Social partners to discuss EU-wide training rights

Date: 15/06/2000

By John Shelley

EUROPEAN trade unions and employers' federations have agreed to talks on promoting lifelong learning, opening the door to a possible agreement on basic training rights for workers across the EU.

The move was due to be unveiled in a joint statement from the Union's social partners at a high-level forum on employment today (June 15).

The trade unions hope that the talks could pave the way for agreement on a common set of Europe-wide standards to govern workers' vocational training rights, even though there is no provision in the EU treaty for legislation in this area.

The initiative comes a month after the social partners announced plans to start negotiations on Union-wide rules for temporary workers. However, officials stress that there is a big difference between these formal talks and the informal discussions now being planned on vocational training.

The agency-worker talks were launched in response to a request from the European Commission, and any deal reached by the social partners could be made legally binding under the terms of the 1997 Amsterdam Treaty. However, Union legislation on training rights is not allowed under Amsterdam and so any agreement struck in the forthcoming negotiations could not be put onto the EU's statute book without a change to the treaty.

"The social partners can choose to negotiate on any subject which they consider important," said one official. "The Commission does welcome this, but any agreement would stand only as an agreement between them."

The EU executive will play no official part in the discussions and, unlike the talks on temporary workers, has no power to impose a solution if the social partners fail to reach agreement on common rules.

Those involved in the initiative concede that the inability to force the parties to strike a deal means that any agreement which may be reached is likely to be relatively weak. But the ETUC remains hopeful that the talks could result in the social partners finding common ground on, for example, rules to ensure that all workers - including women and those with 'irregular' contracts - get the same access to training.

"We have wanted to do more on training for a long time, especially in the area of promoting access," said an ETUC negotiator.

Today's high-level forum on employment was due to bring together leaders of Europe's employers and trade unions, European Central Bank President Wim Duisenberg, Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Guterres and others to discuss key economic policy issues.

However, in-depth discussions on the training issue between the social dialogue partners - the employers' organisation UNICE, the European Trades Union Confederation (ETUC), public-sector firms representatives CEEP, and the small and medium-business group UEAPME - are not expected to start until after the summer.

European trade unions and employers' federations have agreed to talks on promoting lifelong learning, opening the door to a possible agreement on basic training rights for workers across the EU.