Social partners address nuclear safety, CSR and training and skills

(10 October 2011) The trade unions had presented a position on the safety of nuclear energy to Eurelectric, the employers organization. It provided it’s amendments and the unions will consider their response with the aim of adopting a joint position at the next plenary. To provide background to the discussion a representative for DG Energy nuclear Mrs. Nina Commeau-Yannoussis gave an overview of the state of affairs regarding the nuclear stress tests which are undertaken in the EU countries. The results are expected for end 2011. Peer reviews will then be undertaken. Other issues considered:
- Corporate social responsibility – a presentation was made by Sue Bird for the European Commission on the plans to be expected from the European Commission in particular on the disclosure of non-financial information. A lively debate took place. The Commission has published a report on reporting on sustainability (here which finds that reporting is best regulated, integrated with financial reporting and stakeholders are more involved in the reporting. For work of the European electricity social partners on CSR see here. A report of SOMO for EPSU on how electricity companies report is available here.

- Skills and Qualifications – an update was given of the project submission to the European Commission concerning the mapping of institutions involved in labour market research, skills and qualifications specifically for the energy sector.
- The trade union side will prepare a paper on skills and qualifications for discussion also related to the recommendations of the Electricity Climate Change study
- The social dialogue committee agreed to intervene jointly in the 4th Social Forum of the Energy Community (4 October 2011, Moldova) . The agreed message: importance of social dialogue; restructuring should be addressed in the working groups at national level based on the results of the study on employment effects of opening up the markets for gas and electricity and Moldova and Ukraine should rapidly set up the working groups as well.

President of the sectoral social dialogue committee for 2011 is EPSU’s Jan Ruden, president of the Swedish union SEKO. The meeting took place 30 September 2011, Brussels. EPSU affiliates participated from Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, UK. EPSU’s Deputy General Secretary spoke for EPSU.