Workers' Group - Related News

We are experiencing the biggest crisis in peacetime in the last 90 years; if the European Central Bank's estimates of the size of the 15% of GDP depression turn out to be correct, this is three times the magnitude of the last crisis in 2008. The European Union has never faced such an economic and social crisis of this scale. This crisis is of a different nature than previous ones, and it requires a different mix and timing of policy responses. That is why we believe that business as usual can no longer be a political option to address the effects of the crisis. Europe has the possibility and the opportunity to build another world.

Every IWMD is poignant as we take time to commemorate workers - some who were colleagues and the many 1000s that we never knew - who have died at work. This year, as the world struggles to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, we mourn and pay special tribute to the 100s of healthcare and all other workers across the world who have died from exposure to coronavirus at work. We cannot let their deaths be in vain.

The EESC Workers' Group is extremely concerned by the contents of a leaked document that shows that the European Commission may postpone the long awaited proposal for binding pay transparency measures on the basis that this may not "be the right time" in the context of the COVID-19 crisis.

EESC Workers' group President, Oliver Röpke said "We are facing a crisis of historical proportions that will only be satisfactorily resolved with solidarity, compassion and mutual understanding, within and beyond our borders. European citizens will not understand divisions and impassiveness".