FIRST WORKSHOP OF THE GROUND HANDLING PROJECT

12.12.2016 | СТСБ

The Social Partners representing employers and workers in the European Ground Handling – ACI Europe (ACI), Airport Services Association (ASA) and European Transport Workers’ Federation (ETF) – met on 8 and 9 December 2016 in Barcelona to discuss the issues of market access and social conditions in the ground handling industry. This workshop was part of an EU co-financed project in the framework of social dialogue.

The aim of the project is to prepare social partners’ views in light of the assessment of the Directive 96/67/EC that was announced as part of the Commission’s Aviation Strategy for Europe. Before the workshop, an extensive research has been conducted by the consultant company Syndex consisting of desktop and questionnaire research.

The participants agreed that market opening without social regulation has caused excessive pressure both on the ground handling companies and workers. There is a need for rules that will ensure level playing field and binding social protection for the workforce.

Therefore, all the three organisations will continue their joint efforts to have a sustainable and fair ground handling sector. The next workshop taking place in February 2017 will look at quality and training standards. Finally, the closing conference in April 2017 will present the outcome of the project to a wider audience.

FTTUB was represented at the workshop by its International Relations and Civil Aviation expert Antonia Panayotova who is also a member of the Steering Committee of the project, as well as by Petranka Shomova, a chairman of FTTUB’s trade union organisation at Varna Airport and by Albena Vasileva from FTTUB’s organisation at Sofia Airport.

Eliminating violence against women at work and at home

25.11.2016 | СТСБ

Trade Unions are fully determined to eliminate violence against women through collective agreements, and their proper implementation with employers, at national, sectoral and company levels.

In a ground-breaking, and unpublished, study ‘Safe at Home-Safe at work’, which will be presented in Madrid on November 24-25 to mark the International Day against Violence against Women (November 25), the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) will reveal how trade unions in Europe have addressed violence against women at work and how support at the workplace can help eliminate violence against women at home.

The ETUC is hosting the Madrid conference to share experience of negotiations and agreements at company and sectoral level to combat violence against women and sexual harassment at work.

A survey carried out by the British TUC found that more than half of all women, and nearly two-thirds of women aged 18 to 24, experienced sexual harassment at work. A French survey, carried out in 2014, found that 1 in 5 women had been a victim of sexual harassment.

Pioneering agreements have been signed in several countries including Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Slovenia and the Netherlands – see https://www.etuc.org/fr/publications/briefing-notes-etuc-project-safe-home-safe-work#.WDRA5vkrJPZ to more details in a briefing on the ETUC project ‘Safe at home, safe at work’.

Such agreements will guide future European trade union actions to eliminate violence against women at work.

The 2007 European Framework Agreement on Violence and Harassment at Work between the European trade union and employers’ organisations led to Europe-wide agreements in the commerce, private security, local government, health and education sectors.

“Sexual harassment at work is a serious problem which can have far-reaching repercussions for the victims and impacts on the whole workplace,” said Montserrat Mir, Confederal Secretary of the ETUC. “Together with the employers, we have the means to address it effectively through collective agreements, as our study shows.

“A new negotiating issue for trade unions and employers is how victims of violence at home can be supported in the workplace. Domestic violence often follows victims into the workplace, and obviously impacts on productivity and workplace morale. This makes domestic violence a trade union issue.”

TRAN Committee improves PSR but ETF stays vigilant on several fronts

02.02.2016 | СТСБ

Today, 25 January 2016, the European Parliament Committee on Transport and Tourism (TRAN Committee) adopted its report on the so-called Port Service Regulation (PSR). This legislative proposal is crucial for the European Transport Workers’ Federation (ETF) as it touches upon several groups of workers represented by the Federation, especially in tugs and cargo-handling.

“The rapporteur, Knut Fleckenstein has done a huge work trying to balance the text according to the points of view expressed by the relevant stakeholders,” said ETF Dockers’ Section vice-chair, Torben Seebold. “We had asked the TRAN Committee to be more ambitious on social articles, but we believe that the PSR resulting from this vote presents several improvements compared to the original text,” he added.

“We are particularly pleased that the EP rejected the market access elements”, Seebold continued. “This is the third time: hopefully the lesson has been learnt and no similar proposals will come up in the future. The new article 10.a, on which we could find an agreement with FEPORT, is a good step forward. We are, however, very concerned about ongoing attempts to dismantle port labour schemes. We are not going to stare at the precarisation of our jobs and the worsening of our working conditions: when dialogue falls short, international solidarity is ready to be implemented” he concluded.

A positive element for the ETF is also the exclusion of pilotage and the recognition of its fundamental role for safety.

Voicing the unions representing workers in tugs, Jean-Philippe Chateil from ETF French affiliate FOMM UGICT CGT declared “The initial text was very worrying because of its potential negative impact on existing social standards in the tug sector in some EU countries. A joint effort was made at institutional level to listen to our concerns’. He added ‘Satisfactory solutions could be found to avoid opening the door to social dumping. More political courage would have been needed on some aspects, notably on transfer of staff, as not all EU countries have legislation protecting workers’ rights when the tug operator is replaced”.

“We’ll do all we can to make sure that the enhancements are kept by the Plenary and by the upcoming three-way negotiations and that further improvements are introduced,” concluded Livia Spera, ETF Political Secretary for Dockers.

For more information go to: http://www.etf-europe.org/etf-3642.cfm