September - November 2013


12/11/2013 - 5th European conference on personal and household services at the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC)
Organised by the European Federation for Services to Individuals (EFSI), this conference mainly aimed to promote the development of personal and household services (PHS) throughout Europe.
Over the past decades, the PHS have created jobs for people with low or no qualification and enabled women to return to the job market. Furthermore, it has helped to conciliate professional and personal life and contributed to the social inclusion of the most dependent people. Nevertheless, the sector's potential still remains highly untapped in certain areas.
This conference therefore intended to explore new ways to further exploit personal and household services' contribution to our societies. It was organised around the following 4 questions:
· Personal and household services: what added value for our societies?
· Universality and providers’ complementarities: the best way to fulfill users’ needs?
· How to make personal and household services (PHS) an attractive sector for workers?
· Why and how companies should support the development of personal and household services?
21/10/2013 - Conference on European Labour Law at DG EMPL of the European Commission
Organised by DG EMPL, this high-level conference gave an opportunity to obtain feedback from stakeholders and engage an open public debate about future priorities in the field of EU labour law. It brought together representatives from national ministries, the European and national social partner’s organisations, the EU Institutions, the International Labour Organisation, and experts and practitioners. In 2006, the Commission had launched a debate on how to modernise labour law to meet the challenges of the 21st century, by underlining the need to work towards inclusive and flexible labour markets. In the meantime, the economic and financial crisis of unknown proportions has put labour market rules across the EU under a severe challenge.
In this context, the conference aimed to reflect on the results reached and on the way forward in the light of the upcoming challenges for the EU. The two main objectives were to disseminate and obtain feedback from key stakeholders about forthcoming initiatives and/or recent policy evaluations by the Commission, and to engage stakeholders in an open public debate about future Commission’s priorities in the field of EU labour law. The event was organised around the 3 following streams:
· A decent work agenda: tackling vulnerability of undeclared workers and reinforcing EU cooperation;
· Fighting segmentation of labour markets: the legal EU acquis and the single open-ended contract;
· Managing and anticipating change: the role of information and consultation rights.
16/10/2013 - European social dialogue Committee meeting on industrial cleaning
Jointly organised by UNI-Europa and the EFCI, this meeting was dedicated to the following issues:
· Report on the development of the OiRA tool to tackle H&S risks at the workplace, developed by the European social partners in collaboration with OSHA
· Commission consultation on undeclared work: discussion between members and next steps
· Feedback from members on their experience about the implementation of the Directive 2011/7/EU on “combating late payments in commercial transactions”: impact on the cleaning sector since its transposition into national law on 16 March 2013: the Spanish example by Juan Dies de Los Rios
· EU legislative proposals and EFCI/UNI Europa lobbying activities:
→ Revision of the EU directive on public procurement: Report on the political agreement reached in June 2013 between the three EU institutions (Commission, Parliament and Council)
→ Proposal for an enforcement directive on the Posting of workers directive: Report on the Council position and state of play of trilogue negotiations between the Commission, Parliament and Council
· Dates of next meetings for 2014: 26th March (instead of 11th March as previously announced by the Commission), 6th June and 29th October
15/10/2013 - First joint working group meeting of the European social partners to develop an Online interactive Risk Assessment (OiRA) tool for the cleaning sector, in EFCI premises
Jointly organised by UNI-Europa and the EFCI, this meeting was dedicated to the following issues:
· Formalities: presentation of each participant
· Presentation of the first structure proposal of the OiRA tool for the cleaning sector by Lieven Eeckelaert from the Belgian research institute Prevent and discussion among participants
· General discussion between participants on the scope and main aims of the future OiRA tool
· Dates and venues for the next working group meetings
10/10/2013 - European cross-sectoral social partners’ joint conference on “Skills needs in greening economies”, organised at International Trade Union House in Brussels
The transition towards a low-carbon economy will require new and higher skills in all sectors of the economy. The conference jointly organised by EU cross-sectoral social partners in the framework of their work programme 2013-2014, aimed to enhance the exchange of experiences between national and European trade unions, public and private employers (including SME’s).
The main objective was to inform participants on future social dialogue activities at all levels aiming to address the skills challenges linked to the greening of the EU economy. The EFCI representative was accompanied by Stéphanie Hirtz, advisor at the French member association FEP who is in charge of sustainable development’s issues.
The reason of her interest to attend this conference was to obtain further information on what has been done at EU, national and company levels in this area and on best practices, as well as to meet European involved actors in the greening of EU economy. In this regard, FEP aims eventually to submit its application next year to receive funds from LIFE +, the European programme on sustainable development. Indeed, FEP would like to reiterate its positive experience carried out in the period 2010-2012 with this EU programme in order to develop additional tools to the ones already elaborated, and in link with sustainable development’s issues in the cleaning industry.
During the event, the following issues were addressed by various stakeholders: Welcome and introduction by the European social partners (BusinessEurope, ETUC, UEAPME and CEEP); Models of social partners’ involvement and engagement; Identification and anticipation of skills needs; Recognition and validation of skills; Information, support and guidance.