News

For the very first time UNI Europa has gathered social partners from  the 13 sectors  under its umbrella for a much needed discussion about the future of Social Dialogue.

With this gathering, UNI Europa has played a pioneering role - more than 50 participants representing employers and trade unions in the service industry – the largest part of the EU economy and workforce in Europe – followed UNI Europa’s call to participate in this kick-off event on how to shape Social Dialogue and the future of the services industry.

Sectors are evolving a rapid pace doing away with traditional boundaries between them bringing a huge transformation of workplaces, sills needs and work organization. That is why, UNI Europa felt the urgent need to launch a debate across sectors and to emphasize the crucial role of social partners in addressing changes in increasingly interconnected industry.

In the meeting, the functioning of Social Dialogue and particularly the involvement of social partners in sectoral policy initiatives was discussed in detail as well as topics such as digital revolution and the ‘circular economy’.

A number of participants stressed the importance of involving social partners at earlier stages of policy-making and the need to integrate Social Dialogue in other Commission services.

The initiative was welcomed by unions and employers representatives alike as well as the European Commission, which has since March 2015 organised several events around the relaunch of the European Social Dialogue. 

European and National Social Dialogue complement and reinforce each other: without a strong and committed national membership, the European Social Dialogue can’t produce valuable outcomes and European Social Dialogue helps reinforce the position of Social Dialogue at the national level by promoting higher employment standards across Europe and by sharing good practices between member states.

Joint conclusions from the meeting will be drafted and approved by social partners at the beginning of 2016.

Note

Click here for photos from Kick-off event ‘Shaping the future of the services industry: the all-important role of the social partners’

UNI Europa sectors are part of European social dialogues which involves organisations representing workers and employers to discuss, consult, negotiate and develop joint actions.

UNI Europa’s main contact on European Social Dialogue is Laila Castaldo, laila.castaldo@uniglobalunion.org