Refusal on minimum legal standards on information and consultation rights
Despite its own announcements, the Commission fools the social partners of the central governmental administrations (of which USF is the only union of the European Public Service participating) and kills the social dialogue at European level.
The Commission has informed the European central government social partners yesterday that it will not bring their agreement to the European Council for implementation as a directive. The agreement seeks to plug a gap in EU legislation that excludes workers in central government administrations from the EU right to information and consultation. Four months after the European Pillar of Social Rights was proclaimed which sets out rights for all workers in the EU to information and consultation, the European Commission refuses to propose legislation to the European Council on these rights for 9.8 million employees in central government despite being requested to do so by the European social partners. The social partners, reached this landmark agreement on information and consultation rights on 21 December 2015.
After years of imposed cuts in jobs, wages and trade union rights in public administrations, the trade union priority has been to regain fundamental workers’ rights to information and consultation and to rebuild trust in social dialogue as a key tool to improve the quality of public administration in the EU. This agreement responded to these concerns by bringing EU-level minimum standards on information and consultation rights in legislation. Social partners acted in line with the procedure spell out in the EU Treaty that started with a Commission consultation in April 2015. In an unprecedented decision, the Commission has refused to forward the social partner agreement to the EU Council, preempting the possibility for the Council to publicly state its position.
Read the entire EPSU newsletter concerning the refusal on minimum standards on information and consultation rights here.
