EUROPEAN COMMISSION Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities DG. Sectoral social dialogue committee, Extractive Industries, Plenary Session

Transcription

1 EUROPEAN COMMISSION Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities DG Social dialogue, Social rights, Working conditions, Adaptation to Change Social dialogue, Industrial relations Meeting: Sectoral social dialogue committee, Extractive Industries, Plenary Session Time : Address: Building Borschette, Rue Froissart 36, Brussels Participants: 1. ALTNER Vlastimir 2. BELLEN Marleen 3. BORKOWSKI Zygmunt 4. BOZOVA Rozka 5. CALLAGHER Patrick 6. DAMM Jean-Pierre 7. DIERCKS Thorsten 8. HEBESTREIT Corina 9. HULIK Gitta 10. KANEV Ivan 11. KARDOS Cecilia 12. KUNKEL Joerg 13. MARTIN Mercedes 14. MOSER Marina 15. POOT BAUDIER Valentine 16. QUINCKE Jonas 17. ROTHLEITNER Bernhard 18. SCHALLERT Peter 19. SREBREVA Atanaska 20. STASZKOW Beata 21. STEINHAGE Manfred 22. STRACKENBROCK GEHRKE Ines 23. ZOLTAY Akos European Commission: 1. Dorota Dlouchy DG EMPL F1

2 MINUTES 1. Welcome Chair, Mr. Jean Pierre Damm welcomes participants. 2. Approval of the agenda Chair informs that the afternoon session is postponed for the next meeting in 2008 following the agreement with Employers. He asks to add new point 9: information on current activities of the Standing Working Party. Following the introduction of these changes, agenda is approved. 3. Approval of the minutes Minutes from last plenary in March 2007 are approved without changes. From now on minutes of plenary and working group meeting will be provided and approved in the following meeting irrespective of it being a plenary or a working group meeting. 4. H&S: Accident statistics Discussion on the follow up to the presentations Chair introduces the topic. In the chair opinion, presentations showed that two groups of employees are in particular risk: young workers and subcontractors. He proposes to follow-up the exercise of accident statistics by best practices possibly of various National Inspection Authorities. Euromines (Mrs Hebestreit) express their concern on the level of accidents in Europe. Presentation: G:\2.1.2 Dialogue sectoriel\ Ind Euromines proposes to introduce Health and Safety as the priority topic for If it is possible, more data should be gathered country by country, also data concerning major causes for accidents. SHCMOEI and the European Commission prepared a number of guidelines (see presentation) some of them are outdated, but a number is still valid. Unfortunately, there are not translated into NMS languages. These guidelines should be checked and if relevant disseminated.

3 Trade Unions thank Euromines for the presentation and support guidelines approach. Commission suggests utilization of the budget line 01 to finance the project on Health and Safety. In the framework of the project, lots of activities such as gathering of national statistics, identification of major causes for accidents, preparation of guidelines, translation, dissemination of results and also cost of subcontractors/experts can be financed. More information on the budget line can be found here: similar call for proposals will be published shortly with a deadline for March New Trade unions recall that focus of the activities should be on young people, subcontractors and foreign workers. In January, the bureau will examine the question of Health and Safety and possible actions. Mrs. Hebestreit will prepare 2-3 pages long document on H&S. All members are strongly recommended to send to her all documents they find useful in this respect: national and European guidelines, statistics, studies etc by the end of January. 5. Joint position: Energy policy and the future of the extractive industries It is decided that the German version of the document will be treated as an original one. The document will be sent to 27 Permanent Representations and the following Commissioners: Pielbgas, Dimas, Verheugen and Spidla. 6. Update on the joint positions on TDI and Raw materials initiative (Ms Hebestreit, EUROMINES) Joint position on TDI was sent to Commissioners Mendelson & Verheugen. The response is being awaited. However, it is worth mentioning that the Commission proposal concerning TDI met with a strong opposition from a number of sources and currently the document is being redrafted and it is awaited for Jan/Feb. No new action needed in this field Raw materials initiative On Jan 15, the public internet consultation will be launched by DG ENTR. Deadline for answering is 8 weeks. Several committee members expressed their negative opinion on the added value of the internet exercise. Nevertheless, the recommendation of the chair is to respond to this questionnaire. Members recognize that the beginning of the year will be the time to act in this respect.

4 It is proposed that Bureau will identify important issues included in this initiative that fall into the scope of activities of the SSSDC and then joint action would be recommended. 7. Consequences of REACH for the extractive industry (IMA / EUROMINES) Ms Valenitne Poot Baudier presents stay of play. The majority of minerals are excluded from REACH. More information: presentation 8. Exchange program (Mr Kunkel, EMCEF) Mr. Kunkel informs that finally the steering committee for this project was created. Members are: Károly Stanitz (head of the project) Employees representatives: Christine Markus Employers representatives: Bert Wallraf, Gunter Wolf Due to the fact that steering group will start to work from now on, he asks SSDC to extend its mandate till 21 Dec The extension is granted. 9. Information on the work of Standing Working Party (Vlastimir Altner, CZ TU) SWP is currently working on the good practice guidelines for explosives being used underground. This document should be ready in April There is also discussion in the committee on imports from China, about social dumping and low standards of H&S. Other issues that are currently being investigated are: comparability of accident statistics and consequences of REACH for the industry. 10. Work program and meetings in 2008 EMCEF (Marina Moser) presents draft working program. This draft will be sent to Secretariats for discussion. The January Bureau meeting will prepare a formal proposal for next plenary.

5 Members of the committee request the Commission representative to change the date of the meeting in February as it is in the middle of winter holidays. DD informs SSDC that it will be checked if there is possibility to change the date within Commission premises. If not the meeting can be organized outside. She will inform secretariats before Christmas break on the situation. Members also asked to change first meeting from WG to Plenary and for providing translation into FR, EN, DE, ES, HU and PL. The second meeting will then be a WG. 11. AOB New chairman will be elected at the next plenary session.