TUC response to EU's strategy report on Decent Work

EU Renewed social agenda

July 2008

TUC response to EU's strategy report on Decent Work

The TUC welcomes the European Commission's strategy report on "The EU contribution to the promotion of decent work in the world", released today to coincide with the EU's Renewed Social Agenda..

Two years on from the Commission's original Communication on "Promoting Decent Work for All", the release today of the new document shows the Commission's continuing commitment to attaining decent work through various aspects of its policies - such as trade, development assistance and bilateral relations.

The TUC particularly welcomes the Commission's support for core labour standards through its GSP (Generalised System of Preferences) system, in bilateral trade negotiations and at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). International Trade Union Confederation General Secretary Guy Ryder has commented: "The Commission must now convert its general support for decent work at the WTO into specific proposals for a WTO work programme on trade, decent work and development, together with the ILO".

Other crucial areas of the report cover "green jobs" in the context of climate change; the integration of decent work into development assistance; cooperative work to implement the new ILO Social Justice Declaration; the Commission's support for trade union advisory arrangements at the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank similar to those at the OECD; and the Commission's commitment to another progress report on its work on decent work by the year 2011.

However, the TUC is concerned at some aspects of Commissioner Peter Mandelson's 2006 "Global Europe" strategy paper, which is endorsed by the Commission, because it fails to reflect the Commission's "Decent Work". The TUC is concerned that EU trade negotiations both at the WTO and in the EPA negotiations with ACP countries threaten to undermine decent work for the sake of gaining market access.