Back in September, the European Commission launched its consultation on the upcoming Smart and Sustainable Mobility Strategy – a long-awaited document that will frame transport policies for the years to come. The Strategy is an initiative within the European Green Deal, ambitiously aiming to contribute to the overall goal of making Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. But, as the ETF has pointed out many times before and in its reply to the consultation – transport policies have never been able to succeed in achieving climate goals because they continuously put transport workers and their working conditions to the side. Now, all eyes are on the Commission in anticipation of the Strategy’s release on 9 December – will they continue in the same vein or will workers finally be at the heart of policies?
Transport is the backbone of this European project, but COVID-19 has shown that the policies in place keep it from reaching its potential and make the industry a workplace for over 10 million workers for whom labour abuses, bad working conditions and social dumping hold no secret.
Any new transport policy must completely break with the old system and establish a new approach with a strong social dimension.
In our response and demands on the Strategy, the ETF sets out five key pillars to ensure that future industrial policies for transport combine both employment and climate protection and ensure fundamental change to build an environmental and socially sustainable sector.
- Fair single market for transport – Making future EU transport sustainable, resilient and accessible by stopping the race to the bottom via liberalisation and privatisation
- Green and social transport – Creating a modal shift with fair wages and social contributions included in the internalisation of external costs
- Worker-Centred digitalisation and automation – Regulating the use of new technologies through collective bargaining
- Just transition – Leaving no worker behind in the modal shift or digital transformation
- Making the transport sector fit for women to work in – Mainstreaming gender dimension in transport policies
The response to our consultation can be found here and visual guides summarising our key principles with sector-specific demands can be found here.
