EU: ETUC and European union federations issue joint statement on involvement of workers in managing Covid-19 crisis

On 29 June, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) and the union federations IndustriAll Europe, UNI Europa (services), EFFAT (food, agriculture and tourism), EPSU (public service workers), ETF (transport) and EFBWW (building and woodworkers) published a joint statement calling for greater worker involvement in managing the Covid-19 crisis. The signatories, which underline that “social dialogue, collective bargaining and worker involvement in the workplace are key to shape responsible restructuring processes”, demand that workers and their representatives: have timely access to meaningful and comprehensive up-to-date information about the likely impact of the Covid-19 crisis on company economic performance, jobs and working conditions; and have enough time and resources to run in-depth assessment of the information provided with the support of economic/financial experts to work on alternatives to redundancies, closures, and any other measures which would negatively impact workers’ interests. The statement also calls for a guarantee from public authorities that workers will be able to exercise those rights.