CESI members in favour of a strong public service agenda in Europe

On June 14, CESI’s internal members’ Expert Commission ‘Public Administrations’ convened for its constitutive meeting following CESI’s Congress in December last year, endorsing the appointment by CESI’s Presidium of Otto Aiglsperger (Eurofedop/GÖD), Carlos Martínez (CSIF) and Andreas Hemsing (dbb/komba) as its new President and Vice-Presidents.

CESI Secretary General Klaus Heeger said: “We are very glad to have Otto Aiglsperger, Carlos Martínez and Andreas Hemsing on board as new leaders of our standing Expert Commission on Public Administrations. All three are leading personalities in major national unions and possess a rich experience in social dialogue and interest representation of public sector employees and civil servants. Their insights will help CESI remain a powerful voice of public sector staff towards the EU institutions.”

The meeting marked an important moment in CESI’s future engagements as a European interest group and social partner, raising awareness and gathering support to launch a new campaign on building a strong EU public sector agenda in the post-Covid recovery measures in the Member States. Otto Aiglsperger noted: “If we want the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility to create a resilient and performing Europe, then important investments must flow into the public services, for they keep the state running in times of crisis. In Austria, for instance, 46% EU funds under the Facility are planned to be spent on climate change measures and 41% on digitalisation. Both are important policy fields, but the public service dimension must not be forgotten in the Member States.”

As external guest speakers, Daphne Ahrendt and Tina Weber from the EU agency Eurofound presented findings of recent studies they had co-authored on ‘Living, working and Covid-19’ and ‘Telework and ICT-based mobile work: Flexible working in the digital age’, which they discussed with the members of the Expert Commission, in particular concerning consequences and impacts of Covid-19 and telework on public services and working conditions of staff in public administrations.

The meeting also saw an intervention by Sara Rinaudo, Chairwoman of CESI’s Working Group on the Future of Work’, who outlined challenges that unregulated telework may mean for workers in terms of constant connectedness, a blurring of work and private life, as well as intensifications of work and extensions of working hours combined with shorter resting periods. She highlighted in this context in particular the role of trade unions in advocating for collective bargaining on telework to mitigate adverse effects.

CESI President Romain Wolff rounded off the meeting with a review of CESI’s activities as a member of the European Commission’s expert advisory Platform for Tax Good Governance. He emphasised: “In the aftermath of the Covid pandemic the global governance system needs to find a more effective way of imposing and collecting due business taxes. Trade unions should play a stronger role in advocating this.”