{"id":27130,"date":"2025-03-04T07:30:22","date_gmt":"2025-03-04T06:30:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uniglobalunion.org\/?post_type=news&#038;p=27130"},"modified":"2025-03-03T16:11:12","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T15:11:12","slug":"europe-wide-survey-finds-that-eu-citizens-want-public-money-to-strengthen-workers-pay-and-conditions","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/uniglobalunion.org\/news\/europe-wide-survey-finds-that-eu-citizens-want-public-money-to-strengthen-workers-pay-and-conditions\/","title":{"rendered":"EU citizens want public money to strengthen workers\u2019 pay and conditions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/uniglobalunion.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/UNI-Europa-Report_Making-better-use-of-public-procurement_EN.pdf\">Europe-wide survey<\/a> commissioned by UNI Europa and released today finds that a large majority of EU citizens (72%) are in favour of public procurement that strengthens workers\u2019 livelihoods through collective bargaining.<\/p>\r\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/uniglobalunion.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/UNI-Europa-Report_Making-better-use-of-public-procurement_EN.pdf\">survey<\/a> comes as the European Commission sets out to reform EU procurement rules that govern the awarding of public contracts to private companies. Its results support calls from workers and trade unions for social clauses in procurement rules that prioritise companies with collective agreements, while excluding union-busting and undercutting companies.<\/p>\r\n<p>\u201c<em>These findings are an urgent call to action. The European Commission should listen to European voters: public money should support quality jobs, not companies that undermine fair competition and bust unions,<\/em>\u201d said <strong>Oliver Roethig, Regional Secretary of UNI Europa<\/strong>. He added: <em>\u201cThe best way of doing so is by prioritising decent employers that have a collective agreement with their workers.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\r\n<p>Millions of workers are employed in the EU through public contracts. Public procurement creates standards that influence pay and working conditions throughout the private sector.<\/p>\r\n<p><strong>The survey\u2019s key findings:<\/strong><\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n\t<li><strong>65% <\/strong>of respondents want public contracts to be awarded based on<strong> price, quality, green and social criteria<\/strong><\/li>\r\n\t<li>Of those criteria,<strong> wages and working conditions <\/strong>is the<strong> number one priority <\/strong>with<strong> 46.4%<\/strong> of respondents saying it would justify a higher price<\/li>\r\n\t<li><strong>83% <\/strong>of respondents want<strong> union busters and underpaying companies to be excluded<\/strong><\/li>\r\n\t<li><strong>72% <\/strong>of respondents want public authorities to<strong> prioritise companies with collective agreements<\/strong><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<ul>\r\n\t<li>The proportion of citizens who want public tenders to take into account <strong>factors other than price<\/strong> has increased significantly from <strong>52% to 65%<\/strong> since a similar survey in 2011.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p><strong>[embeddoc url=&#8221;https:\/\/uniglobalunion.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/EU_UNI-Europa_EU-Citizens-Survey-on-Public-Procurement_Factsheet.pdf&#8221; width=&#8221;100%&#8221; height=&#8221;30%&#8221; download=&#8221;all&#8221;]<\/strong><\/p>\r\n<p>The survey was commissioned by UNI Europa, the European Services Workers Union representing 7 million workers across Europe, and conducted by the independent polling firm Opinea. It gathered responses from over 6,080 respondents across six European countries: Czechia, France, Germany, Ireland, Poland and Spain.<\/p>\r\n<p>Their preferences for making procurement more social align with demands by workers and trade unions. On 1 October 2024, over 1,000 essential workers from nine countries\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.uni-europa.org\/news\/essential-workers-from-across-europe-rally-in-brussels-for-better-pay-and-conditions-through-eu-procurement-reform\/\">mobilised in Brussels<\/a>\u00a0for public procurement reform that improves pay and conditions. UNI Europa research, however, has\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.uni-europa.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/11\/Public-procurement-December-2021-snapshot-report.pdf\">shown<\/a>\u00a0that half of all public tenders across the EU are awarded solely based on the lowest price, often due to procurement rules.<\/p>\r\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.uni-europa.org\/news\/we-support-essential-workers-demands-for-a-reform-of-eu-public-procurement-rules\/\">In an open letter<\/a>, over 100 world-leading economists, including Thomas Piketty and Isabella Weber, criticised the \u201cdominant focus on the lowest price in tenders\u201d, supporting workers\u2019 demands for a reform that \u201cstrengthens collective bargaining\u201d. Even employers\u2019 organisations across the labour-intensive <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uni-europa.org\/news\/cleaning-employers-and-workers-sound-public-procurement-essential-for-quality-service\/\">cleaning<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uni-europa.org\/news\/uni-europa-coess-joint-declaration-on-public-procurement-and-collective-bargaining\/\">security<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/effat.org\/in-the-spotlight\/effat-and-foodserviceeurope-joint-declaration-on-public-procurement-and-collective-bargaining\/\">catering<\/a> industries stress the need to move away from only focusing on price.<\/p>\r\n<p><em>\u201cEuropean citizens are joining essential workers, world-leading economists and employers to say: EU rules should stop focusing on the lowest price only, but set standards on working conditions, pay and quality across the economy,\u201d <\/em>concluded <strong>Oliver Roethig, UNI Europa Regional Secretary<\/strong>. <em>\u201cThis is also advance the Commission\u2019s goal to simplify the rules: clear quality criteria, such as respect for collective bargaining agreements, will not just cut red tape but improve pay and conditions for Europe\u2019s millions of services workers.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\r\n<p><strong>About UNI Europa<\/strong><\/p>\r\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.uni-europa.org\/\">UNI Europa<\/a> is the voice for the 7 million service workers that constitute the backbone of economic and social life in Europe. It is the regional body of <a href=\"https:\/\/uniglobalunion.org\/\">UNI Global Union<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n<p>Headquartered in the heart of Brussels, Belgium, UNI Europa represents 272 national trade unions in 50 countries in over a dozen economic sectors.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Europe-wide survey commissioned by UNI Europa and released today finds that a large majority of EU citizens (72%) are in favour of public procurement that strengthens workers\u2019 livelihoods through collective bargaining. The survey comes as the European Commission sets out to reform EU procurement rules that govern the awarding of public contracts to private<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":27169,"template":"","categories":[148],"global-issues":[34],"sectors":[],"cross-sector-groups":[],"workers-rights":[],"regions":[84],"topics":[46],"class_list":["post-27130","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press-release","global-issues-essential-workers","regions-uni-europa","topics-procuringdecentwork"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>EU citizens want public money to strengthen workers\u2019 pay and conditions<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The survey commissioned by UNI Europa finds a large majority of EU citizens in support of social public procurement.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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