In two press releases dated 4 April and 7 April, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) announced that it had adopted two resolutions during its Executive Committee meeting on 30–31 March: one on the future of social protection and one on quality traineeships.
The first resolution takes a position on the report that the High-Level Group on the Future of Social Protection and of the Welfare State published in February (see EUROPE 13139/19), which highlights the need to support ‘longer careers [and] adequate pensions’ with equivalent long-term care and to find new sources of financing for social protection and insists on a golden rule for public finances so as to invest in social infrastructure.
In its resolution, the ETUC emphasises introducing a golden rule to safeguard social security budgets and ease the constraints on Member States’ public funding, establishing initiatives to create a level playing field as regards tax policy in Member States and to reduce tax competition, strengthening public and collective welfare systems, and even rejecting the marketisation of public and social services.
Regarding traineeships and the Quality Framework [for Traineeship] presented by the European Commission, the adopted resolution calls for a European directive on the quality of traineeships with wages that “follow the Directive on adequate minimum wages in the European Union [...] in order to ban unpaid and underpaid internships”.
Trainees must be guaranteed access to social protection and unemployment benefits. The ETUC also believes that labour inspectorates should be strengthened to prevent permanent trainee positions from being used as substitutes for entry-level jobs.
Furthermore, the number of trainee positions in a company can represent no more than 20% of the number of permanent positions.
Links to the positions: https://aeur.eu/f/69s ; https://aeur.eu/f/69x (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)