Good afternoon, everybody. I would like to thank you all for the preparatory work of the past few weeks and months. As Mario repeatedly pointed out, despite being forced by the pandemic and by the health care emergency to extend the duration of the project by six months, we always continued to work on the implementation of the Project and the achievement of our objectives.

I am referring to the connection between trade unions and changes in work organization, to the role of trade unions in European Works Councils, to business plans, to the digital revolution, and to the trade unions’ possibility of governing change in relation to the impact of digital technologies, which further accelerate changes in work organization. Furthermore, the health care emergency has highlighted that what was once very theoretical is now rapidly becoming a reality, including the approach to the novelties of the digital world and new platforms.

During the dramatic COVID-19 emergency, there has been a huge increase in work from home and in the use of digital technologies, which have made it possible to eliminate time barriers. As is the case for our remote meeting today, the connection is immediate. But digital technologies have also helped to overcome geographical distance.

We are now able to carry out activities even from remote, without time and space boundaries.

In addition, in the framework of digital change, it is as if we could and should imagine that this fourth industrial revolution is setting the conditions for a new Renaissance. In this condition, scientific research and technological innovation – both with respect to healthcare and to changes in labour economics – become central for mankind.

This new humanism cannot limit itself to the role of profit and the race for wealth, but it should favour the development of a philosophy of the human being, accompanied by the digital revolution – also through the spread of robots and algorithms. In this philosophy, the human being, with its genius and research, remains central, plays a key role and becomes more valuable, regardless of the efficiency and progress of technological tools.

I say so because not only many believe that digital change will transform work and society, as well as the relationship with the various forms of democracy (the democracy of representation, digital direct democracy and its impact on modern society). Very often, it is also commonplace to believe that, through the advent and spread of robots, microchips and algorithms, major digital changes may even lead to the disappearance of human work.

Well, this argument is completely unfounded.

Work certainly changes and evolves. But while some professions and jobs disappear, new ones are created.

It is no chance that, according to the latest study by an American university, 350 out of 700 analyzed professions are destined to disappear. However, an equal number of professions is destined to be created, partly in a known way and partly in an unpredictable way, depending on the evolution of change.

This introduction simply helps us to go back to what we have done in recent years: underlining the value of the results of surveys, in-depth analyses and research, but also of your own contributions. Now is the time to build the core of a project.

I would like to remind you all that we had set ourselves the goal of empowering workers’ representatives and union representatives in EWCs and transnational groups to govern the changes brought about by the digital revolution on work organization. We wanted workers’ representatives and union representatives in EWCs to be informed before the actual adoption of business plans and to be able to discuss them in advance with the management.

With respect to the anticipation of change, we have elaborated a proposal with an ambitious objective: reviewing the first Directive on EWCs 26 years after its adoption (and 12 years after Recast Directive 2009/38). This Directive started a great experiment of transnational workers’ representation which is still unique today, regardless of the limits and drawbacks which we may have encountered and which we have partly identified through this European Project.

However, one basic fact is certain:

the participation of workers in governing changes in work organization is extraordinarily valuable. It can be improved, strengthened and, in part, adapted to changes. But there is no doubt that the step forward made 26 years ago and the additional step forward made 12 years ago marked a significant progress we can build upon. We cannot go back.

An example of adaptation to the dramatic COVID-19 emergency certainly is the investment in research made in many countries all over the world – including Italy and Europe, albeit with some delays. These efforts have made it possible to develop vaccines in record time. Now it is necessary to immunize everyone everywhere in order to end this situation and to be able to better face the impact of this dramatic crisis also at the economic and social level.

It should also be noted that, so far, the European Union has reacted in a different and more effective way than in the case of the economic crisis of 2008-2009. Today, the European Union has abandoned the principles of austerity and an over-rigorous approach, without renouncing the idea of building responsibly the future of the EU. This will be done through the “Next Generation EU” package, which will fund the Recovery Plans of the various Member States.

The European Union has pledged to invest 720 billion Euro, while the ECB has planned to buy more than 1 trillion Euro of government bonds and the European budget will have the same size.

This extraordinary effort concerns us not only for its impact, but also because the Recovery Plan approved by the EU has three essential guidelines:

1. Sustainable development
2. Digital revolution
3. Social inclusion, social cohesion and reduction of inequalities

We started our European Project in less difficult times (back in 2018), but we had already predicted some of the effects of the revolution of labour and some of its changes. Our action is now part of a larger framework in which the EU has decided to use more than 250 billion Euro (out of the 750 billion Euro of the total plan) for the digital revolution.

As a consequence, every business plan and every innovation plan will necessarily include high-quality and large-size investments in digital innovation.

This is why the proposal we drafted and discussed during our previous meetings is short, yet effective. We do not intend to revolutionize the functioning of EWCs. Our purpose is to give trade unions and workers’ representatives in EWCs the possibility of being informed and consulted in advance on the effects of digital investments on labour.

Our proposal is organized in four points:

1. The European Works Council must be informed in advance of the impact which each business plan (including any digital innovation processes, but not only) of the transnational group will have on workers.

2. In addition to being given in advance, information should cover also the qualitative and quantitative effects of the plan on employment. What will be the impact of the investments planned by a group on the quality of workers? On employment and gender equality? On the quality of employment?

What will change in working conditions?

These are relevant questions for the potential spread of remote work caused by digitalization. Also during the pandemic, remote work has been a resource and it has not been opposed by finance industry workers, who for the most part have actually enjoyed it.

However, this form of work must clearly include ways to guarantee the right to disconnect, as has been done in Italy with the latest national industry-wide agreement. Indeed, working conditions, working hours and the employment relationship should not change when working from home.

For instance, it is hard to imagine how to look after children while being busy with work activities at home.

Time will tell for how long traditional employment, work from home as we have experienced it so far, and traditional open-ended contracts will coexist with new, growing professions like promoters and producers, who partly work as freelancers in the financial sector.

As I was saying, information should focus on the quantity and quality of new jobs, on the impact on work from home, on the organization of work, on full-time, part-time, temporary and other employees, on working hours and on professional roles.

Information on all of these elements must be given to EWCs in advance in order to start consultation over a Social Plan, which in our opinion must be an integral part of the Business Plan of a multinational company.

After all, what is it that changes in work? The working conditions, the way in which work is organized, the training needed to acquire new skills and transition from old technologies to the new world of robotics and digital technologies.

Finally, in the framework of point 2) of our proposal, it is also necessary to have a clear understanding of the impact which digital change has on the quantity and quality of products.

3. The third point is very important, because information should be provided not when the business plan has already been approved, but not even when it has yet to be conceived. Instead, the information should be provided before the draft business plan is approved by the board of directors and before it is presented to the markets.

So what does it mean to provide information in advance and to let the EWC discuss the impact on employment with the management?

Of course, the EWC members should always be bound by a duty of confidentiality. We know that this is a very delicate issue, especially when dealing with information that can have an impact on the markets, on stock exchanges, and on the value of stocks. I would like to warn those who tend to simplify everything that the obligation of confidentiality may be the most delicate point – and also the most difficult to solve – in the development we are envisaging. Indeed, the information which should be shared in advance is often confidential and available only to a restricted number of people. In a negotiation with trade unions, the information would be limited to a “select” committee of people to address the issue. In any case, it is necessary to create the conditions to guarantee confidentiality.

4. The fourth point of our proposal consists in enabling the EWC to be consulted in good time.

The EWC must express its point of view on all the possible effects on employment of the Business Plan and propose the inclusion of a specific Social Plan – as mentioned in point 2 – to govern changes in work organization. When the Business Plan is approved, it is not necessary to already have an agreement on all the effects of changes, but the management and the EWC should have already agreed on certain general points, like avoiding dismissals and underlining the fundamental importance of training.

Finally, once the Business Plan is approved, negotiations can take place at the local level, with the Social Plan – an integral part of the Business Plan – already providing guarantees to avoid dramatic consequences for the workforce.

These four points are certainly the core of our proposed trade union policy. They are intertwined with the 13 proposals by professor Filip Dorssemont. But the key point of our argument is to enable trade unions and European Works Councils to be up to the challenge posed by digital innovation.

In short, we cannot forget that we are envisaging a new, green and sustainable Europe, which makes public investments in digital infrastructures, in order not to leave platforms only in the hands of large multinationals like Amazon and Alibaba. But, beside new sustainable development and digital change, Europe should also invest in the protection of jobs, the promotion of social inclusion and the fight against inequalities. In our sector, the development of sustainable finance (which we have recently addressed in a conference organized by FISAC) must be the prerequisite to face and govern this challenge, together with a stronger, more determined and targeted participation of trade unions and workers’ representatives in the changes brought about by innovation.

Let’s not forget that, in order for the European Union to become the new European Union we are talking about, it requires the implementation of the Recovery Plan guidelines and the achievement of its objectives through the national plans. Furthermore, the private investments of every single company should also follow the guidelines of the Recovery Plan. For instance, banks and insurance companies should promote an upturn in private investments by granting credit more easily.

To avoid new non-performing loans, new difficulties in the credit and in the insurance sectors, the European Union needs to complete the banking union, finalize the deposit insurance system and revise the bail-in model. It is also necessary to introduce a social clause that would require the involvement of trade unions in good time before taking measures concerning any European bank which may have an impact on employment.

In particular, with regard to bad banks, apart from the idea of a European bad bank, every Member State should take measures to prevent the credit sector from encountering the same difficulties it had during the crises of 2008 and 2018.

It is no chance that as much as 27% of branches were substantially closed in Europe between 2008 and 2019. I would like to stress that the impact on employment in Europe has been significant in the past decade. Approximately 2,400,000 jobs have been lost, including 70,000 voluntary redundancies in Italy. On the other hand, 22-23,000 new employees have been hired thanks to the plan for young workers. However, there is no doubt that, considering the crisis, the impact of digital technologies, the closure of branches and the impact on employment, recent changes have posed a major challenge to the finance industry. And we have to address it in the most difficult time, in the midst of a pandemic that is hitting Italy, and in the midst of a digital revolution.

This is why I say that the credit and finance sector cannot focus solely on the commercial pressure which workers have to deal with. In this regard, it is certainly necessary to reach an agreement or to elaborate a European Directive to contrast this pressure. Now that the European Union is becoming the driving force of public and private investments in sustainable development, digital technologies and employment, we must see it also as an opportunity for trade unions. Also thanks to the European Union, trade unions should no longer be uncertain, frightened or hesitant when facing the challenges posed by digital technologies to the world of work.

Trade unions should be aware of their strengths, have their own views and rely on their own analysis. They should not let uncertainty and fear prevail. They should focus on issues like workers’ skills, training, retraining, upskilling, the emergence of new professions, the organization of working hours (e.g. shorter weeks, as in my proposal of working 4 days per week, 8-9 hours per day, for a total of 32-36 working hours per week). In any case, all the traditional arguments of trade unionists should be updated. Through targeted training, the acquisition of new skills and an increased involvement, we need to enable trade unions to handle the challenge of change.

This is why in our previous meetings I said that we have to fight against liquid society or the society of fear. I have always said that digital change cannot focus solely on profit, but it should put human beings, their rights and the dignity of work at the centre.

Trade unions should not only take on the challenge, but even embrace it. To achieve our purposes, change must be organized in such a way that the productivity increases generated by digital technologies not only favour the modernization of undertakings and their relationship with clients/consumers, but also promote the creation of new and better jobs. We need to rediscover elements of solidarity whereby productivity is used also in connection with working hours. We need to rediscover and promote elements and ways to let productivity increases boost the actual purchasing power of salaries. But the priority should always be on employment, creating new jobs, giving opportunities to young people who look for a job and cannot find it in many countries (such as Italy, which has a youth unemployment rate of 30%).

Through our Project and the proposal I have quickly summarized, we do not intend to revolutionize everything. Yet, we can promote a significant change, either through the adoption of a new Directive, or – as I said during our latest meeting – through the authentic interpretation of the existing Directive in the light of the changes introduced by the Recovery Plan.

The push towards digital technologies of undertakings should make it possible – if not even automatic – to adopt an expanded interpretation of the Directive. In light of the new guidelines of the Recovery Plan on digital technologies, when drawing up their business plans, transnational groups should be willing to embrace the model we propose.

In these two days, we will certainly have the opportunity to discuss all of these issues more in depth and I am sure that this will strengthen and corroborate our proposal. I would like to take this opportunity to greet you all and wish you a successful meeting. I am confident that the results of this Project have shone a light that will guide and support us in our future information, consultation and negotiation procedures, as we seek to strengthen European Works Council. Let’s not forget that, to an objective observer, the positive aspects of EWCs have so far outweighed the negative ones.