IndustriAll European Trade Union has written to Commissioner Thierry Breton, in charge of the European industrial strategy, to insist that the proposed industrial recovery plan must have the industrial workforce at its centre.
IndustriAll Europe believes that the following measures are vital to avoid the loss of industrial capabilities in Europe:
- Keeping viable companies afloat in return for those companies refraining from mass redundancies and re-investing capital normally used to pay dividends and bonuses
- Support companies in maintaining/developing their human capital while preserving the income and job security of workers e.g. through short-time work arrangements and skills upgrading
- Design coordinated and ambitious recovery strategies that restore the capacity of industrial sectors to generate added value, to invest in a sustainable future and to maintain/create quality jobs
- Recovery strategies should channel investment in-line with our shared political priorities: critical industrial and social infrastructure, addressing the twin transition to a digitalised and low-carbon economy, and reducing regional disparities.
- Map the impact of Covid-19 for all industrial sectors to analyse the depth of the crisis for each individual sector, to monitor and address supply chain disruptions, to identify the policies needed in support of their recovery, to assess the impact on their capacity to respect regulatory obligations
- Strengthen Europe’s strategic autonomy by (re)building strategic value chains inside the EU, through industrial alliances, by reintegrating supply chains inside the EU, by increasing self-sufficiency (e.g. by developing a circular economy), through domestic production of strategic equipment
- Accelerate the introduction of new instruments like a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism or the Instrument on Foreign Subsidies
- Use the new screening mechanism on foreign direct investments to prevent hostile take-overs of European companies
- Tax justice must underpin the financing of these recovery packages
- Support industrial recovery by the European budget, the Cohesion Funds, EUInvest and a new substantial industrial recovery fund
The full letter to Commissioner Breton can be accessed here
Contact: Andrea Husen-Bradley, press and communication