On 10 July, industriAll Europe participated in the European Commission’s Dedicated hearing with social partners on the new European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan, as part of the ETUC delegation. IndustriAll Europe highlighted the restructuring crisis plaguing the EU’s industrial sectors and called for a comprehensive Just Transition Framework Directive
The new Action Plan is a follow-up to the one adopted in 2021 at the Porto Social Summit. IndustriAll Europe welcomes its main achievements, most notably the directives on the Adequate Minimum Wages and Platform Work. These positive instruments can contribute to improving workers’ pay and working conditions, especially if the 80% collective bargaining coverage target of the first Action Plan is achieved. However, the outcomes depend on their implementation which requires an ongoing commitment from the European Commission.
Regarding the three Porto Action Plan headline targets, the only one almost reached is the employment target (76.1% of people in employment in 2025 compared to the 78% target for 2030). This positive outcome would have been impossible without employment support measures, like SURE, which helped maintain workers in employment during the Covid crisis.
At the hearing, industriAll Europe called for a SURE 2.0 to support industrial workers facing the current restructuring crisis in industry. 4.3 million workers are at risk according to Eurostat figures, justifying the urgency for SURE 2.0.
The EU is lagging in the two other headline targets on skills (39.5% of Europeans participated annually in training in 2022, far from the 60% 2030 target) and on poverty reduction (the number of people at risk of poverty has only been reduced by 1.6 million compared to the 15 million target).
IndustriAll Europe has long been calling for concrete initiatives to ensure on-the-job training for workers in order to reach the skills target. We are yet to see a right to training which is cost-free for workers and takes place during working hours.
The reality of training in companies in Europe is very diverse and often follows well-known inequality patterns, meaning that it mostly takes place in big companies, in Western Europe and for white-collar workers. Even worse, much of the training that is being done, is the compulsory health and safety module, not competence development in view of the twin transition. IndustriAll Europe called for strong social conditionality on all public funds, which should include obligations on training and upskilling for workers.
In its main message to the European Commission, industriAll Europe explained that the EU lost almost one million jobs in the manufacturing sector, between 2019 and 2023. This sector is today one of the hardest hit, with the number of jobs lost due to corporate restructuring tripling in the first five months of 2025 compared to the same period in 2022. 25% of European industrial companies are expected to undergo major restructuring in the coming months. Every day in Europe, around 500 skilled workers in the manufacturing sector lose their livelihoods with no prospect of alternative employment.
IndustriAll Europe is very concerned about the European Commission’s approach to introduce simplification as the “silver bullet” to all problems. We are not against simplification of duplication or ‘overregulation’, but so far the European Commission seems to be disproportionately targeting labour and sustainability legislation. The new EPSR Action Plan must strengthen the enforcement of existing labour regulation and introduce new labour rights when necessary, like to ensure a Just Transition. Simplification cannot be part of the Action Plan.
IndustriAll Europe called for a Just Transition Framework Directive (JTFD) to be included in the Action Plan. Industrial workers are very anxious about their future, as further to the challenges of the green and digital transformation, they now also face a restructuring crisis threatening their livelihoods. A JTFD would ensure their involvement in effective anticipation and management of change in view of employability and skills. It would strengthen collective bargaining, information and consultation rights and establish a right to training to ensure job-to-job transition. The transition is happening on the ground in companies. It must go hand in hand with quality jobs to avoid a social backlash, as workers’ discontent is increasingly visible. The EU must urgently act with a legal instrument.