Subscribe here

Forward through collective bargaining

February 2022

Priorities

Last month, Regional Secretary Oliver Roethig recorded a video message to recap on recent advances and the priorities of the year ahead.

“Collective bargaining is a public good – a key tool for embedding and defending democracy and combatting inequality. Together, UNI Europa – its sectors, groups and affiliates – will defend, expand and (re)build collective bargaining. Together, we will make 2022 a breakthrough year for building workers’ power.”

Access the full message here

EU Social Dialogue

UNI Europa has been working with employer counterparts. In a number of sectors, joint statements were recently put out.

Following years of turmoil concerning the implementation of European social partner agreements, a novel approach is being applied in the hairdressing sector. Together, UNI Europa and hairdressing employers at Coiffure EU are shaping a new solution that draws on the social partners’ self-regulatory competences as well as on non-legislative EU action.

UNI Europa has also teamed up with private security employers CoESS to jointly provide input towards the future EU Directive on the Resilience of Critical Entities.

In the care sector, personal and household services social partners also jointly welcomed the publication of a new report by Eurofound: “Eurofound’s rigorous study offer significant insight on how the future of sectoral social dialogue activities in human health and social services can be organised.

Organising

This year has seen a lot of support work with affiliates in building sustainable structures towards defending, extending and (re)building collective bargaining. As 2021 came to an end, we reviewed the year of growth with EPOC, the European Power and Organising Centre, and reflected on the challenges ahead.

Digital Services

Digitalisation is impacting workers in the services sectors. Self-scanners at supermarkets have become commonplace, just as chatbots have become a part of client services. Partial automation has made its way into cleaning, security, care and is driving self-employment for workers within certain personal and professional services.

UNI Europa ran an EU financed project titled: Shaping the future of work in a digitalized services industry through social dialogue between 2019 and 2021. The objective of the project was to look in-depth at specific topics related to the future of work, and in particular as regards the impact on social dialogue and collective bargaining at national and European level on three main topics:

1. self-employment;
2. lifelong-learning;
3. restructuring processes.

Read the project summary article here.

In case you missed it

Upcoming events

10 February – AMCOR regional trade union alliance
15 February – European Social Dialogue Committee: Graphical – Steering Group
21 February – UNI Europa Graphical Steering Committee
25 February – Second Webinar – Third party Violence
25 February – UNI Europa Women’s Committee Presidium
28 February – Anticipating Changes in the Security Printing Sector – Final Conference
2 March – UNI Europa Management Committee (cross-sector)