13 May, 2010
As part of its strategy to improve working and living conditions for metalworkers in Europe, the European Metalworkers’ Federation (EMF) has adopted a coordinated collective bargaining policy.
The first coordinated, or common, demand was adopted in 2005 and called for the individual right to training, guaranteed by collective agreements. Last November, at the 6th EMF Collective Bargaining Conference, the 75 unions affiliated to the EMF agreed on a second common demand "for more secure employment - against precarious work."
EMF Deputy General Secretary Bart Samyn
“The last years have seen an incredible increase of precarious work and the number of insecure jobs has exploded in all European countries,” said EMF Deputy General Secretary Bart Samyn. “Everyone agrees that we can no longer deny this very real problem. Hence, the importance of this second common demand of the EMF and the willingness of all EMF affiliates to put the fight against precarious work central in their demands, in their upcoming collective bargaining rounds all over Europe.”
EMF affiliates are developing specific demands, relevant to their national situation, on temporary agency workers (TAW), workers employed on fixed term contracts, the bogus self-employed, and those on projects-based and zero-hour contracts, and are including these demands in their collective bargaining. A number of EMF affiliates have also initiated awareness-raising campaigns for more secure employment.
The EMF Second Common Demand brochure is available here.