Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter

The Social Summit—and beyond

Luca Visentini 7th May 2021

Concrete commitments must follow today’s Social Summit in Porto if the promise of a social Europe is to be realised.

Social Summit,Porto,Action Plan
Luca Visentini

There could be no better place for a European social summit than Portugal. Over the last decade, Portugal has experienced the worst of a Europe with weak social commitments and yet is now in the vanguard of building a Europe with a stronger social agenda.

Austerity measures pursued in the wake of the financial crisis doubled unemployment and devastated living standards. Portugal is one of six countries where real wages still haven’t recovered: a worker in Porto, where leaders gather today, could afford to buy less with their pay in 2019 than they could in 2010.

The number of people living in poverty despite being in work has increased over the last decade and working people now receive a smaller share of Portugal’s total wealth than they did ten years ago. By any measure, austerity increased inequality.

The painful experience of Portugal has been shared by working people across Europe. But the contrast in the Europe Union’s response to the financial crisis and, now, to Covid-19 could not be greater.

Our job is keeping you informed!


Subscribe to our free newsletter and stay up to date with the latest Social Europe content.


We will never send you spam and you can unsubscribe anytime.

Thank you!

Please check your inbox and click on the link in the confirmation email to complete your newsletter subscription.

.

Under pressure from trade unions and other progressive forces, the EU and national governments have poured resources into emergency employment and income-support measures. The EU’s restrictive fiscal rules have also been paused, to allow member states to invest in fighting the health and employment impacts of Covid-19 and in economic recovery.

Permanent shift

Now we need to turn these temporary measures into a permanent shift to a social Europe and Portugal, under the leadership of António Costa, is taking a leading role in that process.

The summit that Portugal’s prime minister has convened today will discuss the steps needed to realise the promise of the European Pillar of Social Rights, which has the potential steadily to raise economic and social standards across the continent. The summit must engender a real commitment by all EU member states to implement the social pillar’s 20 principles, including fair wages, secure employment and gender equality.

Yet it cannot undo the damage of a decade of austerity alone. The European Commission has proposed a directive on adequate minimum wages but this needs to be made significantly stronger, by introducing a threshold of decency to ensure workers can never be paid less than 60 per cent of the median wage and 50 per cent of the average wage of their country. That would result in 24 million people receiving a long-awaited pay rise in Europe, including half a million of the poorest workers in Portugal.

Another way to ensure workers finally get a fair share is to support collective bargaining over wages and working conditions. More than three million workers across the EU have lost the benefits of union-negotiated wages over the past 20 years. To reverse this trend, unions must be given the right of access to workplaces to organise workers, and companies which refuse to negotiate should have no recourse to EU funds.


We need your support


Social Europe is an independent publisher and we believe in freely available content. For this model to be sustainable, however, we depend on the solidarity of our readers. Become a Social Europe member for less than 5 Euro per month and help us produce more articles, podcasts and videos. Thank you very much for your support!

Become a Social Europe Member

Precarious work

As well as lower wages, another of the consequences of the decline of collective bargaining has been to make work more precarious. Millions of workers, most of them young people, are being denied basic rights such as the minimum wage, paid holidays, sick leave and social-security contributions.

It is a problem across Europe and requires a European solution. Delivery riders and drivers for platforms such as Deliveroo and Uber are among those who need social protection the most. Welfare systems have not kept up with changes in the economy and the most precarious workers have been left without a safety net during the Covid-19 crisis, forcing many to work while sick and raising the risk of spreading the virus. We need a European social-protection system that is fit for the future.

While the summit is going on EU member states are also drawing up their national plans to use the unprecedented €672 billion EU Recovery and Resilience Facility, to bounce back after the coronavirus crisis. The plans must invest massively in quality employment and decent social protection for all workers. To ensure recovery the EU should also reform its damaging deficit and debt rules, to avert austerity in future.

Climate change

But there’s little point discussing the future without action on climate change. Trade unions recognise there are no jobs on a dead planet and support moving as quickly as possible to decarbonise the economy in a way that is fair to the workers, industries and regions which will have to make the biggest changes. No one should be left behind without a good job and/or (re)training opportunities and without a social dialogue to manage the change.

We have learned over the last decade of austerity that the consequence of leaving people behind has been a rise in support for populists offering false hope. So it’s time for Europe’s leaders to deliver real solutions for working people in Portugal and across Europe, through a decade of solidarity. As the slogan of the Porto summit says, ‘time to deliver’.

This column is sponsored by the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC).
Luca Visentini

Luca Visentini is general secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC).

Home ・ Society ・ The Social Summit—and beyond

Most Popular Posts

schools,Sweden,Swedish,voucher,choice Sweden’s schools: Milton Friedman’s wet dreamLisa Pelling
world order,Russia,China,Europe,United States,US The coming world orderMarc Saxer
south working,remote work ‘South working’: the future of remote workAntonio Aloisi and Luisa Corazza
Russia,Putin,assets,oligarchs Seizing the assets of Russian oligarchsBranko Milanovic
Russians,support,war,Ukraine Why do Russians support the war against Ukraine?Svetlana Erpyleva

Most Recent Posts

trade,values,Russia,Ukraine,globalisation Peace and trade—a new perspectiveGustav Horn
biodiversity,COP15,China,climate COP15: negotiations must come out of the shadowsSandrine Maljean-Dubois
reproductive rights,abortion,hungary,eastern europe,united states,us,poland The uneven battlefield of reproductive rightsAndrea Pető
LNG,EIB,liquefied natural gas,European Investment Bank Ukraine is no reason to invest in gasXavier Sol
schools,Sweden,Swedish,voucher,choice Sweden’s schools: Milton Friedman’s wet dreamLisa Pelling

Other Social Europe Publications

The transatlantic relationship
Women and the coronavirus crisis
RE No. 12: Why No Economic Democracy in Sweden?
US election 2020
Corporate taxation in a globalised era

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

Towards a new Minimum Wage Policy in Germany and Europe: WSI minimum wage report 2022

The past year has seen a much higher political profile for the issue of minimum wages, not only in Germany, which has seen fresh initiatives to tackle low pay, but also in those many other countries in Europe that have embarked on substantial and sustained increases in statutory minimum wages. One key benchmark in determining what should count as an adequate minimum wage is the threshold of 60 per cent of the median wage, a ratio that has also played a role in the European Commission's proposals for an EU-level policy on minimum wages. This year's WSI Minimum Wage Report highlights the feasibility of achieving minimum wages that meet this criterion, given the political will. And with an increase to 12 euro per hour planned for autumn 2022, Germany might now find itself promoted from laggard to minimum-wage trailblazer.


FREE DOWNLOAD

ETUI advertisement

Bilan social / Social policy in the EU: state of play 2021 and perspectives

The new edition of the Bilan social 2021, co-produced by the European Social Observatory (OSE) and the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), reveals that while EU social policy-making took a blow in 2020, 2021 was guided by the re-emerging social aspirations of the European Commission and the launch of several important initiatives. Against the background of Covid-19, climate change and the debate on the future of Europe, the French presidency of the Council of the EU and the von der Leyen commission must now be closely scrutinised by EU citizens and social stakeholders.


AVAILABLE HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Living and working in Europe 2021

The Covid-19 pandemic continued to be a defining force in 2021, and Eurofound continued its work of examining and recording the many and diverse impacts across the EU. Living and working in Europe 2021 provides a snapshot of the changes to employment, work and living conditions in Europe. It also summarises the agency’s findings on issues such as gender equality in employment, wealth inequality and labour shortages. These will have a significant bearing on recovery from the pandemic, resilience in the face of the war in Ukraine and a successful transition to a green and digital future.


AVAILABLE HERE

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

EU Care Atlas: a new interactive data map showing how care deficits affect the gender earnings gap in the EU

Browse through the EU Care Atlas, a new interactive data map to help uncover what the statistics are often hiding: how care deficits directly feed into the gender earnings gap.

While attention is often focused on the gender pay gap (13%), the EU Care Atlas brings to light the more worrisome and complex picture of women’s economic inequalities. The pay gap is just one of three main elements that explain the overall earnings gap, which is estimated at 36.7%. The EU Care Atlas illustrates the urgent need to look beyond the pay gap and understand the interplay between the overall earnings gap and care imbalances.


BROWSE THROUGH THE MAP

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us on social media

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube