News

UNI Europa Sport (project leader), together with its social partners (EASE) and its associated partners (Europe Active, EC-OE), held the concluding project plenary on ’Supporting the test phase of the European Sectoral Social Dialogue Committee for sport and active leisure’ in Berlin on 23 and 24 March.

The EU sport sector is growing rapidly, moving towards professionalisation and professional standards – that means increasing political attention as well as a broad scope for strong social dialogue and joint agreements to improve working conditions throughout the sector.

“Bringing together so many stakeholders from this growing sector, it is clear that there is a tremendous appetite from both sides of the industry to make vast improvements to the lives of sport sector workers, and together with the support of the EU institutions in consolidating social dialogue within the sector” said Amel Djemail, UNI Europa Policy Officer for the sport sector.

The project’s main focus areas were

• Strengthening the capacity of the social partners in member states where social dialogue does not exist or may be improved in order to raise representativeness of countries

• Disseminating and promoting the outcomes of the European sectoral social dialogue, in particular the “Guidelines on health and safety in the sport and active leisure sector” (in English, Polish, Finnish, Italian), the Online interactive Risk Assessment (OiRA) tool and the “Joint statement on strengthening employability in the sport and active leisure sector”

• Strengthening joint approaches on priority issues such as health and safety and employability (dual careers for professional sport), and improving the mobility of workers

• Exchanging best practices and expertise on measures to strengthen employability and growth across the sector such as life-long learning opportunities, skills development, transparency of recognition of qualifications and certificates of learning (non-formal learning)

• Helping to implement the work programme of the European sectoral social dialogue

• Gathering insight from national affiliates to inform future initiatives of the European sectoral social dialogue

The project was co-financed by the European Union and ran for 18 months, featured 7 roundtables all over Europe with a focus on CEECs, building up to the general project plenary. It involved representatives from 20 European countries.

Each of the roundtable events focused on one of the three sub-sectors (active leisure, professional and not-for-profit) and their respective particular challenges. But the sub-sectors also have some joint issues that were discussed both at the roundtables and the project plenary, such as governance, professionalism and the situation of coaches.

The project plenary gathered over 50 participants from 19 member states, who discussed the results of the project and the future of social dialogue in the European sports sector.