Home / The President of the European Left will open the conference “A vital Labour Day “
Heinz Bierbaum, President of the European Left, will join the conference “A vital Labour Day “ the event is organized by The European Forum of left, green and progressive forces and will take place on April 28th (World Day for Health and Safety at Work), from 17h00 to 19h00 (CET).
The President of the European Left will open the event dedicated to trade unions’ activities ahead of the mobilizations for the 2021 International Labour Day.
“We need an economic and social policy in Europe to ensure that workers won’t pay the effect of the pandemic – declares Heinz Bierbaum – through its Platform, the European Left took the task of proposing an alternative model for this Europe. Social protection, wages and pensions must be levelled up to the highest standard.
We must break with the past: the discussions about the Recovery and Resilience Plan and the European Pillar of Social Right must be unambiguously oriented toward a social and ecological transformation of the economy. We need to change direction, starting from rethinking the role of European institutions. Some of the effects of the pandemic and the related economic crisis could have been and can still be avoided, but as long as workers don’t set the agenda, we cannot talk about building a fairer Europe.
We need a major expansion and upgrade of our public healthcare systems, massive investment in public services and the creation of a European Health Fund. Europe needs a new industrial policy with mobility and sustainability at its heart. For us this means an increase in social spending combined with democratic control over the investment plans. Both the ECB and national banks should be used to increase spending on social services, in order to face the immense social, economic and medical emergency underway” – concludes Heinz Bierbaum, President of the European Left.
