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Main results of the Employment and Social Policy Council on 6 December 2021

Dec 6, 2021

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Employment and social affairs (Monday 6 December)

The Council reached a general approach both on a draft EU law on minimum wages and on a proposed directive on pay transparency. It also adopted conclusions on sustainable work over the life course and on the impact of AI on gender equality in the labour market.

 

Minimum wages

The Council today agreed its position on a Commission proposal for an EU law on adequate minimum wages in the EU. In order to improve people’s working and living conditions, this draft law establishes a framework to promote adequate levels of statutory minimum wages, to promote collective bargaining on wage setting and to improve the effective access to minimum wage protection of those workers who are entitled to a minimum wage.

Because countries with a high collective bargaining coverage tend to have a smaller share of low-wage workers and higher minimum wages than those with low collective bargaining coverage ministers agreed that countries should promote strengthening the capacity of social partners to engage in collective bargaining.

This so-called general approach reached today provides the Council presidency with a mandate for negotiations with the European Parliament (who agreed on its position in late November).

Work should pay. We cannot accept that people who put all their energy in their job, still live in poverty and cannot afford a decent standard of living. This law will be a great step forward towards this goal. – Janez Cigler Kralj, Slovenian minister of labour, family, social affairs and equal opportunities

 

Pay transparency

The Council also agreed its position on a draft law on pay transparency which will help to close the gender pay gap. The proposed law aims to empower workers to enforce their right to equal pay for equal work or work of equal value between men and women through a set of binding measures on pay transparency. Measures to improve pay transparency include:

  • employers need to indicate the initial pay level or range to be paid to the future worker
  • employers have to make accessible for their employees which – objective and gender-neutral – criteria are used to define their pay and career progression
  • workers and their representatives have the right to receive information on their individual pay level and the average pay levels for workers doing the same work or work of equal value, broken down by sex

Once the European Parliament (EP) has adopted its final position, the Council and the EP will negotiate a common text.

There is simply no justification that women still earn much less than their male peers. With the agreement reached today in Council, the EU is taking a big step towards tackling pay discrimination and closing the gender pay gap.

Janez Cigler Kralj, Slovenian minister of labour, family, social affairs and equal opportunities

 

Sustainable work over the life course

Europe’s working-age population is shrinking and this generates risks of labour shortages and challenges to our social protection systems. Therefore our work needs to become more sustainable, through living and working conditions that allow people to engage and remain in work throughout an extended working life. This can be achieved by investing in quality jobs, fair working conditions, occupational health and safety, and up-skilling and re-skilling. Ministers approved conclusions on sustainable work over the life course. They call on member states – among other things – to take into account the new EU Strategic Framework on Health and Safety at Work 2021-2027 and to strengthen policies to supporting people to enter and re-enter the labour market quickly.

We need action to counter the trend that with people getting older we will end up with shortages in the labour market. That is why we need to strive to make work more sustainable. This would help keeping people on the labour market, increase our economic performance and boost social inclusion.

Janez Cigler Kralj, Slovenian minister of labour, family, social affairs and equal opportunities

Investing in occupational safety and health also has an economic benefit as work-related injuries and diseases cost society the equivalent of more than 3.3 % of GDP.

 

The impact of AI on gender equality in the labour market

Artificial intelligence (AI) can have a different impact on women as compared to men. Artificial intelligence can for instance lead to gender biases in recruitment and to the perpetuation of stereotypes. That is why adopting a gender perspective regarding its consequences for the labour market is important. In its conclusions on the impact of AI on gender equality in the labour market, the Council is calling upon member states to (among other things):

  • take concrete steps to improve awareness of gender equality issues in AI research and in all sectors where AI is designed, developed and used
  • to ensure that when AI is used for the management of human resources, it promotes transparency and gender equality, particularly in the areas of pay, training, access to promotion, and career progression
  • to ensure algorithmic transparency and to address the problem of historically biased input data in the use of AI

 

Equal treatment, European Semester and Towards Europe of Equality

The presidency presented a progress report to the Council on a draft directive on equal treatment, a proposal from 2008 to extend the protection against discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation to areas outside employment.

Ministers also held a policy debate about the European Semester 2022, after which the Commission presented a number of surveys, reports and recommendations related to the yearly European Semester exercise, in particular the 2022 annual sustainable growth survey alert mechanism report, the draft joint employment report and the draft recommendations on the economic policy of the euro area.

Ministers also endorsed the key messages of the review by the Employment Committee under the Youth Guarantee. The Youth Guarantee is a commitment of all EU member states to guarantee that all young people under the age of 30 receive a good quality offer of employment, continued education, apprenticeship or traineeship.

The chair of the Social Protection Committee finally updated ministers on the national plans under the Council recommendation on access to social protection for workers and the self-employed. The Employment Committee and Social Protection Committee are preparatory bodies for the employment and social policy Council.

 

Other business

The Council adopted an implementing regulation implementing Regulation (EU) No 208/2014 concerning restrictive measures directed against certain persons, entities and bodies in view of the situation in Ukraine, thereby delisting one individual.

The presidency also provided information on the state of play of a number of legislative proposals: a regulation on the coordination of social security systems, a directive on carcinogens and mutagens at work and a directive on gender balance on company boards.

The European Commission also informed delegations on its ALMA initiative, a cross-border youth mobility scheme for disadvantaged young people aged 18-30 who are not in employment, education or training, and gave an update on the High Level Group on the future of social protection and the welfare state.

Additional “other business” points included information from the Slovene delegation on its presidency conferences as well as information from the French delegation on the work programme of the incoming presidency.

Meeting information
  • Meeting n°3834
  • Brussels
  • 6 December 2021
  • 09:30
Preparatory documents
Outcome documents
Press releases

Source – EU Council

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