 Welcome everybody to this fifth session of the green post-corona talks organized by the Green European Foundation and their co-leaders, co-presidents of the foundation and director of Orcos, the Green Flemish Think Tank and your host. In this fifth session we will discuss the future and also the situation of work in the current crisis. As everybody knows, the first day of this month was the International Labor Day which brought into the public debate already important questions on the future of work. I think that the corona crisis already made three points clear. First, we know what the essential jobs are that keep our society running. Nurses, people working in child care, elderly care, cleaners, etc. And this raises the question why these jobs that contribute to most to our well-being outpaced pay the least. So we really need to debate on what are the essential jobs and how do we evaluate them? How do we care for care workers you could say? The second point is about the unpaid emotional and domestic labor. It are mostly women taking on responsibility for children at home as schools and nurses are closed or they take care if someone of the family falls ill. The third point and we all discovered it, actually we are doing it right now, is that daily working at home is a real option and we don't always have to travel a thousand kilometers to end an international congress. So what are the consequences of daily working and in a broader sense digitization of many fields in society? The overall question is how a different perspective on work, unpaid labor, paid labor, could enable our societies to transition to a different, better post-corona economy and working world. In order to discuss this wide range of issues we have two great speakers today. The first is Elena Milos, project coordinator at Uni Europe, the European Services Workers Union and also the second speaker is Kim van Sparrenthijk, she's a member of the European Parliament for the Greens, the AFRA Group. For the people following this webinar you can put your questions in the chat, you can also use Twitter if you want and use the hashtag Green European Foundation, then I see your questions in my chat box and in the second part of this talk then I will address these questions to the two speakers. First now we give the floor to Elena and so Elena, could you give us a view on the situation on the workers' rights amidst the crisis including the gender perspective and also the role of trade unions and I think also it would be crucial to link the labor and care issues as they arise at the moment to the ecological crisis. So Elena I'm happy to give you the floor. Thank you, thank you Dirk and first of all I would like to thank Jeff for inviting me to this conversation. I'm very pleased to be here and quite frankly I'm also quite excited to be having this conversation with you. So as said I'm a project coordinator at Uni Europa and I work in the care sector so I'm going to be talking a bit more today about the care workers. Apart from being labor activists I'm also active in green groups and I was a member of the Institute for Political Ecology from Croatia. Today I would like to talk more on the trade union pandemic on the trade union perspective on the current pandemic. I would like to actually address four main points on the matter. So the first point that Dirk actually suggested is that we need to re-evaluate the notion of essential work and what it means for our society today. The second is that women bear the brunt of this crisis which means that we need to invest much more efforts and invest much more in gender equality policies. Third is that we see that unions actually play a crucial role not only in saving lives but not only in saving workplaces but actually in saving lives. So we also need to think and actually strengthen the role think about the role of trade unions actually strengthen their role. And the fourth point I would like to make is that care needs to be put at the center of our economies today while thinking about the post-coronavirus society. So first about the notion of essential work. So we've seen supermarket workers, cleaners, care workers take the front lines and fight this pandemic. We've seen a lot of public praise for these workers but they also still remain in low-paid precarious and undervalued jobs. We see care workers who are protecting the most vulnerable in our society while risking their lives and risking their lives while doing that. But at the same time they are working in nursing home or providing home care without personal protective equipment without testing. They are understated. They have unpaid overtime. So these are only some of the issues that the trade unions are working on today. So we need to think about actually who are the workers who keep our society running. And we need to tell ourselves that these workers actually deserve more and that means that they deserve recognition but also deserve better pay and better working conditions. So this is not only a trade union demand but I think that this should be at the center of our political demands today. So this is actually a point on the notion of essential work. The second point would be that this is very much a gender crisis. I mean it is obvious that most of the frontline workers today are women. Let me just say that women represent 70 percent of workers in care, in health, in cleaning. Women also represent the majority of precarious and informal workers. Women are facing numerous challenges in their workplace. From lack of health and safety equipment to lack of unpaid family leave, to lack of paid family leave, to the lack of actually paid sick leave. So unions can and are working with employers and governments to negotiate better working conditions, to negotiate wage increases, to negotiate sick leave, to negotiate family leave. And in addition to being frontline workers, we see that women are facing an overload in family responsibilities and we see an increase in domestic violence. This is not actually caused by the crisis. This is actually the mirror of how our society works today. So this is not a new development and this is actually a consequence of us not taking sufficient action to increase gender equality and to work on gender equality. And while we are talking about this fact, there is also a talk that the gender page transparency directive in the EU is going to be put on ice. So that means that we are postponing actually our work on gender equality while at this point in time we should be doubling it. So this is the point that I think is also crucial, that the crisis actually showed it did not put enough effort in increasing gender equality and that there is so much more work to do. And the third point is actually about the role of trade unions and the role of collective bargaining, which actually I think that we are not getting enough attention to this aspect. So I think that this healthcare crisis is also a workplace crisis. And this is why at the uni we are asking for COVID-19 to be recognized as occupational disease allowing for preventive measures and compensation. Trade unions have proven to be essential in this crisis. If the unions provided actually just to mention a few, just to mention a few examples, provides protective equipment for care workers in Ireland. We have been asking for every care worker in Austria, thanks to trade union, we have had paid for care workers in Slovenia. So these are only some of the examples why trade unions matter today. We see that the unionized workforce is doing better. And we see that actually the workers who are hit hardest are the unionized workers who are actually informal, who are working in informal and precarious employment. And this is what we need to reverse today, the flexibilization of the labor market. In that sense, we actually need to put a lot of effort in supporting unions. And in that sense, I think that strengthening collective bargaining is tool to protect the workers and tool to ensure their economic and social rights. But it's also a tool to push for green clauses in collective bargaining as well. So as an OECD study from last year states that collective bargaining has actually been put under pressure by the rise of precarious forms of employment and by the flexibilization of labor market relations. So the OECD studies suggest that we need to improve and that we need to revamp collective bargaining if we want to prevent the rising labor market inequalities. So as I'm trying to say that trade unions are actually are representing the voice of the workers in this crisis. And not only in this crisis, but every day, they need access to the workplace. And that's actually why we need to make it a political demand to strengthen collective bargaining on the EU level and strengthen collective bargaining bargaining in our member states. And we need to actually emphasize that companies need to be neutral and let union access and let union actually organize workers because they can do so much not only in this crisis, but actually in improving our lives every day. So the fourth point I would like to make is and my last point is that care needs to be put at the center of our economies. So we see that care workers are among the frontline workers. And I'm not just saying talking about doctors and nurses, but we also need to be talking about home care workers, about nursing homes, about the workers who work in nursing homes. We see that in this pandemic, nursing homes are hardest hit by the coronavirus crisis because more than half of deaths from coronavirus are actually occurring, actually occurred in nursing homes. And this is a result of bad conditions of understepping and of underinvestment in those sectors. What I think is clear today is that there is no going back to business as usual. And after this crisis, we are going to see a long term economic recession. And that means that we need to have a massive and sustainable investment plan. And that plan needs to be socially environmentally just. What that means when we go back to the notion of essential work is that actually we need to change our priorities. We need to prioritize social well-being and we need to take seriously the threat to our plan. So the crucial thing I think today is to make investment in health and care services one of our priorities. And these investments need to be linked to better working conditions and to environmental goals. As one of the study of ILO suggests is that by 2030 we will have up to one million care jobs missing worldwide. So that is a big problem and care jobs actually are green jobs and potential for millions of workers in the EU. And they can give us a better social caring and green future. So I think that we need to link the Green Deal with the Care Deal for Europe as you are saying in the Greens recovery plan. And I really like the sound of it. So for now I'm going to stop. Thank you. One question I would like to ask you mentioned including green demands. Would you give an example of this? In terms of the collective bargaining we can also talk about the green. Let's put it like that. The green collective bargaining and there are also some databases about what the trade unions are doing in that sense of course depending on the sectors you are working on. But that means putting clauses on the level of companies and sector that are linked to, for example, to green commuting. That are linked to, for example, if we are talking about the cleaning sector to using chemicals that are environmentally friendly. So a lot of things that means investing in workers to also use green means of transport. That means that can mean actually a wide span of things depending on the sector we are working in. But what I'm trying to say is that that can be used as a tool to push for the green clauses on the level of companies and on the level of sectors. Okay, thanks for the answer. We now move to Kim Van Sparrenthijk who is, as I said, member of the European Parliament for the Greens AFAC Group. Kim, your group published Recovery and Resilience Plan. Elena already mentioned. I think it's important you explain to us what the main lines in this plan are. And then second, as I really like to hear your opinion about the impact of the crisis on the youth. So Kim, I'm happy to give you the floor. Thank you very much. And very interesting the points you made just, Elena. Thank you for that too. So on the recovery plan that we have published a few weeks ago, I think you can could say that one of the main messages that we wanted to give is that we only can move forward and we can't go back. There's only a way to get out of this crisis if we make sure that we create a greener Europe and a more social Europe. And we can't go back to the status quo because this was already a climate crisis. We have to make sure that we really, if we make investments, then they have to be green. The Commission, of course, has already put it very clear in our pillars that the Green Deal is one of the main issues they want to work on. And there has been calls from, for example, Eastern European member states to perhaps not do that too much, to not burden companies with extra green requirements. Whereas we say, okay, this is actually the moment to move forward, to make these green investments, to create European green public works, and by that boosting the economy and creating green jobs. Next to that, we also see an opportunity for the digital investments. The digital economy has gotten an enormous boost from this COVID-19 crisis, just because we are now all working on it as we are right now. We're completely dependent on it. And there's a lot of interesting startups, for example, that are now creating more jobs also, which is also going to benefit our economy. And that's why we have to continue also on making sure that the regulations around the digital sphere will continue to make sure that we don't create new, big, massive companies that are hampering the freedom of the internet. And I think thirdly, when we're talking about how we see the future of Europe in our recovery plan is a more social Europe, and also with a strong focus on gender. The points that Jelena just made about care work, we are also hugely in favor of formalizing care work and see if we can do anything in that regard. For example, by giving care credits to people who take care of their children or family members or other close ones. Just to go a bit into the topic of the future of work related to this, I think to talk about the future of work, we also have to go back and look at the financial crisis from 10 years ago. First of all, what we saw is that austerity, of course, hits a lot of people that were working in the public sector. And these are now the people that are keeping our economy and our societies running. They are the people caring for their elderly and caring for the people that are sick. They are the people that make sure that our kids still get their education. And all these budget cuts that they have suffered, the non-appreciation and in general, the lack of payment that they got, that has to change, that has to shift. And this is something that we can't go back to and we can't repeat this mistake again. And the same goes for the way that we saw that big corporations went about with the growing unemployment, which is something that is projected, of course, that we see happening again. Many people will lose their jobs because of the economic crisis that will follow. And if we give these big corporations the opportunity again, then they might repeat what they have done. So what have they done? They created more precarious work situations. They created atypical job conditions. They forced people to become self-employed without any rights, but also without the financial benefits and the financial means to actually take care of themselves, to have the proper insurance or to save for a pension. And this is something that is already a huge problem. It was already a problem also before the COVID crisis that we saw people, for example, in the platform economy working with very little money and no social security, no paid sick leave. And now, during the crisis, this has even become more clear. It is even more clear that the people that are deemed essential because they are, for example, on their bicycles, the so-called riders, they have to continue working, but because they are self-employed, they have to make sure that they protect themselves all by themselves. And they often don't even have the financial opportunity to not work. So they don't even have a choice whether they put themselves at risk. And this is something that we have to make sure that we really continue working on this. There's a lot of talk also about the gender equality strategy, but also whether the platform works, some it will be postponed, because this is all a bit more difficult for employers. But actually, if we don't say right now, okay, this is where we draw the line, and we're not going to give you the opportunity to exploit workers even more during this crisis when people are in need of a job or in need for some income, then it's probably going to get even more out of hand. And this is where we take a strong stance and where we draw the line. Then when we're talking about things that we have to really change and look different at when we're talking about European legislation, I think one important thing is the occupational health and safety strategy that will come up. How are we going about that and will we also expand it a bit more to make sure that people who are working really feel safe and that we're not only talking about the safety of machinery, etc., what they're working with, but also, for example, if they get the proper protective care when they're working in healthcare centers. And the discussion of collective bargaining also related to platform work, to gig work, but also related to the new discussion that we're going to have on a minimum income on a European level. I think that a collective bargaining will be one of the main parts of that. And lastly, about youth employment, we've seen the devastating effects of the financial crisis on youth. I'm from the generation that graduated with no jobs to be found. And I studied with many people that actually had to move away from their country in Spain, in Greece that came to the Netherlands to study there, hoping to perhaps get a job there. We can't afford the current young generation that will graduate soon to be a lost generation again. For my generation, many big life decisions have been postponed and I won't allow it that it will happen to the next generation as well. And the kind of jobs that we saw created that were the only options for them, that were very precarious and atypical, those we can't have again. So we have to make sure that we strengthen the youth guarantee that we expand it. And that's, yeah, you know, we really show that we have learned our lessons from the previous crisis and that the youngest generation will not be affected as much this time. Okay, thanks for this first introduction. You mentioned the proposal of giving care credit, people working at home, I guess. Maybe you can explain this a bit more what these care credits, how this would work. Yeah, so it's an idea to actually give credits to people who take care of, for example, their parents or their kids. And it means that it will be sort of formalized in society and that you can still get a pension, build a pension, or get sick leave benefits from the government if something happens to you. It means that we show, basically we show that we appreciate care work as much as any other job, because it is. And we formalize it in such a way that you will still have social security, despite not having a regular job with a contract and an employer. Okay, thanks. And I guess, because the discussion is all over, you already have thought also about the idea of a kind of universal basic income. Would this be the moment to put it on the table? This is the moment to have discussions about it, more discussions about it, and also to see if we can do European experiments with it, and really have a strong European comparable research, which is so far not yet the case. But I think that we see that linking social security to jobs is not the way to go forward and the universal basic income can be a way to go beyond that. But yeah, we still, I think there's still not enough knowledge to really say, okay, this is the solution. Of course, there's also a lot of doubts and questions about it. But in general, I think this is the moment to do huge experiments with it. Okay, thanks. Jelena, from the perspective of the unions and looking at the things that European Commission have put on the table, you mentioned the Green Deal, you mentioned the thing about care. What would for you be the priority number one that you would expect the European Union and also the European Parliament to take initiative? What topic? The crisis, first of all, to ensure protection of the workers in this crisis. We are saying that we are already talking about the post-corona crisis of getting back to normal, but I don't think we are getting back to normal. I think that the workplace are still places where people can get infected. And that's why we need to push for a European response for protective equipment. I think that we need to make COVID-19 on a list of occupational disease in all EU countries. We are also working on the, as I said, pushing for the gender of patriots' parents. Because I don't think this is a question we can postpone anymore as we've seen the devastating impact of the crisis on women. So these are only, these are, I would say, only some of the demands. But I think that in the economic sense, as I said, the crucial demand for me is to invest more money in health and in care services to actually create green and care jobs to a reshared focus of our social and political priorities in that sense. So yeah, these are, I would say, some of the main demands. As I was mentioning, the strengthening of collective bargaining agreements is also, I think this should be taken seriously. And when I was saying about the role of trade unions, and we can also see that in companies, health and safety representatives can be valuable assets to employers and companies to actually protect the workers and protect our workplaces as well. Yeah, I just wanted to, if I can, mention something that you already did talk about, about the telework. You mentioned that topic, and I think, okay, it's a huge topic, so I will not go too much into it. But I would just say that one of the campaigns we are doing is also the right to disconnect. So although we are working in, these are not normal conditions we are working in, and we are working from our homes. And I think that there are a set of set of things that we can do to have the right to connect, such as arrange a schedule for working time, not to protect the workers, to basically to work all day without any rest, etc., etc. So these are some of the things that we must bear in mind. Okay, thanks. And the first questions are coming in from Facebook, and I would really invite people who put the question on Facebook, just right in which country, yearly, which city, it's always nice then to make explicit we're having a kind of European conversation here. And so the first question is, I think for Kim, it's concerning the new youth guarantee proposed by the Commission, what should be the number one industry form? I think it should be a stronger youth guarantee. I think it should, the amount of funding that we have and I think that is the main fight that we have to go for. And next to that we have to make sure, even more sure that we don't get any, how do I say this in a nice way, work opportunities for people that are basically just putting them in a job that doesn't benefit them or society. Oh, shit, jobs. That's what I wanted to say, but I was not sure if I was allowed to say this word. Well, normally Dutch people, they don't care much about the language they use. I was trying to be polite for a change. No, no. Okay, thanks. There's a second question, which I really find interesting is that on the one hand, it's really important that we now see what are the essential jobs and it's very logic that we focus on care workers. But somebody mentions that we have to be careful that we're trying to define what are the essential jobs we are at the same time making all the crucial sectors invisible, because then they are seen as non essential. And the example is here, everybody working in the culture sector, artists, performers. I think they're really also going through a big crisis, which is difficult to see the end of it. So Kimo, if you want to respond to this, I think that the reason also why we're actually talking about the essential workers today is to actually emphasize how much undervalued they are. And actually, I think that while we have a situation that these workers are taking the front line, they are the least paid. So this is actually a sign, a symptom that our labor market is broken and that what is also broken is the link between the so-called low skilled labor and the high skilled labor. So this is not working as we see that these workers are, the low paid workers are running our society. So that was my basic point. But I fully agree with what is being said about the workers in the culture. The culture is absolutely essential for social life, for the functioning of our society. And it's very disturbing to see some countries such as, for example, in Croatia, that the government is not taking seriously and not actually making enough investment now in culture and culture workers, actually leaving them to survive on their own. And there are not enough measures being made for that sector, which I think it absolutely needs to be made. But unfortunately, the reaction of many countries, that is why I think that we need to also be paying attention to the culture workers, that they are actually leaving culture workers to survive on their own. Okay, thanks. Tim, there's one question, which you could say it's more personal, but it's also relevant for our democracy. You're a member of the European Parliament. And so the question is, you're probably at home tailor working. How does this affect your work as an elected member of the parliament? Is the parliament still able to do his work, discussions, asking questions to the commissioners and so on? What's going on at parliament? Yes, myself, I'm in Rotterdam right now. I'm from home already for some months, which is a big change for someone who is usually traveling every week. And in general, the parliamentary work, it's still ongoing, but it's more difficult and you see that there's been prioritized a lot. So discussions where we perhaps put new topics on the table are not the discussions that are particularly happening, especially in the first weeks. The discussions were of course mainly on how are we going to get out of the COVID-19 crisis? How are we going to make sure that we have solidarity amongst the member states and how do we keep the internal market functioning to make sure everyone can get the protective gear that they need? And now we're at the point of talking about recovery again, and we also see that most of the other files are starting to run again. But of course, the informal discussions that you would normally have with your colleagues or with the other politicians are basically impossible now, which makes it a lot harder to find compromises sometimes and to go for a bit more controversial topics. So it is hampering democracy in that sense quite a bit and we're really hoping that soon we can get back to work. We have a plenary again this afternoon and tomorrow, and only the people that are in Brussels are able to give their input into the debates. It's not possible to do that remotely. And this is one of the things that is just very frustrating, because you don't want people to have to travel. And there's also some citizens and politicians that are not even allowed to travel yet because they're still a lockdown. So it's creating also inequality amongst MEPs, and that's something we shouldn't want. So the Belgians are taking over the parliament. And some Dutch, I saw already. Okay, thanks for this answer. I think it's indeed very crucial to see that also data working not only has an effect on everybody working from home, but also the institutions of our democracy, like the parliament. There's not a question which is more about the transition to a sustainable green employment. If for instance we are transitioning from building construction to improving the energy performance of existing buildings, from airlines to railways, what does it mean for the labour markets? So Kimo, please go. Who's going first? Sorry. Please do. Okay. Well, I think this is a huge question. So I don't know actually how to give a simple answer considering the especially the fact that I'm working in the services industry in this in that sense. So I think that when we are talking about the green transition, I think that it needs to be followed with basically with providing what we call a just transition. So a transition that will not actually endanger workplaces, but allow workers to enter a new greener job. So I was talking as a care sector, as one of the priorities that we should push, which I really think. But of course there are different types of solution. And I think that it also needs to be coupled with the investment in the training and retraining and upskilling of the workers so that they can take up this job. So actually the question with going from airports to going to the railway system is that I think that it's actually probably one of the key points today. But what we need to also take into consideration is for example, what does that mean for the security workers working in the airport companies? So these are some of the questions that we need to answer to how to actually enter that type of transition. Thanks. Kim, you want to add? Yes, if I may add to that. So I think that looking at the green deal and looking at the just transition fund, for example, that there's a lot of opportunities. One part of the green deal is the renovation wave. We need to renovate a lot of houses and buildings to make sure that we get closer to climate neutral Europe. This is creating a huge opportunity for people to actually create jobs and foster the economy again. And I think we see this in a lot of sectors that if we really have this transformation, it is not only good for the climate and the environment, but it's good for economy and society as a whole. And I think that is perhaps easily forgotten because of course of the general framing that green stuff is expensive and only good for the climate. And that is absolutely not the case. Another question for you, Kim here. Elena mentioned I mentioned actually the word I used the word the bullshit jobs. And the question is how can we avoid this kind of jobs? Can the European and social committee be better involved? And also Christian Elena, what's the view of the trade unions on this? That the more people that are involved to make sure that there's more pressure on the on the European Commission and specifically Mr. Schmidt to stop the existence of bullshit jobs is worthwhile. We really have to see if we can do several things on a European level. In my opinion, we should really have a look at whether it's possible to ban zero our contracts, for example, and we really have to have a look at the definition of a worker again. We lost that fight a few years ago, but we see that in California, they now have a definition for a worker. When are you a worker? When are you not? And if even in California, the place where the Ubers and the Liberus of our times are from, then I think on a European level, we should also be able to do that. So I think if we if we make it just more clear what the regulation should be, what the rights are for the workers and also to make it very clear that we're not listening to the interesting framing of, for example, an Uber that they are such a futuristic model that they don't fit in our current work system, because what they're actually doing is paying people per ride and not giving them any benefits, except for some sort of private system that they have founded, which is basically going back a few hundred years in terms of labor rights. Maybe that is something that we have to point out more often. Okay, thanks. Yelena, the perspective of the trade unions on this? I cannot agree more with the with actually what what Kim now just said. So we've seen that the the flexibilization of the labor market has actually is actually resulting today in an army of unprotected workers who have no access to to their rights and actually who are who are completely unprotected. So I think that the first we need to to reverse this trend, as Kim said, so zero zero our contracts should should basically be bad. We have an army of informal workers. We have like a lot of workers who do not have the same right as workers. So we have bogus employment. So these are all some these are all actually developments on the on the on the labor markets, which which actually brought the crisis. Many of these workers don't have actually the right of that to, for example, to to to have a to have a sick leave. So imagine what what what is that doing to them in this crisis? They have to choose between being between being between being paid or actually staying and securing their income or actually staying at home. So I think that we need to move in in that direction to actually enforce higher regulation of the of the labor market in member states and of EU. That means I think one of the central one of the central efforts today. And we've also seen as I as I mentioned that informal workers and precarious workers are often non unionized workers. Unions cannot often access these work work workplaces. So and actually, they are even more unprotected. So that is why I was saying that we actually need to make sure that unions are are able to to access workplaces that we are that we need to change the legislation as to recognize the rights of the to value the same rights and formal workers and as the rights of workers. Thanks for his answer. This reflects which you already told before that actually this crisis this crisis is a mirror of society that was already there before corona and now only the bad sides of the society are getting worse. We have an extra question for you Jelena. It's regarding the improvement of collective bargaining. Can you say more about obstacles that unions currently face in accessing workplaces and what concrete steps should be done? Well, I think that as I was saying, the whole collective bargaining system is under a lot of pressure and it's actually the number of collective agreements on the level of the company's sector is very much decreasing. What this actually creates is a specific problem at the workplace from as we've seen this crisis from the lack of personal protective equipment to securing better pay to securing the same working conditions to actually negotiate paid basically paid paper and to negotiate benefits for workers to make our workplaces better. So what the unions are what the nurses are facing, especially in informal and precarious employment and in the gig economy is that we've seen that the companies are hostile to laying unions in as if unions actually are not a relevant agent of improving the workplace and that can actually work with our governments and with employers. I don't know if we've seen if you've seen the struggles with for example the Amazon workers today who do not have enough protective equipment and are actually all to work in the warehouses. So we had like a huge trade union struggle on that matter and we had the situation in France when actually the workers and their unions were able to win that the warehouses only work in distributing the essential products and not actually all products. So this is like quite a big struggle going on in there. So what the unions are facing actually is a hostility on the part of companies and in terms of what we need to do to prove that I think that we need to fix our national legislation in terms of our labor laws and in terms of actually having better legislation on these levels to actually allow for trade unions to do their jobs and actually try to make the legislation in such a way that we don't have that firing of trade union representatives or as we have in some work in their work as we have in some cases in the EU today. So to make legislation safer for trade union activities. Okay thanks Kim there's another question on young people and so somebody's writing on the one hand you could say if you put more emphasis on the digital society this could be an advantage for young people but on the other hand we have poor people also young poor people with little access to this type of technology this type of knowledge. So what should we do to make sure that there's not a kind of that the digital divide doesn't get even bigger in this crisis. We also point that we really strongly addressed in the recovery plan and that is that if we are now going to focus on European public investments to boost the economy again closing the digital divide is one of the main issues and that is both infrastructure because there's still a lot of places where there is no proper internet but it also means that there is more funding available in the end for schools and for young people to have their own technological appliances and I think if we really try to make sure that everyone in Europe has access to internet it can create a huge prosperity for everyone and it's something that we have to strive for to make sure that happens for everyone in a very short notice. Okay thanks. We're moving towards the end of this talk and there's a last question here which I can I really find marvelous for both of you and so the question is as we have representatives from each sphere here from a political party and from a union how can Green Parties and Trade Unions cooperate and support each other even better in the post-COVID world? Who wants to go first? I will. Yeah thank you thank you for this question. This is actually I really like the opportunity that I got to actually be here with you today so I really appreciate it and I hope that we will have more of this that's that's first of all I would what I would actually like is to because in our trade union we are continuously developing policies including the green policies which are which are very also crucial for our union so we would definitely like to collaborate more to more on the on the matter to collect both your experience and and your policy that would be actually very very meaningful to us so and at the same time the only thing we can do is actually offer our expertise and offer our policy insights on trade union and and labor matters so I hope we will definitely collaborate on these issues. Okay Kim. I wholeheartedly agree I think it's very nice to have this discussion today and I also think that too often we perhaps only speak together when we're talking about policy matters but to create a vision for what the future of work should look like what the future of labor rights should look like is something that we maybe not always take the time for because there's not that much time in the end in a day or during the week so I think these kind of discussions are really beneficial for that and I'm looking forward to have many more especially because it's so necessary right now. Okay thank you both for this very interesting and inspiring talk for the people listening if you appreciated this talk and you want to support us support the Green European Foundation so we can organize more of these green post-coronaut talks please consider giving a donation there will be information now put in the chat and to finish I really want to draw your attention to our next green post-coronaut talk which is next week on Tuesday at six o'clock on the future of mobility which again an excellent panel we have Leonor Gvesler the Austrian Minister for Climate Action Environment Energy Mobility we have William Dotz Executive Director of the NGO Transport and Environment and we have Elka Ranombrandt she is Brussels Minister responsible for mobility public works and road safety so this will be again a very timely and exciting talk many thanks for watching to us and hope to see you next week again okay we are offline many thanks I think it went well