Debate: Strengthening social dialogue
Date: WEDNESDAY, 31 MAY 2023
Speaker: Dragoş Pîslaru
Country: Spain
Language: EN

Social dialogue is a fundamental part of the European social model. It is not necessarily fit to discuss it at the end of an agenda with a room that is not necessarily full of colleagues. And that’s actually the problem, that despite the fact that the social driver is a key driver for economic and social resilience, competitiveness, fairness, sustainable growth – crucial for finding balanced responses to new and existing needs and challenges related to the labour market and working conditions – despite all that, we still have issues in implementing those values and social dialogue at EU level. Moreover, there is a worrisome trend because over the past 30 years, the share of workers covered by collective agreements has declined, with the estimated EU average falling from about 66% in 2000 to about 56% in 2018, with the Covid situation being very worrisome as well.  And indeed, we are witnessing right now a new ambition at EU level to increase and strengthen social dialogue. And apart from the benefits of social dialogue and workers involvement in the working conditions of EU citizens, another benefit of social dialogue is that countries with robust frameworks of social dialogue and a high coverage of collective bargaining have more competitive and resilient economies. So social dialogue works. We have this ambition to strengthen social dialogue. And at the same time, we often minimise the importance of this particular topic. Given this, the Employment Committee – indeed, I am not necessarily the author here, but I am representing my colleagues, and I would like to congratulate all the champions in the EMPL committee, in the Employment and Social Affairs Committee, for pursuing this particular topic in the agenda – and I in my role as the Chair of the Employment and Social Affairs Committee, would like to formalise this particular debate by asking officially the Council and the Commission a couple of questions.  So first, I would like to address the Council with an empty seat, unfortunately, and maybe they can actually see it online and answer in writing. The first question would be how the Council encourage Member States to ensure an enabling environment for bipartite and tripartite social dialogue and due respect for the social partners’ autonomy. How is the council going to ensure that the proposed recommendation complements Article 4 of the Directive (EU) 2022/2041 on minimum wages in particular in terms of measures to increase national collective bargaining coverage? How will the Council ensure that Member States remove institutional or even legal barriers to social dialogue and strengthen the organisational capacity of the social partners, including through the allocation of adequate resources? A very important topic. How will the Council and the Commission support Member States in addressing anti-trade union practices, lack of representation, the more fragmented workforce and the increase in non-standard forms of work that may lead to precariousness? How will the Council ensure that Member States promote timely access to information for social partners and timely consultation with them, so that they can be meaningfully involved in designing and implementing employment and social policies or even wider programmes like the RRF? How will the Council encourage Member States to ratify and implement all ILO Core Conventions, in particular the recently designated Core Conventions 155 and 187 and Convention 190?  And to the Commission, how will the Commission, jointly with the Member States and the social partners, monitor the effective implementation of the proposed recommendation? And what concrete indicators and data will be used to measure progress towards greater collective bargaining coverage? How will the Commission support Member States in promoting the inclusion of more sectors in social dialogue, ensure the allocation of – again – adequate resources, particularly to the European Social Fund Plus? How will the Commission ensure that the assigned Social Dialogue coordinators will be involved in all employment related aspects of EU policy-making across all policy areas – so no silo policy? How will the Commission guarantee financing for European Sectoral Dialogue in the long term? And last but certainly not least, what steps will the Commission take to promote the role of social dialogue in addressing climate and digitalisation issues in the workplace and achieving a just transition? Thank you very much.