FIM

On 19 January 2017, the European Parliament adopt­ed a Resolution on the European Social Pillar, call­ing on the European Commission to make pro­pos­als for design­ing a European pil­lar of social rights that goes beyond a sim­ple dec­la­ra­tion of prin­ci­ple and has a real impact on the lives of cit­i­zens. Parliament is urg­ing the Commission to put an end to a double-​standard sys­tem which only leads it to enact vague prin­ci­ples in favour of a social Europe, where­as the mea­sures it adopts in favour of com­pe­ti­tion and the free mar­ket are always con­crete and coercive.

In par­tic­u­lar, the Parliament calls on the Commission to work with social part­ners to present a Framework Directive on decent work, regard­less of employ­ment rela­tion­ships and includ­ing non-​standard forms of employ­ment, so that all work­ers might ben­e­fit from a set of rights found­ed on fair treat­ment and non-​discrimination and which pro­vide real pro­tec­tion in the fol­low­ing areas:
• Health & Safety;
• Maternity leave;
• Working hours and rest periods;
• Work/​life balance;
• Access to con­tin­u­ous training;
• Taking dis­abil­i­ty into account;
• Right to infor­ma­tion, con­sul­ta­tion and participation;
• Freedom of asso­ci­a­tion, rep­re­sen­ta­tion and col­lec­tive bargaining.

The Parliament calls on the Commission to work with social part­ners to present a Framework Directive on decent work, regard­less of employ­ment rela­tion­ships and includ­ing non-​standard forms of employment

FIM is delight­ed to find that the pro­pos­als it made in 2009 in its Manifesto on the Status of the Artist (co-​signed by FIA) have been put for­ward here.

We rec­om­mend you read this res­o­lu­tion, which pro­pos­es con­crete cours­es of action. In the long run –pro­vid­ed of course it is effec­tive­ly fol­lowed up– it could lead to the adop­tion of a text that is bind­ing at the com­mu­ni­ty lev­el. In this way, Romania could be forced to review its labour leg­is­la­tion which, since 2011, pro­hibits union rep­re­sen­ta­tion for the self-​employed. The Commission could also be led to think twice before propos­ing itself as a vol­un­tary play­er in pro­ceed­ings aimed at depriv­ing addi­tion­al orches­tra musi­cians of the ben­e­fit of col­lec­tive agree­ments (cf. pro­ceed­ings involv­ing FNV-​KIEM against the Dutch Government).

As we know, European Parliament res­o­lu­tions do not have any bind­ing force and, con­se­quent­ly, are too often ignored by the Commission. Nonetheless, this text rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant step and is an explic­it encour­age­ment for us to con­tin­ue with our efforts to make head­way on these issues which are core con­cerns for our unions.