European Federation of Building and Woodworkers (EFBWW)

📢Stop the exploitation of workers! Limit subcontracting! Sign our petition 👉https://chng.it/kMnsPMqLvk 👷♂️👷♀️🏗Next time you go by a construction site, look carefully. You might be witnessing exploitation of workers. ⛓One of the biggest risk factors for these workers is the long and complex subcontracting chains found on many construction sites, with several hundreds of companies being involved in one construction project. Often, workers do not even know who their boss is. In the end, this means that no one will take responsibility if - and when - something bad happens. 📢✊Ahead of the European elections, we ask you to join your voice to ours and help us protect workers’ rights! Sign and share our petition! 🧾

📢The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, reversed her initial decision and put quality jobs and social rights back in the title and portfolio of Executive Vice-President and Commissioner Roxana Minzatu. The backtrack comes after weeks and months of pressure from trade unions. The EFBWW welcomes this decision, but insists that this change needs to be more than just a symbol. 👷♂️👷♀️Construction, cement, wood, and furniture workers need a strong European Commission that will promote quality jobs. We expect that the Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights will come forward with a Quality Jobs Roadmap that will include a legislative proposal to limit subcontracting and promote direct jobs, ban intermediaries in posting and ensures  that no more public money goes to  exploitation.  The announced revision of the Public Procurement Directives will be an important moment and must include mandatory social clauses, abolish the "lowest price option" and provide a legal framework to exclude companies involved in social dumping from public tenders. The EFBWW also expects a stronger mandate for the European Labour Authority with a focus on more effective enforcement across borders. The EFBWW is ready to work closely together with the new Commissioner. 

👷♂️👷♀️The “lowest price” is still the main criterion to award a contract in big public investments. This is achieved at the expense of construction workers. This needs to stop! The European Commission cannot miss the opportunity in the revision of the public procurement directive: we need mandatory social clauses in public tenders! 🔦Recently, the Norwegian Public Roads Administration rejected a tender to build a large tunnel in the north of Norway, submitted by the Italian company Itinera S.p.A, which has a history of violating labour rights in another country, Denmark. This is the way forward! 📢The EFBWW calls on the EU legislators to push for: • Legally sound and mandatory social criteria on social and employment aspects • Pre-procurement strategies to prevent bidders with low professional integrity from entering the tendering process • Limits in subcontracting • Abolition of the "lowest price option" and exclusion of abnormally low tenders from the bidding process. • Grounds for excluding companies from tender processes. • Control, monitoring and sanction mechanisms with an enforced European Labour Authority • Mandatory application of collective agreements. 👉 https://bit.ly/3ZoSqns

📢Full day at our Exco in Brussels! We discussed the European elections and the new European Commission with Slavina Spasova, Director of the European Social Observatory (OSE), and Isabelle Schömann, Deputy General Secretary CES - ETUC. We focused the discussion on our priorities and next steps on: 🔹Subcontracting campaign, 🔹Asbestos 🔹Revision of the Public Procurement Directives, 🔹Review of the ELA mandate We also had an overview of the joint activities with BWI. ✊ We thank all our affiliates for the good debates and for the active participation!

💙Today, we say goodbye to Johan Lindholm as the president of the EFBWW. We thank Johan for all the good and hard work, for the cooperation and for being a great team player. We wish him all the best as the president of the Swedish Trade Union Confederation (LANDSORGANISATIONEN I SVERIGE). We know that we can count on you to continue to bring construction workers’ voice to the European level in ETUC! 💙We also welcome Bruno Bothua as the interim president of the EFBWW. We will continue our work with our "unstoppable force", because "nothing will happen if we don’t fight"!💪✊

🖤We started our Executive Committee meeting with a minute of silence for the victims of extreme weather events. Our thoughts are with the victims of extreme weather events all over Europe. Spain, Greece, Italy, the Central and Eastern region, all countries are being affected by floods, fires, extreme cold, extreme heat. Extreme weather events and their impact on the construction, wood, and forestry sectors cannot be overlooked. They make an already demanding job even more challenging. Prolonged exposure to heat can lead to heat stress, dehydration, cancer, and other serious health issues. Storms and floods pose immediate safety risks. 👷♀️👷♂️Together, we can build a safer, more sustainable future for our workers. We stand united in the fight against climate change and push for prevention measures to better protect our workers. 💪

👷♀️📢🚨Today, we stand united in our commitment to end violence against women. Trade unions and collective bargaining can contribute to addressing harassment and violence in the workplace, including through prevention. Check our toolkit on Women in Construction, Wood and Forestry with good practices on how to combat violence and harassment at work 👉 https://bit.ly/47YZskY

We’re excited to be in Bucharest, Romania, together with FIEC EU for the meeting for the DESOCO social dialogue project with our affiliates from the Central and Eastern Countries. Great debates on quality jobs, labour shortages, women participation in the construction sector. We also had an interactive session to identify the reasons for labour shortages, initiatives to address it and recommendations to tackle labour shortages in construction.

We listened carefully to the commissioner-designate Stéphane Séjourné's hearing in the European Parliament yesterday: ➕We welcome the commitment to protection and inclusion of workers and the focus on job quality and on creating an inclusive labour market. ➕ Broad strategy to green the cement sector. The EFBWW insists on the social transformation of the industry with attention for keeping integrated cement production facilities in the EU, ensuring quality jobs and upskilling and reskilling cement workers. ➕Reform on public procurement. We urge that this be approached as social procurement that addresses abusive subcontracting practices and enforces strict regulations to prevent worker exploitation. ➕Develop a comprehensive asbestos strategy. We expect the European Commission to come forward with a proposal on the screening, registration and monitoring of #asbestos. We would have expected firmer commitment: ➖To #limitsubcontracting We look forward to a continued dialogue with Mr. Séjourné and the opportunity to contribute to policies that protect workers and promote equal treatment. 👉https://bit.ly/3OrFlUp

📢🇪🇺 We listened carefully to the commissioner-designate Roxana Minzatu's hearing in the European Parliament yesterday: ➕ We welcome the commitment to quality jobs, skills, and social fairness. We follow the priorities mentioned with the goal of ensuring a fair transition and protecting workers, with decent wages and fair working conditions, with strong social dialogue, collective bargaining, and recognition of skills. ➕Commitment to finalise the ongoing revision of Regulation 883 on the coordination of social security systems. ➕Openness to strengthen the European Labour Authority (ELA) mandate. ➕Make legislation on hazardous substances more efficient and quicker. We would have expected firmer commitment: ➖To limit subcontracting ➖To mandatory social conditionalities in public procurement ➖Against the EU talent pool The EFBWW is ready to engage in an open and constructive dialogue with the Commissioner-designate on all these topics and to discuss building blocks for a Quality Jobs agenda in the construction, wood, furniture, and related industries. 👉https://bit.ly/48OVXP9