EU Council endorses Commission’s decent work agenda

On 1 December 2006, the European Council endorsed the European Commission’s proposals to strengthen EU policies, actions and programmes aimed at promoting ‘decent work’ both within and outside of the European Union. It is thought that the spread of and compliance with certain standards of decent work will not only foster the main principles of the European social model, but will also help EU Member States to confront the challenges of global competition.

Promoting decent work

‘Decent work’ is a term which was originally coined by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in a report published in June 1999. For the ILO, decent work lies at the ‘heart of social progress’ and has thus become one of its major strategic policy concepts (see ILO declaration on decent work). The European Commission has always taken the view that the ILO’s decent work agenda shares a number of common grounds with the European social model and the European Social Policy Agenda.

The decent work agenda is based on an integrated and gender-mainstreamed approach consisting of the following four pillars:

• productive and freely chosen work;

• rights at work;

• [](/search/node/areas OR industrialrelations OR dictionary OR definitions OR ?oldIndex)social protection;

• [](/search/node/areas OR industrialrelations OR dictionary OR definitions OR ?oldIndex)social dialogue.

It encompasses the core labour standards (3.5Mb PDF) which form the minimum basis of social rights established by the international community. However, the decent work agenda covers more than just this: it seeks not only to guarantee a minimum basis of rights, but also to combine the general idea of ‘social justice’ with economic competitiveness.

Convergence between ILO and EU agenda

Combining economic competitiveness and social justice in such a way also lies at the heart of the European model of integrated economic and social development, as laid down in the Lisbon Strategy. The convergence between the ILO and the EU agenda has increased in the context of globalisation and the need to counter its negative effects by strengthening the social dimension.  In 2002, the ILO established the ‘World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalisation’, which subsequently delivered its report entitled A fair globalisation: Creating opportunities for all in February 2004. The commission proposed that decent work for all should become a global goal of all international, regional, national and local actors in both the public and private spheres.

EU endeavours

Since early 2000, the EU published several documents promoting the concept of decent work. In 2004, a Communication (208Kb PDF) by the Commission on the ‘social dimension of globalisation’ was followed by a Council Conclusion (52Kb PDF) on the same issue, along with a [Resolution of the European Parliament](http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT TA P6-TA-2005-0427 0 DOC XML V0//EN&language=EN) on the social dimension of globalisation in 2005. In May 2006, a further Commission Communication (44Kb PDF) was published, this time explicitly on the topic of ‘promoting decent work for all - the EU contribution to the implementation of the decent work agenda in the world’. Finally, in December 2006, the Council of the European Union agreed on its Conclusions on decent work for all (165Kb PDF), which summarises the EU’s position on the issue.

For the EU, decent work policies have the following two main objectives:

• to strengthen the competitiveness of the EU in a socially sustainable way;

• to help to develop an integrated and coherent approach to trade policy and social development, linking decent work labour standards to EU trade policies.

Commentary

Implementing decent work policies aims to ensure that economic growth is based on fairness and basic labour standards throughout the world. In the long term, this could have a positive secondary effect on the competitiveness of EU countries in global markets, as it may improve the relative competitive position of EU Member States in relation to countries which, until now, do not or only insufficiently apply decent work standards.

Rainer Trinczek, Technical University Munich