CEEMET together with ECEG (European Chemical Employers Group) and EURATEX (European Apparel and Textile Confederation) published a common statement on restructuring. It lists seven key points responding to the Commission’s Green Paper including the fact that “company restructuring is based on the strategic and economic decisions of an individual company and therefore there can’t be a single solution to address the restructuring of undertakings”.

CEEMET welcomes the employment package as it acknowledges the necessity to promote job creation. Much of the communication is forward looking and positive, however it lacks proposals which respond to the needs that are particularly troublesome for industry, such as initiatives that allow for adaptability and swift restructuring. Read the comment here highlighting other topics including flexicurity, youth unemployment, skills and lifelong learning, restructuring and wages.

In its response to the Commission Green Paper on Restructuring, CEEMET welcomes the positive overall approach of the Commission to the necessity of restructuring. CEEMET underlines that companies in the MET sector are subject to global competition which makes frameworks which allow for swift adaptability crucial for our sector.

As CEEMET’s representative, Jean-François Pillard, UIMM Director General, Chairman of the CEEMET Steering Committee stressed in his intervention the importance of promoting flexibility in labour markets, the need to have the right competences at the right moment and the proper financing of social security systems which does not negatively impact labour costs.

CEEMET today published its Flexible Forms of Employment Survey. The survey provides a summary of a country-by-country overview of Flexible Forms of Employment in the metal, engineering and technology-based (MET) industries. It will contribute to the ongoing debate at European and national level on the alleged precariousness of the most common forms of flexible employment such as part-time work, temporary agency work and fixed-term contracts, CEEMET carried out a survey among its members to get a better understanding of the real usage of flexible employment contracts.

“High quality vocational education and training is central to a successful manufacturing industry in Europe. In order to realise its full potential, public authorities and education and training systems must make significant progress towards increasing permeability”, CEEMET and EMF emphasize in their common statement on the importance of permeability between vocational education and training and higher education.

CEEMET is pleased that the European Commission intends to propose a further postponement of the deadline for transposition of Directive 2004/40/EC on protection of workers from the risks related to exposure to electromagnetic fields at work.