CESI Webinars #NoPrecariousWork with Eurofound

Eurofound researchers hosted two complementary webinars for the mainly EU funded project “Precarious work: empowering trade unions to address new challenges” that CESI is currently managing. They provide relevant training for all those facing the problems and realities of precarious work.

Precarious employment is not a one-dimensional phenomenon, but rather comes from the intersection of several characteristics (or lack thereof) such as workers’ rights, access to social security protection, interest representation and enforcement.

In the first video, Anna Gallinat, communication project officer at Eurofound, interviews Franz Eiffe, research manager at Eurofound, to explore whether all non-standard forms of employment are precarious. Franz Eiffe lets us know that non-standard forms of employment are more common in lower wage income groups, and that the employees most exposed to precarious working conditions are those with fixed-term contracts, solo self-employed and involuntary part-time workers.

To combat precarious workers, Franz Eiffe referred to a correct transposition by the member-states of the directives on fixed-term contracts, part-time contracts, and temporary agency work, the importance to combat abuse, and to close the social protection gap. He notices, however, a shift in EU leaders speeches lately of focusing not only on the quantity of jobs, but quality as well. Which is hopeful for future EU agendas.

This video is followed by a second one where James Higgins, press and media relations officer at Eurofound, questions Isabella Biletta, senior research manager at Eurofound, to discuss the role social partners have to tackle precarious employment. Isabella Biletta highlights two recent legislative developments in this regard: a 2017 European Parliament resolution on working conditions and precarious employment, and a 2019 European Commission directive on transparent and predictable working conditions.

Isabella Biletta names the following actions that social partners can take: joint diagnostic, meaning identifying the issues at various levels (company, sectoral, national and European), collective bargaining, and tackle unfair competition.

The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted these issues, particularly to women, who have been bearing the brunt of the pandemic. In other words, they are overrepresented in frontline sectors (particularly education and healthcare), and they have higher rates of unemployment, non-standard forms of employment and overrepresented in minimum income groups.

Watch Are all forms of non-standard employment precarious?.

Watch Precarious work and the role of social partners in the EU.

To find out more about this issue visit #noprecariouswork.

This project is mainly financed with funds from the European Union.