party violence and harassment at work” is a joint project of HOSPEEM, EPSU, CEMR, CESI (co-applicants) and ETF, ETNO, ETUCE, EUPAE, UITP (associated organizations), co-funded by the European Commission, for the years 2021 to 2023.

The project aims to assess the effectiveness at the national level of the EU multi-sectoral social partners’ Guidelines to tackle and prevent third-party violence and harassment related to work (2010), which CESI signed in 2018, as part of the TUNED delegation, for the central government administrations’ sector. It will identify areas for improvements and explore possibilities for reviewing the Guidelines’ content and nature considering recent legislative developments and the ILO Convention 190 on Violence and Harassment (2019). The final objective of the project is to become an awareness-raising tool on a gender-sensitive approach to third-party violence and harassment at the workplace.

Long before Covid pandemic, CESI and its member organisations called for health inequalities in Europe to be addressed and flagged a problematic brain-drain effect of healthcare personnel between countries in Europe. Moreover, much as the pandemic revealed clearly, public healthcare systems are essential for well-functioning societies, but at the same time many national systems have been suffering from scarce investment, understaffing, ageing workforces and poor employment and working conditions. In order to mitigate these challenges, CESI has advocated for more investment in the healthcare professionals. As proven by scientific data, a lack of proper staffing quotas in the medical field results in physicians’ and nurses’ burnout as well a lower quality of care and increased risks of medical errors – to the detriment of patients and staff. Evidence-based research also proves that investing in adequate patient-nurse ratios can save costs for health systems in the long run.

Klaus Heeger, CESI Secretary General, said on the ocassion of an own-initiative report adopted by the European Parliament on March 8 on ‘Cohesion policy: reducing healthcare disparities and enhancing cross-border health cooperation’: “Access to different healthcare standards due to disparities in available treatment, equipment and staffing is undermining the idea of a European Health Union where an average standard of care should be put in place. The use of EU funding instruments to address this matter is an opportunity and a necessity for the EU and national stakeholders. CESI welcomes the European Parliament’s call to increasingly use cohesion policy investments for healthcare systems at a larger scale – for the good of public health systems and their staff as well as an overall balance and level playing field for healthcare provision and staff balances across the continent.”

CESI SG Klaus Heeger met today in Riga the Lvipufda President Andrejs Jirgensons and a delegation of the Latvian State Agencies, Municipalities, Businesses and Financial Officers Union.

“In 2022, still a lot remains to be done to end violence against women and girls and structural social and economic gender disadvantages. I am however encouraged that at the EU level progress is tangible on several policy files that could help achieve more equality for women.

Today, the European Commission will table a long-awaited legislative proposal for a directive with binding measures for Member States to end violence against women and domestic violence. The proposal is historic but will, due to a lack of an EU legal competence to go further, stay limited mostly on issues related to the prosecution of online violence and legal definition of rape and sexual exploitation of women. This is why it is all the more important to also move on with the EU’s long-pending accession to the Council of Europe’s much broader Istanbul Convention. I call on the Member States acting in the Council to adopt a proposal by the European Commission on this which has been on the table for six years.

I am also encouraged to see progress on a new EU directive with obligatory pay transparency measures. Trilogues for the adoption of this new piece of legislation are forthcoming this spring; it will be the responsibility of the European Parliament and the Council to agree on a final text that will bring effective and automatic pay transparency for all female workers in the EU. As trade unionists, we stress that this would clearly help close the considerable gender pay gaps which have been persisting throughout the EU and remain far too high.

Moreover, there seems to be – finally – movement again in relation to a further pending proposal of the European Commission for a directive on quotas for women on company boards. A directive on this proposal, which has been blocked by the Council for the last ten years, finally needs to see the light of day, and I am glad that to see that the Council appears to be in the process of reconsidering its filibustering. Statistics clearly show that soft law approaches for more women in managerial positions do not work sufficiently. We hope that the directive will also be a stimulus for further measures to increase the share of women in higher managerial positions in the public services too. Employment in the public services should be a role model for the economy at large, and should therefore also be a frontrunner in terms of gender representation in leadership positions.

Today, on International Women’s Day, is an important opportunity to raise visibility for urgently needed measures for more equality in Europe. There is no time to waste.”

On March 3, the annual European Day for a Work-Free Sunday, the European Sunday Alliance calls on political leaders to put as a priority on the EU social policy agenda the establishment of a European weekly common day of rest.

Work-life balance, as well as healthy, safe and well-adapted work environments, are at the heart of the European Pillar of Social Rights, which all EU institutions and Member States governments have committed to implement.

A weekly day of rest

One of the major impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic has been the rise of telework and the fragmentation of working time, often detrimental to the work-life balance of workers. In order to prevent a work environment that compromises the health and wellbeing of workers, it is crucial to ensure a right to disconnect, during the week but also during the weekend, with a work free day. A full day of rest per week is indispensable to recover and to ensure both a better wellbeing and a better productivity of workers.

A common day of rest

Humans are social beings, and for many of them their health requires more than individual time to spend alone. The challenges of the pandemic have highlighted the issue of loneliness in the EU. A common work-free day enables families to spend time together, children with parents and grandparents, who are the first ones to suffer from loneliness. A work free day makes it also possible to pursue volunteer work, civic engagement, joint social, sports or faith-related activities, and, more generally, to strengthen the social cohesion of our communities.

By tradition and custom, most European countries establish the weekly day of rest on Sunday.

The European Sunday Alliance thus calls on European political leaders to put as a priority the establishment of a European weekly common day of rest for workers, by tradition on Sunday, as enshrined in Art. 2 of the European Social Charter.

The European Sunday Alliance (ESA) is a network of more than 100 national Sunday Alliances, trade unions, employers’ organisations, civil society organisations, churches andreligious communities committed to raise awareness of the unique value of synchronised free time for our European societies.

CESI’s political leaders present in the meeting, President Romain Wolff, Secretary General Klaus Heeger and Andreas Hemsing (dbb), Vice-President of the Expert Commission, first took a moment to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine and to send their thoughts of peace, safety and solidarity to the Ukrainian citizens and government. The importance of public administration services in a smooth reception of refugees from Ukraine was also highlighted.

The meeting proceeded with an overview of main European priorities of 2022 in the field of public administration, which, according to the Expert Commission, include interoperabiltiy and digitalisation, the involvement and role of administration in the green-digital twin transitions, and investments for quality public service delivery – which also includes measures for a well-functioning staff recruitment and retention.

Maximilian Strotmann, European Commission, introduced the forthcoming legally binding proposal for a EU government interoperability strategy.

Julija Skerniškytė, Visionary Analytics, presented the final results of CESI’s research on digital transitions in public sector service delivery. Andreas Hemsing said: ‘The presentation offered a rich perspective on the digitalization of the public administration and we look forward to read more carefully the CESI research and to see how it can be useful for our members, the practitioners.’

Mina Shoylekova, European Commission, outlined the work of the European Commission services in the area of public administration and mentioned in this context in particular the support measures set out in its recent report ‘Supporting public administrations in EU Member States to deliver reforms and prepare for the future’ as well as continuous coordination with public administrations in the context of a dedicated advisory expert group on public administration governance. Her presentation was complemented by an assessment of the quality of the provision of public service delivery at national and EU levels which highlighted important workforce trends, limitations but also opportunities.

Romain Wolff, President of CESI, presented the latest news from the European Commission’s advisory Platform for Tax Good Governance, where CESI is a long-standing member.

Klaus Heeger emphasised: ‘There is high political interest for investments in public services after the pandemic. We should use this momentum to seize a stronger EU public sector agenda’.

The next meeting of the Expert Commission is scheduled to take place on May 31.