Adopt the proposed EU recovery plan! Let us use this crisis as an opportunity for a fair and collective recovery and to build an industry that is resilient and sustainable with good jobs for all European industrial workers.
Today, the European trade union movement is mobilising to push EU leaders to adopt the European Commission’s proposal for a €750bn recovery fund and a new EU budget big enough to meet the challenge ahead, at their European Council meeting on 19 June.
Trade union leaders across Europe have addressed their concerns in an open letter to their respective head of state or government taking part in the EU Council. The ETUC has issued this press release highlighting that 42 million jobs are at stake in the recovery plan - the number of workers who have been placed on temporary unemployment during the coronavirus crisis, according to research by the European Trade Union Institute.
IndustriAll Europe and its members strongly support this initiative!
The stakes for industry are huge as the scale of this crisis for workers across European manufacturing, mining and energy sectors has been staggering. Nearly half of Europe’s 2.5 million automotive workers are furloughed. Aerospace workers are among the most affected, but the least prepared. Textile workers have been hit by the closure of retail shops. In the steel sector, the number of plant shutdowns has generated real concern that half of Europe’s steelmaking capacity could be lost by the end of the pandemic. Workers in the chemical industry are at the mercy of their key customers (e.g. automotive). Conversely, those working in the pharmaceutical industry face the societal demand and pressure of bringing production of strategic products back to Europe as quickly as possible.
Economic recovery depends on a strong, sustainable, smart, and resilient industrial base and our industries must therefore be urgently rebooted.
To achieve this, Europe must:
- address the specific needs of all individual sectors to identify the policies needed in support of their recovery from the impact of COVID-19
- prevent hostile take-overs of European companies by (state-backed) companies from outside the EU, hedge funds or private equity companies
- strengthen economic resilience by rebuilding industrial broken value chains, by supporting industrial alliances, by reintegrating domestic production of strategic equipment inside the EU (e.g. regarding pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, textile), by reducing the EU vulnerability regarding energy and raw materials imports, and by developing a circular economy
- ensure that companies and individuals pay their fair share of taxes
- boost the implementation of the Green Deal and the new industrial strategy for Europe to fight the recession while supporting the twin transition towards a green and smart economy
- pursue fair, transparent and sustainable trade policies within a multilateral, rules-based economic and political order
- invest in a skilled workforce through upskilling and reskilling of workers and in the collective know-how that our industry needs
- promote collective bargaining, social dialogue and worker involvement to ensure consensual solutions at interprofessional, sectoral and company level for the implementation of the recovery plan
IndustriAll Europe has this message for the EU Council: Adopt the proposed EU recovery plan! Let's not repeat the mistakes of the last crisis and revert to austerity. Instead, let us use this crisis as an opportunity for a fair and collective recovery and to build an industry that is resilient and sustainable with good jobs for all European industrial workers.
A message from industriAll Europe's President, Michael Vassiliades, on the Day of European Mobilisation
Contact: Andrea Husen-Bradley, press and communication