Food industry: meat sectors needs to combat precarious work
At the General Assembly of the Food industry, the European trade unions of the food and beverages sector evidenced an increasing variety of new forms of labour, atypical contracts and a worrying rise of precarious work. EFFAT affiliates insisted once again on the need to combat the unsecure, unsafe and dangerous form of work in the meat sector.
The participants gave an overview of the situation of the food and drink industry at national levels as for example the increasing presence of low-paid migrant workers in Belgium and the growing precarity in the meat industry in Italy and Spain. Denmark representatives showed how bad organisation of workers mobility and relocation of factories can cause social dumping and France explained the health problems workers face within the industry. The panel of the “new Member States” presented the impact of workers mobility and migration on the Hungarian and Polish meat market.
Experts’ findings on self-employed workers and on temporary agency work underlined the need for a clear calculation of number of migrant workers within these two categories and clarification of legislation governing these two.
Ways to improve workers situation were discussed and the development of a web-tool to promote best practices and trade unions achievements has been seen as a step to go forward. As a main result of the meeting, the EFFAT affiliates supported the adoption of a Roadmap of actions aiming at implementing the “Charter against precarious work “adopted by EFFAT at its last Congress in 2009.