CEEMET 18th General Assembly

1. CEEMET 18th General Assembly Item 6 – Growth & Employment : The role of social partners Presentation by Jean-François PILLIARD

2. I – Background Creation of the European Sectoral Social Dialogue Committee : January 2010 Nearly three years of experience: 1st assessment possible Actors: CEEMET & IndustriAll (formerly EMF)

3. I – Background (cont’d) • Main goal: to contribute to the improvement of the competitiveness of the metal industry. • More concrete objectives: • increase the mutual understanding (exchange of views and experiences of good national practices) • deliver opinions to the Commission on EU initiatives • coordinate the social dialogue activities in branches of the MET industries

4. I – Background (cont’d) • One plenary meeting per year • Two working groups : • Competitiveness & Employment • Education & Training

5. II – Achievements / Results WG « Competitiveness & Employment » • Joint general statement on “Competitiveness and employment in a globalised economy” – December 2010 • Joint position on the Commission flagship initiative on “Industrial Policy in a globalized economy” – March 2011 • Conclusions on adaptability and the drivers for flexibility needs – 2011 • Discussions on flexible forms of employment – on going

6. II – Achievements / Results WG « Competitiveness & Employment » • Adaptability / Flexibility – 2011 • Main drivers for adaptability /flexibility need (e.g. global competition, seasonal variations, climate change, demographic changes, external shocks etc) • Instruments to handle this need for adaptability (e.g. working time flexibility, flexible forms of employment, education & training schemes, “anti-crisis” measures etc.) • Effects of the instruments on flexibility (e.g. adapt quickly to changes; rapid cost reduction; facilitate the entry into labour market for some groups vs. job and income insecurity (flexible contracts), impact on companies’ competence supply in the long-run etc. )

7. II – Achievements / Results WG « Competitiveness & Employment » • Flexible forms of employment – 2012 (on-going) • Various forms of flexible employment (fixed-term contracts, part-time, temporary agency work) • Benefits and drawbacks for both employers and employees • Ways to overcome the drawbacks and other forms of flexibility

8. II – Achievements / Results WG « Education & Training » • General statement on “vocational education and training “ – December 2010 Jointly presented to the EU institutions - 2011 • Joint statement on “Permeability between vocational education and training and higher education” – end of 2011 • Discussion on accessto training – 2012 – on-going

9. II – Achievements / Results WG « Education & Training » • “Permeability between vocational education & training (VET) and higher education (HE)” – end of 2011 • Importance of attractiveness of VET for our industry • Facilitate access between VET and HE • Permeability is key to improving the quality of VET • Important factor: transparency of competence profiles

10. II – Achievements / Results WG « Education & Training » • Access to vocational training - 2012 – on-going • First, the obstacles: on the employers’ side (lack of information, problme of SMEs), on the employees’ side (problem of motivation), more generally, issue of funding etc. • Then, the solutions: workshop (next week) on how this has been tackled at national level

11. III - First evaluation • Professional atmosphere • Constructive and objective exchanges of views, based on national practices • First three years: positive and very encouraging (willingness to work together) • The co-chairing has proven to be efficient. • Joint statements/positions = good lobbying opportunity • Increased visibility on the European scene.

12. IV – For the future • Need to build on this first experience • Enter into more concrete issues • However, time and resources limits : step by step approach necessary