22 Amendments of Chiara GEMMA related to 2020/0030(NLE)
Amendment 36 #
Proposal for a decision
Recital 1
Recital 1
(1) Member States and the Union are to work towards developingdevelop and implement a coordinated strategy for employment and particularly for promoting a skilled, trained and adaptable workforce, as well as labour markets that are responsive to economic change,health and safety at the workplace, inclusive labour markets governed by rules which guarantee the full protection of the economic and social rights of all workers and meet the conditions for a socially just transition towards a circular, climate-neutral economy with a view to achieving the objectives of full employment and social progress, balanced growthsustainable development and a high level of protection and improvement of the quality of the environment set out in Article 3 of the Treaty on European Union. Member States shall regard promoting employment as a matter of common concern and shall coordinate their action in this respect within the Council, taking into account national practices related to the responsibilities of management and labour.
Amendment 56 #
Proposal for a decision
Recital 2
Recital 2
(2) The Union is to combat all forms of poverty, social exclusion and discrimination and promoteseek to guarantee the highest levels of social justice and protection, as well as equality between women and men, solidarity between generations and the protection of the rights of the child. In defining and implementing its policies and activities, the Union is to take into account requirements linked to the promotion of a high level of employment, the guarantee of adequate social protection, the fight against poverty and social exclusion and a high level of education and training as set out in Article 9 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
Amendment 61 #
Proposal for a decision
Recital 3
Recital 3
(3) In accordance with the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), the Union has developed and implemented policy coordination instruments for economic and employment policies. As part of these instruments, the present Guidelines for the Employment Policies of the Member States, together with the Broad Guidelines for the Economic Policies of the Member States and of the Union set out in Council Recommendation (EU) 2015/1184(5), form the Integrated Guidelines. They are to guide policy implementation in the Member States and in the Union, reflecting the interdependence between the Member StatesIn view of the unprecedented situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the integrated guidelines must steer all aspects of policy implementation in the Member States and in the Union, reflecting the interdependence between the Member States and the spirit of full economic and social solidarity in order to address properly the serious consequences of the pandemic. The resulting set of coordinated European and national policies and reforms are to constitute an appropriate overall sustainable economic and employment policy mix, which should achieve positive spill-over effects. ocial and economic spill-over effects in all the Member States. __________________ (5) Council Recommendation (EU) 2015/1184 of 14 July 2015 on broad guidelines for the economic policies of the Member States and of the European Union (OJ L 192, 18.7.2015, p. 27).
Amendment 66 #
Proposal for a decision
Recital 3 a (new)
Recital 3 a (new)
3a. The employment policy guidelines for the Member States are consistent with the new provisions adopted at EU level to help Member States address the unprecedented health, economic and social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and enable Member States to take all the measures needed to guarantee full protection for all citizens, as regards employment and pay, and for businesses and health and safety at the workplace.
Amendment 68 #
Proposal for a decision
Recital 4
Recital 4
(4) The Guidelines for the Employment Policies are consistent with the Stability and Growth Pact,contribute to the full implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights, the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the European Green Deal and are consistent with the existing Union legislation and with various Union initiatives, including the Council recommendation of 22 April 2013 on establishing a Youth Guarantee(6), the Council Recommendation of 15 February 2016 on the integration of the long-term unemployed into the labour market(7), the Council Recommendation of 19 December 2016 on Upskilling Pathways(8), the Council Recommendation of 15 March 2018 on a European Framework for Quality and Effective Apprenticeships(9), the Council Recommendation of 22 May 2018 on Key Competences and Lifelong Learning(10), the Council Recommendation of 22 May 2019 on High Quality Early Childhood Education and Care Systems(11) and the Council Recommendation of 8 November 2019 on Access to Social Protection.(12) __________________ (6) OJ C 120, 26.4.2013, p. 1. (7) OJ C 67, 20.2.2016, p. 1. (8) OJ C 484, 24.12.2016, p. 1. (9) OJ C 153, 2.5.2018, p. 1. (10) OJ C 189, 4.6.2018, p. 1. (11) OJ C 189, 5.6.2019, p. 4. (12) OJ C 387, 15.11.2019, p. 1.
Amendment 71 #
Proposal for a decision
Recital 5
Recital 5
(5) The European Semester combines the different instruments In view of the serious crisis affecting the entire European Union as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the European Semester instruments should undergo a comprehensive review without delay with the aim of enabling all the Member States to protect all citizens, as regards their health, employment and income, and businesses from the fallout of this crisis, creating an new overarching framework for the integrated multilateral coordination and surveillance of economic and employment policies. While pursuing environmental sustainability, productivity, fairness and stability, the European Semester integrates that strengthen fair cooperation and solidarity between Member States after the pandemic as well. With a view to guaranteeing fairness and the highest levels of environmental sustainability and economic, social and territorial cohesion, the review of the European Semester must help to bring about the full and rapid implementation of the principles of the European Pillar of Social Rights, including strong engagement with social partners, civil society and other stakeholders. It supportsThe European Semester must support more effectively the delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals(13). The Union and Member States’ employment and economic policies should go hand in hand with Europe’s transition to a circular, inclusive, climate neutral, environmentally sustainable and digital economy, while improving competitiveness, fostering innovation, promotingguaranteeing the highest possible levels of social justice and equal opportunities as well as tackleliminating inequalities and regional disparities. __________________ (13) UN Resolution A/RES/70/1.
Amendment 81 #
Proposal for a decision
Recital 6
Recital 6
(6) Climate change and environmental related challenges and those linked to the COVID-19 pandemic, globalisation, digitalisation and demographic change will transform European economies and societies. The Union and its Member States should work together to effectively address these structural factors and adapt existing systems as needed, r. Recognising the close interdependence of the Member States' economies and labour markets and related policieseconomies, labour markets and related policies, Member States must be able to take the measures needed to eliminate poverty and social exclusion, guaranteeing comprehensive public health protection and full employment. This requires a coordinated, ambitious and effective policy action at both Union and national levels, in accordance with the TFEU and and a review of the Union’s provisions on economic governance. Such policy action should encompass a boost in sustainable investment, a renewed commitment to appropriately sequenced structural reforms thatenvironmental, social and public health investment, a renewed commitment to reforms that guarantee universal access to medical treatment, protection against poverty and social exclusion, comprehensive environmental protection and sustainable development, also improveing productivity, economic growth, social and territorial cohesion, and upward convergence, resilience and the exercise of fiscal responsibility of employment and social protection provisions. It should combine supply- and demand side measures, while taking into account their environmental, employment and social impac need to achieve climate neutrality by 2050 at the latest.
Amendment 100 #
Proposal for a decision
Recital 8
Recital 8
(8) Reforms to the labour market, including the national wage-setting mechanisms, should follow national practices of social dialogue and allow the necessary opportunity for a broad consideration of socioeconomic issues, including improvements in sustainabilmeasures to combat poverty, discrimination and employment precarity, competitiveness, innovation, job creation of high-quality jobs, lifelong learning and training policies, working conditions, education and skills, public health and, health and safety at the workplace, inclusion and real incomes.
Amendment 107 #
Proposal for a decision
Recital 9
Recital 9
(9) Member States and the Union should ensure that the transformations are fair and socially just, strengthening the drive towards an inclusive and resilient society in which people are protected and empowered to anticipate and manage change, and in which they can actively participate in society and the economy. Discrimination in all its forms should be tackled. Access and opportunities for all should be ensured and poverty and social exclusion (including that of children and persons with disabilities) should be reduceliminated, in particular by ensuring an effective and inclusive functioning of labour markets and of social protection systems which offer greater protection and by removing barriers to education, training and labour-market participation, including through investments in early childhood education and care. Timely and equal access to affordable healthcare services, including prevention and health promotion are particularly relevant in a context of ageing societies. The potential of people with disabilities to contribute to economic growth and social development should be furtherlly realised. As new economic and business models take hold in Union workplaces, employment relationships are also changing. Member States should ensure that employment relationships stemming from new forms of work maintainare stable, by introducing new rights, safeguards and employment conditions which rule out any form of discrimination, precarity or exploitation, and strengthen Europe’s social model.
Amendment 116 #
Proposal for a decision
Recital 10
Recital 10
(10) The Integrated Guidelines should form the basis for country-specific recommendations that the Council may address to the Member States. Member States should make full use of the European Social Fund Plus and other Union funds, including the Just Transition Fund and InvestEU, to foster employmentstable, high- quality employment which protects all workers against poverty, social investments, social inclusion, accessibility, promote up- and reskilling opportunities of the workforce, lifelong learning and high quality education and training for all, including digital literacy and skills. While the Integrated Guidelines are addressed to Member States and the Union, they should be implemented in partnership with all national, regional and local authorities, closely involving parliaments, as well as the social partners and representatives of civil society.
Amendment 127 #
Proposal for a decision
Annex I – Guideline 5 – paragraph 1
Annex I – Guideline 5 – paragraph 1
Member States should actively promote a sustainable social market economy and facilitate and support investment in the creation of quality jobs. To this end, they should reduce the barriers that businesses face in hiring peopleguarantee the highest social, employment and environmental standards, promote recruitment by businesses of employees on open-ended contracts, foster responsible entrepreneurship and genuine self- employment and, in particular, support the creation and growth of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises, including through access to finance. Member States should actively promote the development of the circular and social economy, foster environmental, digital and social innovation, social and ecological enterprises, and encourage those innovative forms of work, which can help bring about a rapid and socially just transition towards climate neutrality by 2050 at the latest, a creating quality job opportunities and generating social and environmental benefits at local level.
Amendment 137 #
Proposal for a decision
Annex I – Guideline 5 – paragraph 2
Annex I – Guideline 5 – paragraph 2
The tax burden should be shifted away from labour to other sources more supportive to employment and inclusive growth and at the same time aMember States should seek to reduce the tax burden on labour by shifting it to other sources that do not undermine employment and sustainable and inclusive development and are fully in ligned with climate and environmental objectives, taking account ofincreasing the redistributive effect of the tax system in favour of the poorer and more vulnerable sections of society, while protecting revenue for adequate social protection and growth- enhancing expenditure.
Amendment 144 #
Proposal for a decision
Annex I – Guideline 5 – paragraph 3
Annex I – Guideline 5 – paragraph 3
Member States having in place national mechanisms for the setting of statutory minimum wages should ensure an effective involvement of social partners in a transparent and predictable manner allowing for an adequate responsiveness of wages to productivity developments, keeping them above the relative poverty line and providing fair wages for a decent standard of living, paying particular attention to lower and middle income groups with a view to upward convergence. These mechanisms should take into account economic performance across regions and sectors. Member States should promote social dialogue and collective bargaining with a view to wage setting. Respecting national practices, Member States and social partners should ensure that all workers are entitled to adequate and fair wages that at all events keep them above the poverty line through collective agreements or adequate statutory minimum wages, taking into account their impact on competitiveness, and job creation and, effectively doing away with in-work poverty.
Amendment 148 #
Proposal for a decision
Annex I – Guideline 5 – paragraph 3 a (new)
Annex I – Guideline 5 – paragraph 3 a (new)
With the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, Member States should introduce all the measures needed to protect wage earners and the self-employed against the risk of unemployment and loss of income. The social partners should be fully involved in the formulation and implementation of such measures, which should include extension of reduced working hours with full pay, increased wage subsidies and income support, family benefits for childcare and care of the elderly, extension of paid leave for sickness and care giving, tax breaks and suspension of layoffs during the crisis. Member States should step up funding and tax breaks for businesses affected by the COVID-19 crisis, with a view to maintaining employment levels and upholding health and safety standards at the workplace. They should adopt specific schemes to maximise the use of smart working and teleworking arrangements governed by collective agreements setting out safeguards and working conditions.
Amendment 154 #
Proposal for a decision
Annex I – Guideline 6 – paragraph 1
Annex I – Guideline 6 – paragraph 1
In the context of technological and environmental transitions, as well as demographic change, Member States should promote sustainability, productivity, employability andtransitions and moves towards a circular, climate- neutral economy, as well as demographic change, Member States should promote the full protection of the economic and social rights of all workers, environmental sustainability, productivity, stable employment and recognition of the value of human capital, fostering relevant knowledge, skills and competences throughout people's lives, responding to current and future labour market needs. Member States should also adapt and invest in their education and training systems to provide high quality and inclusive education, including vocational education and training. Member States should work together with the social partners, education and training providers, enterprises and other stakeholders to address structural weaknesses in education and training systems and improve their quality and labour market relevance, also with a view to enabling the environmental transition for a swift and socially just transition to a circular, climate-neutral economy. Particular attention should be paid to challenges of the teaching profession. Education and training systems should equip all learners with key competences, including basic and digital skills as well as transversal competences to lay the foundations for adaptability later in life. Member States should seek to ensure the transfer of training entitlements during professional career changes, including, where appropriate, through individual learning accounts. They should enable everyone to anticipate and better adapt to labour market needs notably through continuous reskilling and upskilling, with a view to supporting fair and just transitions for all, strengthening social outcomes, addressing labour market shortages and improving the overall resilience of the economy to shocks.
Amendment 162 #
Proposal for a decision
Annex I – Guideline 6 – paragraph 2
Annex I – Guideline 6 – paragraph 2
Member States should foster equal opportunities for all by addresseliminating inequalities in education and training systems, including by providing universal access to good quality early childhood education. They should raise overall education levels, reduce the number of young people leaving school early, increase access to and completion of tertiary education and increase adult participation in continuing learning, particularly among learners from disadvantaged backgrounds, the least qualified. Taking into account new requirements in digital, green and ageing societies, Member States should strengthen work-based learning in their vocational education and training systems (VET) (including through quality and effective apprenticeships) and increase the number of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) graduates both in medium-level VET and in tertiary education. Furthermore, Member States should enhance the labour-market relevance of tertiary education and research, also with a view to ensuring a rapid transition towards a circular, climate-neutral economy, improve skills monitoring and forecasting, make skills more visible and qualifications comparable, including those acquired abroad, and increase opportunities for recognising and validating skills and competences acquired outside formal education and training. They should upgrade and increase the supply and take- up of flexible continuing vocational education and training. Member States should also support low skilled adults by helping them gain access to stable, high- quality employment, to maintain or develop their long-term employability by boosting access to and take up of quality learning opportunities, through the implementation of Upskilling Pathways, including a skills assessment, an offer of education and training matching labour market opportunities, and the validation and recognition of the skills acquired. In view of the COVID-19 emergency, Member States should take the measures needed to promote universal access to distance learning and training, taking full account of the needs of people with disabilities.
Amendment 178 #
Proposal for a decision
Annex I – Guideline 6 – paragraph 4
Annex I – Guideline 6 – paragraph 4
Member States should aim to remove barriers and disincentives to, and provide incentives for, participation in the labour market, in particular for low income, second earners and those furthest away from the labour ma the creation of, and access to, stable, high-quality jobs, and take appropriate measures to eliminate inequalities and discrimination against the most vulnerable categories of worketrs. Member States should support an adapted work environment for people with disabilities, including through targeted financial support and services that enable them to participate in the labour market and in society.
Amendment 192 #
Proposal for a decision
Annex I – Guideline 7 – paragraph 1
Annex I – Guideline 7 – paragraph 1
In order to benefit from a dynamic and productive workforce, new work patterns and business models, Member States should work together with the social partners on fair, transparent and predictable working conditions, balancing rights and obligations. They should reduce and prevent segmentation within labour markets, fight undeclared work and foster the transition towards open-ended forms of employment. Employment protection rules, labour law and institutions should all provide both a suitable environment for recruitment, and the necessary flexibility for employers to adapt swiftly to changes in the economic context, while preserving appropriatethe creation of stable, high-quality jobs, maintaining high levels of security and healthy, safe and well- adapted working environments for workers, protecting labour rights and ensuring the highest levels of social protection. Employment relationships that lead to precarious working conditions should be prevented, including in the case of platform workers and by fighting the abuse of atypical contracts and recognising their specific requirements as regards safeguards and working conditions. Access to effective and impartial dispute resolution and a right to redress, including adequate compensation, should be ensured in cases of unfair dismissal.
Amendment 206 #
Proposal for a decision
Annex I – Guideline 7 – paragraph 4
Annex I – Guideline 7 – paragraph 4
The mobility of learners and workers should be adequately supported as a fundamental right and a free choice with the aim of enhancing employability, skills and exploiting the full potential of the European labour market, while also ensuring fair conditions for all those pursuing a cross-border activity and stepping up administrative cooperation between national administrations with regard to mobile workers. Barriers to mobility in education and training, in occupational and personal pensions and in the recognition of qualifications should be removed and recognition of qualifications made easier. Member States should take action to ensure that administrative procedures are not an unnecessary obstacle to workers from other Member States taking up employment, including for cross- border workers. Member States should also prevent abuse of the existing rules and address underlying causes of ‘brain drain’ from certain regions including through appropriate regional development measures.
Amendment 223 #
Proposal for a decision
Annex I – Guideline 8 – paragraph 2
Annex I – Guideline 8 – paragraph 2
Member States should moderniseimprove social protection systems to provide adequate, effective, efficient, and sustainable social protection throughout all stages of an individual's life, fostering social inclusion and upward social mobility, incentivising labour market participation and addressing inequalities, including through the design ofby making their tax and benefit systems more progressive, to the benefit of the poorer and more vulnerable sections of society. Complementing universal approaches with selective ones will improve effectiveness of social protection systems. The modernisationimprovement of social protection systems should lead to better access, quality, and adequacy and sustainability.
Amendment 237 #
Proposal for a decision
Annex I – Guideline 8 – paragraph 5
Annex I – Guideline 8 – paragraph 5
Member States should ensure universal and timely access to affordable preventive and curative health care and long-term care of good quality, while safeguarding sustainability over the long run.
Amendment 240 #
Proposal for a decision
Annex I – Guideline 8 – paragraph 6
Annex I – Guideline 8 – paragraph 6
In a context of increasing longevity and demographic change, Member States should secure the adequacy and sustainability of pension systems for workers and self-employed, providing equal opportunities for women and men to acquire pension rights, including through supplementary schemes to ensure an adequate income. Pension reforms should be supported by measures that extend working lives, such as by raising the effective retirement age, and full protection against poverty. Pension reforms should be oriented to guarantee the highest level of fairness and be set in the context of active ageing strategies. These reforms should enable workers to choose at what age, or after how many years of professional activity, they wish to retire, offering incentives for workers nearing retirement to accept a reduction in working hours so that younger staff cand be framed within active ageing strategiesrecruited as part of a generational transition. This would facilitate both youth employment and workers’ transition to retirement, guaranteeing the transfer of knowledge and experience from one generation to the next. Member States should establish a constructive dialogue with social partners and other relevant stakeholders, and allow an appropriate phasing in of the reforms.