Confederation wants to see joint action on social dumping

Following a meeting with the French president over the summer, ETUC general secretary Luca Visentini is to meet French labour minister Muriel Pénicaud to discuss possible revisions to the Posted Workers Directive. This is an important piece of legislation that needs revision to ensure it is more effective in protecting the pay and conditions of workers who are on temporary assignments in other EU countries. The ETUC wants to see a guarantee of same salary for the same work in the same place and full entitlement of posted workers to all pay and conditions in collective agreements. Along with

(May 2017) The STAL local government union has called on the government to allow local authorities to take immediate action to tackle precarious employment in the sector. The union says that an ordinance aimed at the state sector doesn't go far enough and that local authorities should be allowed to take the initiative now to reduce various forms of temporary work and provide permanent contracts to workers who are doing permanent tasks but have been appointed on short-term contracts.

The ETUC has called on governments to adopt policies that will provide a boost to the real economy and not just to bail out the finance sector with an injection of capital. The Confederation is looking for a range of measures to increase economic activity and avoid the risk of deflation. It wants to see a quick and significant cut in interest rates and an increase in real wages rather than the kind of downwards wage flexibility that the European Central Bank and Eurogroup of finance ministers have been arguing for. The ETUC points out that precarious work, weakening workers’ bargaining