In a press release published on Monday 30 August, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) highlighted the importance of collective bargaining to guarantee additional paid holidays each year for workers.
For example, it reports that, based on figures from the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound), workers in seven European countries (Denmark, France, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Finland, Italy and the UK) enjoy an average of seven days more leave than the national legal minimum, and even ten days in Germany and Croatia – all thanks to good collective bargaining coverage.
This is an important result for trade unions at a time when collective bargaining is struggling to make progress on the European Minimum Wage Directive, which aims to strengthen collective bargaining coverage among the weakest Member States (see EUROPE 12740/15).
Trade unions believe that, in collective bargaining, employers should not be able to replace trade unions with “false” employee representatives. Furthermore, they argue that only companies that respect collective bargaining law should be eligible for public funding. Ultimately, the right to collective bargaining must also be recognised for non-standard and self-employed workers.
To read the trade unions’ proposals for amendments to the directive: https://bit.ly/3gGyMwn (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)