Changes from plenary report to adopted text

33. Underlines that effective enforcement is essential for the protection of workers and implementation of social rights; regrets that most Member States are falling behind on their commitment to the ILO Labour Inspection Convention with regard to the number of labour inspectors; insists that Member States increase their enforcement capacity so as to achieve a ratio of at least one labour inspector per 10 000 employed persons, by 2030 at the latest;

2. Social justice and equal opportunities

34. Stresses that eradicating child poverty and ensuring wellbeing and equal opportunities for children must be among the highest priorities for Europe; calls on the Commission and the Member States to speed up the adoption and implementation of the European Child Guarantee so that by 2030 every child in the EU has full access to quality and free healthcare, education and childcare, is living in decent housing and receives adequate nutrition; notes that this policy must be integrated with other measures targeting poverty and family policy in order to lead to well-rounded policy cycles able to offer opportunities for social inclusion to children and their families, including national and local strategies to fight child poverty, taking into account the specific challenges faced by different groups of children in need at local level;

35. Condemns the use of the pandemic as a pretext for some governments to backslide on some of the fundamental rights of workers and women; recalls the inalienable right to access to healthcare, as well as the right to have self-determination over one’s own body; highlights, therefore, that reproductive healthcare, contraception and abortion rights must be guaranteed, including by an extension of the legal timeframe for an abortion;

36. Welcomes the Council conclusions on strengthening minimum income protection to combat poverty and social exclusion; invites the Commission to further develop on these conclusions, proposing a framework for minimum income schemes, with the purpose of safeguarding the right to a decent life and eradicating poverty and addressing the questions of adequacy and coverage, including a non-regression clause; underlines that every person in Europe should be covered by a minimum income scheme and that pensions should ensure an income above the poverty line;

38. Calls on the Commission to introduce concrete measures applying to both public and private sectors with due account taken of the specificities of small and medium-sized enterprises, such as the clear definition of criteria for assessing the value of work, gender-neutral job evaluation and classification systems, gender pay audits and reports to guarantee equal pay, workers’ entitlement to request full pay information and right to redress, and clear targets for companies’ equality performance; calls furthermore for improved access to justice and the introduction of stronger procedural rights to combat pay discrimination; calls on the Commission to promote the role of the social partners and of collective bargaining at all levels (national, sectoral, local and company) in the upcoming pay transparency legislation; calls on the Commission to include strong enforcement measures for those failing to comply, such as penalties and sanctions for employers that violate the right to pay equality;

39. Calls on the Member States to unblock the Women on Boards directive and to adopt an ambitious position in Council in order to address the considerable imbalance between women and men in decision-making at the highest level; calls on the Commission and the Member States to commit to eliminating the glass ceiling effect on the boards of listed companies by introducing the objective of reaching at least 40 % representation of women in senior management positions;

40. Calls on the Commission to put forward a post-2020 European Disability Strategy covering all the provisions of the UNCRPD and containing ambitious, clear and measurable targets, planned actions with clear timeframes and dedicated resources, as well as being backed by an adequate and sufficiently resourced monitoring mechanism with clear benchmarks and indicators also emphasising the need to achieve full accessibility of goods and services, including the built environment, inclusive education and the labour market and to the use of artificial intelligence, in order to enable persons with disabilities to participate fully in society, as well as a commitment to the finalisation of the process of deinstitutionalisation of long-term care facilities; calls on the Member States to use resources available from the Cohesion Fund, the ERDF as well as the ESF in particular, in order to improve accessibility to public spaces for persons with special needs, including persons with disabilities, persons with children, and the elderly, who still encounter the problem of social exclusion;

41. Urges that the gender perspective be incorporated into the upcoming 2021 strategy on disability and equality, with due attention being paid to improved access to the labour market through targeted measures and actions;

42. Supports the promotion of inclusive and accessible education, including broadband internet access, and vocational and digital training, including for vulnerable groups and people with disabilities, in order to allow particularly low-skilled and older workers to retrain and learn new skills; supports the creation of EU-wide apprenticeship possibilities; calls on the Commission and the Member States to step up efforts towards the further inclusion of people with disabilities in the labour market by removing barriers using the opportunities that digital work offers for their inclusion and creating incentives for their employment; recalls that according to Eurofound, just one in three workers with limiting chronic and rare diseases have their workplaces suitably adapted; calls on the Commission and the Member States to continue their work of fostering the employment, maintenance at work and reintegration into the labour market of people with disabilities and chronic diseases in Europe;

43. Welcomes the new EU skills agenda; highlights the importance of access to training and reskilling of workers in industries and sectors that need to undergo fundamental changes with a view to a green and digital transition; highlights that qualifications and certified competences provide added value to workers, improving their position in the labour market, and can be transferred in labour market transitions; calls for public policy on skills to be oriented to the certification and validation of qualifications and competences; stresses that skills-based compensation systems should be established in companies accessing public funds for upskilling workers and in agreement with workers’ representatives, as this system would ensure that there is a return on that public investment; stresses that the European skills strategy for sustainable competitiveness, social equity and resilience must guarantee the right to lifelong learning for all and in all areas;

3. Robust social welfare systems

44. Notes that the current investment in social infrastructure in the EU has been estimated at approximately EUR 170 billion per year and that the Commission estimates the investment needed at EUR 192 billion, with health and long-term care accounting for 62 % of that investment (affordable housing, EUR 57 billion; health, EUR 70 billion; long-term care, EUR 50 billion; education and lifelong learning, EUR 15 billion); calls on the Commission and the Member States to dedicate to the implementation of the EPSR principles a proportion of the Recovery and Resilience Facility that is equivalent to the investments in environmental and digital priorities; insists that gender equality is taken into account in the allocation of RRF resources;

45. Calls on the Commission to monitor the European strategy for gender equality 2020-2025, and invites the Member States to adopt national gender equality strategies based on the European strategy, as an important component of the socio-economic measures taken in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis;

46. Stresses, moreover, the need for the Commission and the Member States to collect better and more harmonised data on the number of homeless people in Europe, as this constitutes the basis of any effective public policy;

47. Stresses that the EU and its Member States have an obligation to ensure universal access to decent, safe and affordable housing, in line with the UN’s Agenda 2030, in particular Goal 11 and in accordance with fundamental rights such as those defined in Articles 16, 30 and 31 of the European Social Charter and in the European Pillar of Social Rights; calls in that regard on all Member States to ratify the revised European Social Charter; highlights that investment in social, decent and affordable housing is crucial in order to guarantee and improve quality of life for all; calls on the Commission and the Member States to maximise efforts as regards investing in affordable housing to cover the housing needs of the low- and middle-income groups (the three bottom quintiles), ensuring that at least 30 % of all newly built houses constitute affordable housing for both of these income groups, and to eliminate energy poverty by 2030 through supporting energy efficiency investment by low-income households; calls on the Member States to prioritise renovation in their recovery and resilience plans; urges the Commission to come up with an ambitious action plan to progressively eradicate homelessness by 2030, including a European-wide ‘Housing First’ approach; calls on the Commission to propose an EU framework for national homelessness strategies; calls on the Commission and the Member States to ensure minimum standards for quality housing for cross-border and seasonal workers, which should be decoupled from their remuneration, as well as ensuring decent facilities, tenant privacy and written tenancy contracts enforced by labour inspectorates and establishing standards in this regard;

48. Insists that all workers are included in the social security system and entitled to unemployment benefits, paid sick leave, maternity, paternity and parental leave, accident insurance and protection against unfair dismissal;

49. Is concerned about the imbalances in healthcare quality and access across the EU that the COVID-19 crisis has laid bare; recalls that poorer people tend to live on average 6 years less than wealthier people and that persons with disabilities often face difficulties in accessing healthcare; highlights the need to address the social, economic and environmental determinants of health in order to tackle these health inequalities; calls on the Commission to develop common indicators and methodologies to monitor health, as well as the performance and accessibility of healthcare systems, with a view to reducing inequalities, identifying and prioritising areas in need of improvement and obtaining increased funding; calls on the Commission to analyse how the different national social welfare systems are covering social welfare needs during the current crisis, in order to identify strengths and weaknesses regarding access to and provision of services and social protection, and to ensure a mechanism for the monitoring and evaluation of social welfare systems in Europe, in order to verify their degree of resilience when they undergo shocks of different degrees of severity and study in what way they can be made more resilient and robust to resist future crises;

50. Highlights that universal access to public, solidarity-based and adequate retirement and old age pensions must be granted to all; acknowledges the challenges faced by Member States in strengthening the sustainability of pension systems, but stresses the importance of safeguarding solidarity in pension systems by strengthening the revenue side; underlines the importance of public and occupational pension systems which provide an adequate retirement income above the poverty threshold and allow pensioners to maintain their standard of living; believes that the best way to ensure sustainable, safe and adequate pensions for women and men is to increase the overall employment rate and provide more quality jobs across all ages, improve working and employment conditions, and commit the necessary public spending; believes that pension system reforms should focus among other aspects on the effective retirement age and reflect labour market trends, birth rates, the health and wealth situation, working conditions and the economic dependency ratio; considers that these reforms must also take account of the situation of millions of workers in Europe, particularly women, young people and the self-employed, who are being adversely affected by insecure, precarious employment, periods of involuntary unemployment and reduced working time; calls on the Commission and the Member States to take into account the particular situation of elderly workers on the labour market, and to intensify their efforts towards active and healthy ageing by counteracting discrimination against the elderly in employment and developing job market inclusion programmes for citizens aged over 55, with lifelong learning as a key priority;

51. Is concerned at the way the COVID-19 pandemic has further deepened the vulnerability, isolation, and risk of poverty and social exclusion of the elderly population; stresses that the pandemic has proven the need for a EU model which promotes and safeguards the dignity and fundamental rights of the elderly; calls on the Commission to present a plan to ensure the mental health, dignity and wellbeing of people, including the elderly, by supporting adequate quality healthcare and care services, investing in community-based services, health prevention and promotion, social protection, and decent and affordable housing and infrastructure, as well as supporting social economy projects including co-housing and cooperative housing, health and wellness programmes, adult day care and long-term care, and protecting the role and working conditions of caregivers, also fostering intergenerational solidarity; calls on the Member States to provide equal access to affordable, preventive and curative healthcare of good quality as enshrined in the European Pillar of Social Rights, including medical and care services and facilities which do not discriminate on grounds of age;

52. Welcomes the recent Commission report on the impact of demographic change on different groups in society and on areas and regions disproportionately affected in Europe; calls on the Commission and the Member States to commit more of the resources available under the ERDF to improving transport and telecommunications infrastructure in areas with a high ageing population, as well as primarily rural areas and areas suffering from depopulation;

4. Fair mobility

53. Calls on the Commission to revise the Temporary Work Agency (TWA) Directive in order to establish a legal framework to ensure decent working conditions and equal treatment for intra-EU seasonal workers and mobile workers on fixed-term contracts with temporary work agencies or any other type of labour market intermediary, including recruiting agencies; calls on Member States to strengthen enforcement and combat the practices of malicious temporary work agencies; stresses that this legal framework could include: a ban on labour market intermediaries who do not comply with the TWA Directive operating in the single market, a guaranteed minimum wage by collective agreement or by law, a guaranteed minimum number of hours per week/month that the employer cannot deduct under any heading from the minimum wage or wages laid down by collective agreement, no deductions from wages in the case of part-time contracts, guaranteed equal treatment for any person who, in the Member State concerned, is protected as a worker working in the same company/sector, a requirement that all temporary work agencies operating in the internal market are listed on a European register and are certified to operate in the single market, sanctions on companies using fraudulent recruitment practices and trafficking people for labour exploitation, and access to information on employment contracts and labour rights in a language that the worker can understand; calls on the Commission and Member States to end direct payments under the common agricultural policy to beneficiaries who do not comply with national and European labour law, ILO conventions and applicable collective bargaining agreements;

54. Highlights that freedom of movement of workers in the EU is a fundamental freedom and an integral part of the internal market’s success; stresses that the free movement of services must be achieved without undermining workers’ rights and social rights; considers that the free movement of services goes hand in hand with the free and fair mobility of workers providing those services, and that the internal market benefits when the rules on working conditions are upheld and the health and safety of mobile workers is protected; notes that there are grey areas and legal loopholes with some workers exercising this freedom in precarious conditions and often through fraudulent recruitment agencies and labour market intermediaries; calls on the Commission and Member States to guarantee decent working conditions and equal treatment for all mobile workers in the EU;