The European Pillar of Social Rights: FIA responds to the Commission’s First Stage Consultation of the European Social Partners

On the 26th of April 2017, the European Commission released a policy package on the long-awaited European Pillar of Social Rights. The package included a document of 20 principles that constitute the pillar as such, as well as a number of other initiatives aiming to develop and apply the principles of the pillar.

The Pillar of Social Rights is about delivering new and more effective rights for citizens. It builds upon 20 key principles, structured around three categories:

• Equal opportunities and access to the labour market
• Fair working conditions
• Social protection and inclusion

You can download the Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and The Committee of the Regions Establishing A European Pillar Of Social Rights in all the languages of the EU from this link:

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=COM:2017:0250:FIN

Some of the other accompanying initiatives are listed with links below. We would wish to draw your attention in particular to the initiative on the:

The Written Statement Directive

The existing Written Statement directive gives employees starting a new job the right to be notified in writing of the essential aspects of their employment relationship. The Commission is launching a consultation of social partners on a proposed revision to reflect labour market changes.

The commission’s document strongly takes up the positions expressed by FIA regarding the situation of atypical workers in our sector and proposes an expansion of the definition of “worker” at European level, opening the door to protection and rights for performers with a freelance/self-employed status.

Furthermore, the Commission proposal sets out the possibility of recalibrating the directive so that the rights set out in the written statement would gain binding and normative value, meaning that this directive, would, in practice, become the primary vehicle for delivering the European Pillar of Social Rights.

FIA, together with FIM and UNI-MEI welcomed the clear take up of the issues raised in our response to the initial social pillar consultation last year and actively participated in the first phase social partner consultation on the Commission’s proposal (that closed on the 23^rd of June) offering feedback from our sector on definition of worker and the reflection carried out in our sector in the context of collective bargaining and the clash with competition rules.

You can download the EAEA Response (European Arts and Entertainment Alliance: composed of FIA, FIM and UNI MEI) from our website.

We also actively engaged in the discussion in ETUC on this issue. And fully support their response to the consultation also. More on the Written Statement Directive

Access to social protection

Closely related is the accompanying first phase consultation of the European social partners on access to social protection. Again, the Commission document captures many of the issues arising from new and atypical forms of work. It states that today's more flexible working arrangements provide new job opportunities especially for the young but can potentially give rise to new precariousness and inequalities. The Commission wants to explore ways of providing as many people as possible with social security cover, including self-employed and gig-economy workers. In practice, these people should also be able to build up rights against contributions. 

Again, FIA, together with FIM and UNI-MEI will responded positively to the Commission’s proposal and have sought to feedback relevant sectoral experience in our joint reponse.

You can download the EAEA Response (European Arts and Entertainment Alliance: composed of FIA, FIM and UNI MEI) from our website.

More on access to social protection

We will continue to closely follow all policy developments and initiatives arising from the European pillar of social rights, including the second phase consultations in the coming months. We will certainly schedule some discussions around these matters at the EuroFIA in Warsaw.