Lunch event 22 October 2018

New Trade Union Strategies for New Forms of Employment

Speakers: Nicola Countouris, University College London and Valerio de Stefano, Katholieke Universiteit van Leuven

Comments: Dearbhal Murphy, Deputy General Secretary of the International Federation of Actors on behalf of the EAEA (European Arts and Entertainment Alliance) and Ignacio Doreste, ETUC Advisor

Moderator: Kate Holman, ETUC editor

Briefing: This lunch event will present the results of the project “New Trade Union Strategies for New Forms of Employment” of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) which is aimed at reinforcing the ability of the ETUC and its member organisations to organise, defend and protect atypical workers.

Atypical workers, and in particular so-called ‘own-account’ workers are at the growing margin of the labour market. They are not entitled to proper social protection and are not even covered by collective agreements.

The ETUC decided at its last Congress in 2015 to make this problem one of the priorities of the current mandate in terms of demands as well as trade union organizing. During the last three years the ETUC has worked to tackle the difficulties of these workers in relation to their rights, remuneration and social protection. Being one of the most important tool to ensure coverage of the workers, collective bargaining has been at the heart of the work of the ETUC. In this respect the ETUC has worked on building a relevant policy framework proposal to protect this category of workers and guarantee them the same level of social rights as for employees, as well as on tackling the barriers that prevent unions from protecting and representing atypical workers. The research which will be presented at the seminar maps the existing legislation at EU level which regulates the conditions and protection of the rights of these categories of workers. It also compares the different European and International legal definitions of self-employed workers. Together with the proposal of a potential EU definition for self-employed workers and the identification of sectorial and company-based collective agreements encompassing these categories of workers, different legal frameworks will be put forward to grant self-employed workers the right to bargain collectively.

A light lunch will be served in the room from 12h30.