Why Sociall
Mission
The ETUC SociAll aims at enhancing effective and adequate social protection for all through the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR) in all member states and at EU level.
This is a crucial mission, given the current demographic context, the digital and the environmental transitions and a series of crises that in the last decade have put high pressure on national social protection systems over the past few years: reduced labour market inclusiveness; more fragmented careers and poor quality jobs; various crises affecting the cost of living, the room for social spending, the economic downturns of the post-Covid. Various problems and gaps emerged, mainly in the adequacy and coverage of social protection systems.
In line with the EPSR, ETUC SociAll proposes an integrated and coherent approach to guarantee all EU citizens and residents effective and adequate social protection rights in all possible dimensions, rooted in the substantial fulfilment of the rights to equal opportunities, quality jobs and fair working conditions.
The ETUC SociAll project was first launched in 2019, with the objective to enhance the narrative of Dignity of Ageing as opposed to the one that refers to the expenditure for pensions, health care and long-term care as mere “costs”. This approach is based on a view of population ageing not as a negative aspect, but as a positive result of the widespread well-being that social Europe has been able to ensure over the decades. In such a fragile period of life as old age, workers’ and people’s rights must be guaranteed and their needs met.
The original aim was to identify and contrast inconsistencies and imbalances between a restrictive approach to pension policy – promoted by the rules of the European economic governance framework – and the needs of an increasingly ageing population for effective and adequate pensions. From the beginning, SociAll aims at empowering Trade Unions to actively participate – both at the national and EU level – in the implementation of the Recommendation on access to social protection for workers and self-employed, focusing on the field of pensions, establishing pension systems that are highly inclusive, fair, solidarity-based, adequate, effective and sustainable.
However, since then, ETUC SociAll has evolved and developed in different relevant directions of welfare policies.
In line with the EPSR, ETUC SociAll proposes an integrated and coherent approach to guarantee all EU citizens and residents effective and adequate social protection rights in all possible dimensions, rooted in the substantial fulfilment of the rights to equal opportunities, quality jobs and fair working conditions.
ETUC SociAll also touches upon several policy areas and right-based dimensions of social protection and contributes to widening and deepening the EU level debate on welfare policies across the EU, especially in the framework of the European Economic Governance rules.
The implementation of the Recommendation supporting all workers who are not sufficiently protected due to their type of contract or labour market status is only possible if social protection policies are enhanced as priorities in the framework of the rules. The EPSR highlights the challenge of rebalancing the social and the economic priorities in the this complex framework.
ETUC SociAll conveys the trade union contribution to the effective implementation of the EPSR and the Action Plan for its implementation on welfare, via a series of evidence-based and experience-checked inputs for European and national policy makers.
Recently, the ETUC also endorsed the High-level Group Report on the Future of Social Protection and of the Welfare State in the EU. The report provides a set of evidence-based Recommendations concerning a series of comprehensive public policy interventions that allow both the fair social and the fiscal sustainability of enhanced welfare systems.
Actions
- Enhancing EU level effective and adequate social protection policies for all
- Conveying Trade Unions’ inputs to the rights- and needs-based modernisation of welfare systems, starting with pension, health and long-term care systems
- Anchoring the EU level debate in national realities
- Measuring and evaluating EU level policies on the national level from a Trade Union point of view
- Reinforcing the narrative of Dignity of Ageing based on a comprehensive approach to welfare rights
- Collecting Trade Unions’ assessments on the implementation of the Council Recommendation on Access to social protection for workers and the self-employed
- Providing high-level inputs to the economic and fiscal governance demands for reforms enhancing Dignity of Ageing in social protection
ETUC Policy Documents
- ETUC for sustainable job creation and social progress 2023
- ETUC Position in reply to the public consultation on Green Paper on Ageing 2021
- ETUC Resolution on Implementing the EPSR: Ageing with Dignity 2021
- ETUC Resolution adopted: European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan, the Future of Social Protection 2022
- ETUC Position on the Assessment of the Action Plan implementing the EPSR + Roadmap to the EU Social Summit in Porto 2021
- ETUC Priorities for the Action Plan implementing the European Pillar of Social Rights 2021
- ETUC Position: An EU Economic and Social Governance for a prompt, strong and sustained recovery 2020
- ETUC on European Economic Governance
- A Trade Union input for an Action Plan to Implement the European Pillar of Social Rights 2019
