 Good afternoon and welcome. My name is Alex White. I'm Director-General here at the Institute of International European Affairs. I'm delighted that you could join us for this afternoon webinar from the changing global geoeconomic conditions to the enormity of tackling the climate crisis, Europe is facing enormous challenges. Since their inception during the Industrial Revolution, trade unions have sought to shape policy in times of tumult, always striving to ensure that the interests of workers are secured. We are delighted to welcome this afternoon to the IAEA from Brussels, but nevertheless, welcome more than welcome to the IAEA. Esther Lynch, who is General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation, to discuss her views on how European green industrial policy can shape Europe's success, to discuss the state of play on EU social dialogue, and also how reaching the EU target of 80 percent of workers covered by a collective agreement can lead to successful outcomes for all. As I said it's a webinar, Esther is going to speak to us for about 20 minutes or so, give or take, and then we'll be able to have a Q&A with you, people watching and listening to us this afternoon. You can join that discussion using that Q&A function on Zoom, which everybody knows about at this stage, and you can send in your questions, we always encourage people to do that. If a question occurs to you in the course of Esther's talk, send it in immediately, you don't have to wait until she's finished, and then we'll come to those questions once the, we'll say the initial presentation has finished. As I said Esther Lynch is General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation. Previously she was Deputy General Secretary of ETUC from 2019 to 2022, following four years as Confederal Secretary. She led then on social dialogue, collective bargaining, wage policy, trade union rights and gender equality. Ms. Lynch has extensive trade union experience as we all know at Irish, European and international levels, starting out with her election as a shop steward in the 1980s. And before coming to the ETUC, she was the Legislation and Social Affairs Officer with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, which is I think when I first got to know Esther and during that period, I know that she took part in negotiations on the National Social Partner Agreements. So Esther, you're really welcome this afternoon. And I go to hand the floor to you and look forward to hearing what you have to say. Alex, good afternoon. And I can't tell you how sorry I am that Storm Kearon kept me here in Brussels and don't let that quiet looking behind me convoy you. It's full blown bad storm here too. So I hope everybody's safe and we keep ourselves safer as well by doing it online. But I still hope that it can be warm and informative in the discussion as well. So look forward to the questions and look forward to hearing from people too. One of my favourite moments from one way favourite EU moments was when back in 2004, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions led the welcoming of the 10 new member states, the workers from those member states to join the EU. And we did that in Taylor's Hall and it was a hugely special moment both for the workers and for their trade unions to join with the ETUC all together and to say we're all part of this together and we're not going to be put against each other. That divide and conquer isn't the way forward for working people in Europe. And that really is, if you were to ask me what's the purpose of the ETUC, that really is the purpose of the ETUC to bring together workers in their trade unions so that all of us succeed, not that one group of workers succeed over another but so that we can all work together to succeed. And I think one of the important lessons from the history of that was there were three member states that immediately opened up their labour markets, the UK, Ireland and Sweden. And what Ireland and Sweden had that the UK didn't have was sectoral collective agreements. They had binding agreements for example, construction and electrical contracting in Ireland were called at that time the REAs. And those collective agreements ensured that workers were free and welcome to come to Ireland but that they would be paid the same as every other worker in this sector. The same was the case in Sweden. They then suffered a bit of damage in relation to the Levalen Viking but still they managed to keep their collective agreements. On the other hand, the UK didn't have those sector agreements. And I think that that fed into the concern that workers in the UK had. And I think if you look at the contributing factors as to why working people lost confidence in the EU it was because there wasn't sufficient protection in place for collective agreements to make sure that there wasn't competition, dangerous, ruinous competition on paying conditions of work that can be prevented by having sectoral agreements. And that's why in the new directive on minimum wages and collective bargaining to have fair wages throughout the European Union to have wages coming up throughout the European Union there is this emphasis on having 80% of workers covered by a collective agreement and there's a strong push from all of the research coming from Eurofound in Ireland is that the way in which you get that level of coverage by a collective agreement is to have a strong infrastructure supporting sector agreements. And I know that the Irish Congress of Trade Unions is working closely with Ibeck to make sure that there is in place in Ireland a robust support for collective bargaining whether it's access to the workplace to meet with the workers, to tell them here's how collective bargaining works and here's how the union works but also to make sure that there is sector level appropriate systems in place for that too. The ETUC is 50 years old this year as well and what was really great at our Congress that we held in Berlin was we welcomed into membership the unions from Ukraine and Moldova. And it was important that we do that because the discussions are now already beginning on enlargement as well. So where we see having our brothers and sisters in the trade unions of workers in Ukraine being part of all of our discussions all of the plans that we have in particular for the coming period. The elections, the European elections will be taking place soon. The ETUC has adopted 13 commitments that we're asking for working people to make sure to vote for those candidates that support working with trade unions that support our values and that will support the 13 commitments. And one of those is I'd like to focus on in this short presentation. And that's on the green transition, the just transition and to have that supported by a European green industrial policy. Now, this is a time of both opportunity and challenge exactly as Alex said, we have these big challenges facing us and also we have a commitment to decarbonise but we can't let the commitment to decarbonise end up in industrialisation. Instead, what we need to have is a smart plan of investments to guarantee that we can still make things that would still, Europe is still a great place to come and do business and Europe is a great place to work as well. So that's why we are calling for a green, a European green industrial policy. The first and most important part of that policy has to be to focus on people. What we see in the discussion on competitiveness is all too often that it's about cost competitiveness and not enough attention is put onto the environment into which we want people to come and work. Whether it's the cost of housing, whether it's childcare, whether it's schools, whether it's transport, whether it's the public services that are available that people need to rely on, that enterprise needs to rely on, that all of that has to be part of the consideration of competitiveness, that ignoring all of that and only looking at cost competitiveness of a sector or of a particular enterprise is to fail in the task that we're presented with at European level. Rather, what we need to have is to put people that people are not widgets, they live lives and competitiveness needs to make sure that all of those things are also part of the consideration. And quality jobs are part of the success of a European industrial policy as well. Our research shows that those sectors that have labor shortages pay 9% less than the sectors where there are not labor shortages. So pay is part of the story. It's not just a lack of skills, for example, in hospitality or in hotels, but often that his following COVID, workers decided they weren't going back to that sector, that the hours were too long, the pressure was too much, the pay was too little. What was asked of them was just too much. And instead of what the approach needs to be to turn to see those jobs as jobs that can be turned into great jobs, good jobs, jobs on which you can bring up a family, jobs in which you can have a secure future. And again, sector collective agreements are critically important to that. If you speak to anybody, any of the CEOs from the renewable energy sector, they will tell you that they are struggling to find people with the skills. So there is also a skills gap in some sectors. We need to find one million extra people for the solar sector alone, whether it's to fix it, maintain it or run the grid. We need to have at least one million people found there. But the gap between workers wanted to take up this as a job and getting the training is too big. That's why it's critically important to have the right to training as part of the green industrial policy, as part of a just transition, the right to training is critically important. The research shows that 61% of workers in Europe have no control whatsoever over their working time. So even if there is a course on, they can't get the time off to go there. We also know that workers who most need the training don't get access to it. So we just need to now, in the next four years, have as a key priority to secure the right to training as a key component of the just transition. We had a year of skills, it was great. It had a wonderful target. What the missing piece was, was workers being able to get access to the training, to get pay time off for the training and to know what training they needed to succeed in their career in the future. That's why one of our key demands for the next four years is an EU directive for a just transition. That directive will have certain core components. We are saying that we need to have information for the anticipation of change, whether it's for the company or for your career. That it will have the right to training, to pay time off for the training. That redundancy will not be the first option, that instead redeployment or skills change will be provided as realistic options guaranteed to workers. What many people don't know, but I'm sure everybody here does, is that in the EU treaty, it provides that the social partners, the employers and the trade unions, can come together and negotiate an agreement that can be adopted in the form of a directive. The ETUC believes that that formula is the ideal way to provide for a directive on a just transition. We're being very clear informally about that and we're being very clear formally about that. We would say that the best way to negotiate and to the best way to devise the right policies, the best way to identify the implementation of those policies is by negotiating them directly with employers and to have it adopted as a form in the form of a directive. We're very much though waiting for our employer counterparts to agree to come forward and discuss that with us. But let me make no mistake, it takes two to tangle, but if the employers are not available for that discussion, we're already asking the political system to put in place a commitment that either through the employer agreement being adopted as a directive, or if the employers are not available for that discussion, that through the commission coming forward with the directive, it being discussed by the parliament, the council, and through the ordinary procedure one way or another in the very near future, workers will be able to rely on a right to training, to secure the just transition for them. Then finally, we won't be able to afford a just transition. If member states are constrained on being able to make the investments available. And we're very concerned that there's a discussion happening at EU level this very week and next week on the new economic governance rules. And if those new rules mean that member states will not be able to make the investments next year, the year after and the coming years for a just transition, well, that kind of makes all the discussion and policy pointless. And that's why we've been very clear that in the new economic governance rules, those investments must be treated differently than costs. The member states must be able to make investments for the just transition and to meet all of the climate targets. That's an absolute essential element. But we want the investments to do more than just that. We want social conditionalities attached to those investments. And we can look for great inspiration to the Inflation Reduction Act put forward under the Biden administration. The Inflation Reduction Act allows for tax credits and investments for companies to make the green transition. But it requires a collective agreement. It requires taking on apprentices. It requires investment in training of the workforce. And we need to do the same. We need to make sure that our money is working as hard to secure, not just that the company can succeed into the future, but also that the workforce and the community that it's based in can succeed into the future too. That's a better way of spending the money. So, yes, we are fully supporting the demand for investment spots. We're saying that they need to come with social conditionalities, employment of apprentices, investment in training in the workforce and coverage by a collective agreement. And that rule can also be made to apply to all of public procurement. It can't be the case that public procurement goes to the lowest costs based on lower wages or worse terms and conditions. It must be the case that public procurement works hard to achieve the social outcomes that member states and that the EU has set. For example, the European Pillar of Social Rights. The achievement of the rights in the European Pillar of Social Rights should also be a condition for public procurement. And those companies that have a collective agreement that invest in the workforce, they should be privileged when come, time to decision about who gets the contract over those companies that don't have a collective agreement and that don't support the workforce to improve their terms and conditions. Then finally, just to say a little bit about EU social dialogue. We welcomed when President von der Leyen in her State of the Union address announced next year under the Belgian presidency that there would be a Val du Ches summit. And the last Val du Ches was the summit that brought forward the change in the EU treaty that guaranteed the role for trade unions and employers to have their agreements adopted at European level in the form of a directive. It would be really helpful if at this Val du Ches summit we were in a position to set out a vision for the coming four years of how we make sure that trade unions and employers are also included at national level when it comes to things like the European semester. We hear all too often that instead of engagement and consultation, at best some unions are brought in for what is essentially a tick box, check box exercise. So what we would like to see in that discussion is a way in which unions when they haven't been involved in the discussion about implementation of EU policies at the national level that they have a similar way to raise concern about that and to have a guarantee of being involved in national implementation in the same way as they have a guarantee of being involved at EU level through the ETUC in those discussions. They need to have a similar guarantee at national level of being involved in the discussions. And for that discussion to be meaningful for them in doesn't mean that everybody's always agreed with but it does need to be a meaningful engagement where the union has an opportunity to not only be heard but also for their concerns to be taken on board. So very much looking forward to the debate and the discussions. We, as I said, we have 13 commitments but I don't want to go through all 13 of them but I do think there is a valuable role for Ireland to play in promoting enough fiscal space for the investments for a green transition to fully support sector agreements because we know how well they've worked for us in protecting terms and conditions of employment and then finally to make sure that all of our money works harder for all of us by having those social conditionalities attached to the investments. Exactly, exactly like they're doing now in the US. Thank you, Alex.