The April Café Europa has opened its virtual doors with a notable presence: the general secretaries of CCOO and UGT, Javier Pacheco and Camil Ros, respectively. With the approach of May 1, the conversation has focused on labor demands in a context that included the upcoming Catalan and European elections.
With slogans such as "Work less, work better" from UGT and "For full employment, decent wages and a roof for all" from CCOO, the need for a more forceful socio-labor agenda within the framework of integration has become clear. European. There has been debate about how the new Parliament and the new European Commission have prioritized issues such as security and strategic autonomy, but questions have been raised about whether this has left enough room to address citizen needs such as housing and working conditions.
Camil Ros has highlighted the role of unionism especially and the unity of action and social dialogue that has guaranteed in recent years the partial revocation of the labor reform and the increase in the interprofessional minimum wage. Now it is necessary to move towards reducing the working day. He recalled that, as Lula says, the welfare state should be considered heritage of humanity.
Javier Pacheco has highlighted that the main objective of European unionism must be to stop the escalation of the extreme right in the EU, preventing the European People's Party from making an alliance with the extreme right. He has also highlighted the challenges posed by the technological battle, demographics and climate change, and how the working classes are directly affected by these. He stressed that the role of unions must be to defend them and appealed to the need for a new social contract that has decent work as one of its pillars.