Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-02-17-Speech-4-132"
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"en.20000217.5.4-132"2
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"Mr President, once again we are being forced by topical social issues to debate and take a stance on the restructuring plans of major European groups. Everything has already been said on this subject. For some of us, everything has already been said on the freedom or quasi-divine right of companies and for others, with whom I associate, everything has already been said on the intolerable logic of short-term profit, on disdain for workers, on both the individual and collective social consequences, on the impact on territories and on the waste of know-how and skills.
We are all aware of the fact that restructuring, as we know it today, contradicts the stated objectives of the European Union on employment and social and territorial cohesion on all counts. Under these circumstances, what is important today for us, as European Members of Parliament, when we come to the vote, is not yet again to declaim a few general points, however emotional; in my view, this would reinforce the already widespread idea that the institutions are impotent; what is important is that we use every means available in the European institutions to bring our stated priority objectives to bear on the specific case of the merger of ABB-Alsthom and the closure of the Goodyear site in Italy and draw all the relevant conclusions.
From this point of view, what can we do? First, draft a very accurate report on the implementation of the collective redundancies and European works council directives and use all the pressure, warnings and sanctions needed in order to ensure that they are applied to the letter. It is obvious nowadays that the management of large groups are using every subterfuge they can to avoid transparent information and negotiation with their workers. We must not permit that. To claim, as ABB-Alsthom did, that it is too early for talks before the merger and too late after it, because the representatives no longer have the credentials, is inadmissible. Basically, it is patently hi-jacking the spirit of the European works council directive.
We must strengthen our legislation in order to close these loopholes; we must reform it and guarantee workers new rights, especially the right to contest the economic justification for redundancies. We must also review the criteria on which mergers between groups are authorised. What does the Commission, and by extension what do we look like, from the point of view of the workers and from the point of view of the social consequences, when the Commission authorises a merger as questionable as that of ABB-Alsthom? It simply looks like it is involved in a cover-up. And if all Community policies are to promote employment and cohesion, how is it that the Commission can forego such an investigation when deciding whether or not to authorise a merger?"@en1
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