Hits and misses of EU office and jobs laws

EUobserver talked to Dutch MEP Agnes Jongerius, Socialists & Democrats (S&D) spokesperson for employment, to take a look at previous and future challenges of the Parliament’s work from the social and labour views.

This is the overview forward of the 2024 EU elections.

From the employment perspective, what have been the best successes over this mandate?

Agnes Jongerius: I feel for those who look again on the first speech of Ursula von der Leyen, when she wished to turn out to be the EU Fee’s president, you’ll be able to see various our election manifesto and of the marketing campaign of Frans Timmermans. She was speaking about equal pay for women and men. She promised within the speech that within the first 100 days, the proposal round transparency can be on the desk. It took a bit longer. Nevertheless it’s completed, and now it is as much as the member states to transpose it to nationwide laws.

Von der Leyen talked about ladies, that they need to even be represented at board degree, and that she would personally attempt to unblock the directive. That was additionally one of many calls for of our political household, and she or he constructed her speech round that.

She additionally talked about the truth that too many employees within the European Union had issues paying their payments on the finish of the month. She was speaking about in-work poverty, a phenomenon that we knew, in fact, from the US. Frans had additionally been campaigning round that, and it led to the minimal wage directive.

Von der Leyen additionally talked about the truth that too many employees are unprotected, like the employees of the Large Tech platforms. So for those who have a look at the speech, and also you see plenty of similarities with our election manifesto and Timmermans’ marketing campaign, I feel you’ll be able to say that we have been lively and pushing.

And essentially the most complicated legislative information?

The minimal wage was fairly tough. There have been lots of people who mentioned: “This isn’t a European competence, you shouldn’t be concerned on this”. On the time, the employers’ organisations threw plenty of authorized opinions on the desk, so it was additionally, for instance, a battle of authorized opinions. Though in the long run we have been in a position to have a reasonably formidable directive on minimal wages and the way member states ought to assess their adequacy. I am fairly pleased with that.

Once we discuss future challenges, if you wish to have a correct authorized textual content earlier than the elections, the vote needs to be within the first week of February. It may be later, however you then’ll need to vote on a preliminary textual content, then the authorized scrubbing will happen over the summer time months, after which the brand new parliament should vote on a ‘corrigendum’. So we’ve 4 months, kind of, to get plenty of laws carried out.

And I feel that the platform directive is essentially the most difficult one. Additionally, as a result of the parliament and Council have fairly completely different level of views, and there’s a big quantity of lobbying happening. Final week within the employment committee, Dragos Pislaru [Renew Europe], the chair of the committee, mentioned that if solely the platforms would use the cash they’re now utilizing to promote and foyer to correct pay their employees, that may actually make a distinction.

Alternatively, I feel it is also difficult and vital to succeed in an settlement as a result of now we are able to see how many individuals are working for Uber, or how many individuals are working for Bolt, however how large is that this group of individuals?

If folks in essentially the most susceptible components of the labour market see their managers saying you do not work for me, you get your service by an IT platform, for instance within the retail sector, and persons are provided to work in a store for a particular day and a particular time period, and that is sufficient for an employer to not deal with them as a employee and to not provide them social safety, a collective settlement and so forth. Then within the cleansing sector, within the elderly-care sector, they might all say let’s use an app. If that’s sufficient for folks to lose their fundamental employees’ rights, then we actually have a really large drawback within the labour market. So it is vital that we’re in a position to end this file.

Is there any vital piece of laws that might lose political momentum if not handed earlier than the EU elections? Aside from the platform employees directive.

Final mandate, we weren’t in a position to end the [modernisation of the] coordination of social safety methods. Simply earlier than the [2019] elections, we had the parliament’s place, trilogues had already began, after which in the long run I feel the council did not agree with the proposal from the trilogues. Since then, my colleague Gabriele Bischoff have talked to each presidency to restart conversations, and end this file.

I need to say I actually admire her as a result of she nonetheless hasn’t given up. So it might be effort upset if it wasn’t completed earlier than this mandate, though it is difficult.

And I do not know whether or not we’re shedding momentum or not, however from an employment perspective, we’ve a pores and skin within the sport of financial governance. As a result of the scope for social coverage, the scope for social funding, the scope for making the European Pillar of Social Rights a actuality can also be outlined by how strict the principles are for governments from the proposal of financial governance.

Within the work programme for 2024, the fee promised a revision of the European Works Council, and in a earlier work programme in addition they introduced the standard traineeships. They usually will not be completed on this mandate, though I feel it is vital to place them on the desk and to start out engaged on them.

As for the incapacity card, I don’t assume we have to lose any political momentum. We’re planning to finalise it maybe even throughout the Spanish presidency (to December 2023), however in any other case on the newest throughout the Belgian presidency (from January 2024).

And taking a look into the longer term, what must be carried out within the subsequent parliamentary cycle?

There’s an overflow from this mandate to the following. As I mentioned, the European Works Council file is not going to be completed. High quality traineeships is not going to be completed. And I hope that financial governance and the Platform Staff directive might be completed.

Nonetheless, after I have a look at the following mandate, AI at work is certainly a problem that I hope we are able to handle. I do not assume we have seen something but, so we actually want to make use of all of the clear heads round this problem to see what’s coming.

I additionally hope that we are going to proceed to push for, for instance, the work across the European Pillar of Social Rights — for instance on minimal revenue and poverty, as a result of there’s a goal round poverty that isn’t but inside attain.

No less than I’d argue that we also needs to tackle board Pillar 20, which is about accessible public companies, particularly as we’ve seen that in too many Member States reasonably priced housing is a extremely large drawback, particularly for younger folks. I purchased my first home 30 years in the past, so no one ought to really feel sorry for me. But when it’s important to get on the housing market now, it is vitally tough. Reasonably priced housing might be a part of our marketing campaign and we must always see how we are able to use European insurance policies for reasonably priced housing.

Aside from that, I feel one other vital problem might be how we are able to use public cash to push for first rate and sustainable jobs. For instance, how can we alter the general public procurement directive to assist these international locations that need to allocate public cash to good and sustainable jobs?

There’s a lot cash floating round. For those who actually use these conditionalities, you’ll be able to push for it.