Workshop 4: The future of work in the wellbeing economy

Wednesday, 3 March 2021, 10:00 - 12:00

Webstreaming    

Organised by the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), the European Youth Forum (YFJ), the EESC section for Agriculture, Rural Development and Environment (NAT) and the EESC Sustainable Development Observatory (SDO)

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Programme

10.00 – 10.05 Welcome

  • Monika Skadborg, Board member European Youth Forum

10.05 – 10.25 Presentation of the report ‘’Escaping the jobs and growth treadmill’’

  • Jan Mayrhofer, Senior Policy Officer for Sustainable Development, European Youth Forum
  • Katy Wiese, Policy Officer for Economic and Environmental Justice, European Environmental Bureau

10.25 – 10.45 Reactions to the report

  • Peter Schmidt, EESC NAT Section President and the Rapporteur on the Sustainable economy we need
  • Prof. Dr. Irmi Seidl, Economist, Écoles polytechniques fédérales (ETH) 

10.45 – 10.50 Introduction of break-out groups

  • Monika Skadborg, Board member European Youth Forum

10.50 – 11.40 Break-out groups moderated by

  • Katy Wiese, Policy Officer for Economic and Environmental Justice, European Environmental Bureau
  • Arnaud Schwartz, President of France Nature Environnement, Member of the EESC

Breakout 1: Universal Basic Income & Job guarantee
Inspirational intervention: Presentation of the Finnish Universal Basic Income (UBI)

  • Signe Jauhiainen, Senior Researcher, Kela Research

Breakout 2: Working time reductions & Democracy at Work
Inspirational intervention: Presentation of the cooperative concept Mondragon

  • Ander Etxeberria, Public Affairs Mondragon Corporation 

11.45 – 11.55 Reporting back from break-out groups
11.55 – 11.00 Closure

Monika Skadborg, Board member European Youth Forum


Concept note

The workshop/panel should focus on the different pathways needed for the future of work in a wellbeing economy. Together with the European Youth Forum and the European Trade Union Confederation, the EEB recently published a report that provides a policy blueprint for creating employment in a post-pandemic EU and a vision for revolutionising the future of work, including universal basic income, shorter working weeks, job sharing, job guarantees and economic democracy. We would like to present the report and choose one of the options mentioned and to have more in depth-discussion on what is needed to implement those solutions. Questions include, for example, what is needed to implement the alternative? What role does the European Green Deal and/or other EU frameworks play? How can technology and digitalisation accelerate the implementation?

Work organisation