EFFAT-FERCO Contribution to the Guide on socially-responsible public procurement

This is why they are seriously concerned about the way DG EMPL is handling the consultation process regarding the drafting of the Guide. Indeed, access is denied to both the preliminary study (contract VC/2007/0630) and the draft SRPP Guide. EFFAT and FERCO strongly object this lack of transparency and the lack of proper consultation of representative sectoral EU social partners which could bring a significant contribution.

As a matter of fact, the EU social partners in the catering, but also in the cleaning, private security and textile sectors have a consolidated experience in dealing with the issue of public procurement. They produced, with the support of the EU Commission, in the framework of their respective sectoral social dialogue, Guides on the economically most advantageous offer with one common objective: the fight against the awarding of contracts to the lowest price and its negative impact on employment and working conditions of workers across the EU.

In April 2008, a conference “Promoting best value through the social dialogue”, involving the four sectors, was organised at the initiative of DG EMPL. In their interventions, the representatives of Commissioner Spidla and of DG EMPL announced the forthcoming initiative on SRPP and ensured the social partners concerned that their work would have been taken in due account. At the conference, the four sectors signed a joint declaration “Towards responsible awarding of contracts”. In this declaration, they expressed their interest for participating in the EU initiative on SRPP and invited the Commission to involve and consult them. At several occasions, the social partners concerned re-iterated their interest in discussing the SRRP Guide with DG EMPL and DG MARKT. This is why to their great surprise, the information meeting organised on 6 November 2008 by Unit Employment Strategy, CSR and Local Development turned to be both disappointing and frustrating as it became clear that DG EMPL had no intention to involve or consult the relevant social partners in an adequate way.

Despite this deluding situation, EFFAT and FERCO have decided to jointly reply to the Commission’s invitation to express their main recommendations in a short 2 pages document.

First, FERCO and EFFAT wish to underline the need for pointing out, in the SRPP Guide, the negative consequences associated with the awarding of contracts to the lowest price. Unfortunately, this is usual practice in all Member States, often to the detriment of quality, working conditions and labour rights. In a growing number of cases, this leads to illegal employment and unprofessional practices. The Guide should underline that the negative consequences are slow to emerge, since the effect of lowest price competition is a gradual process which cannot be detected immediately. The Guide should particularly include an explicit warning regarding abnormally low offers as they usually entail a breach of labour law and collective labour agreements.

Fully recognising the importance of encouraging contracting authorities to use social criteria, aiming at responding to the needs of particularly disadvantaged groups, EFFAT and FERCO share the view that the Guide should first address the general issue of protecting workers from social dumping by advocating the awarding of contracts to the economically most advantageous offer. Moreover, FERCO and EFFAT consider that the implementation of SRPP is not compatible with the awarding of contracts to the lowest price and that opting for ,the economically most advantageous offer is the only way forward for integrating effectively social criteria in public procurement.

In the case of the awarding of a contract to the lowest price, the Guide should advice the contracting authorities to request, as part of the performance conditions, further information on working conditions, compliance with collective labour agreements, employment protection, social security schemes, minimum wages, equality and anti-discrimination law, health and safety as well as the implementation of training measures. Fair employment practices, respect for labour standards, social dialogue and training of staff are indeed key “economically advantageous” elements contributing to the quality of the service provided.

Consideration should be given in the Guide to the inclusion of compliance with labour law, labour standards and collective labour agreements in the assessment of processes and methods, as well as safety and quality assurance issues. Health and safety related conformity assessment should be a priority consideration in the technical specifications.

The Guide should stress the need for including in the specifications to be met, while drawing up a call for tender, the particulars listed here above: compliance with labour law, labour standards and collective labour agreements as well as social dialogue and the implementation of training measures.

As a conclusion, the social partners in the contract catering sector would like to remind DG EMPL that in the real world of today, in many cases, social as well as environmental considerations in public procurement are rather a window-dressing exercise, increasing the paper work for the tendering companies but not effectively taken into consideration for the awarding of the contract. What matters is price. The worsening of the economic situation puts public authorities in front of much tighter budgetary constraints and works against a change in public procurement practices. This is why the Guide should send a clear signal to the tendering authorities, raising awareness of the dangers associated with the lowest price and reminding them about their responsibility to identify and exclude contractors who do not respect the basic norms and to establish a constructive dialogue with providers eager to:

- promote respect for social values within their undertakings by means of working conditions and staff training, company agreements and the social dialogue

- develop quality-related programs

In such an environment, Contract Catering companies and their employees could work jointly, in agreement with the client organisations, to promote CSR and socially responsible policies.

The FERCO / EFFAT guide can be accessed online at the following address:

http://www.contract-catering-guide.org

EFFAT contact: Kerstin Howald

k.howald@effat.org

FERCO contact: Marie-Christine Lefebvre

ferco@online.be