About 100 economists, including the Frenchman Thomas Piketty, support the demonstration organized on Tuesday 1Ahem October, in Brussels, by unionists from nine European countries who aim to obtain a review of social standards for public procurement. These contracts concluded by public authorities with private companies currently represent €2 trillion, or around 14% of the European Union’s gross domestic product.
Federated by the International Trade Union Network-Europe (UNI), an organization that brings together 330 unions representing 7 million workers and is affiliated with the European Trade Union Confederation, the movement demands a “stop the race to the bottom” and better working conditions, wages and collective bargaining for the millions of workers employed under these contracts.
Labor-intensive sectors, such as cleaning, catering and security, are especially affected by current practices that, according to economists who support the movement, favor lower prices in tenders. “create market conditions that allow bidders to ignore social criteria (…) essential for sustainable economic growth and quality jobs.”
The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the important role of certain categories of so-called “subcontracted” workers. However, public authorities and private companies continue to perceive them as “as mere cost drivers rather than crucial investments in health, safety and well-being,” We deplore Mr. Piketty and his co-signatories. Among them are the former Hungarian European Commissioner for Social Affairs, Laszlo Andor, and the German economist Isabella Weber, who caused controversy in 2021 by advocating a price control policy and who, in 2023, denounced “cupideflation”, that is That is, the inflation created. according to her, by companies that take advantage of their dominant role in the market to increase prices.
“Threat of a growing extreme right”
The British Ann Pettifor, known for having predicted the 2007-2008 financial crisis, the Italian Roberto Veneziani, professor at Queen Mary University of London, and the German Benjamin Braun, a specialist in political economy, are among the other signatories.
They all insist on another dimension of the movement they support, namely the fact that many of the affected workers are immigrants, and mainly women, all of them “faced with the threat of a growing far right that uses its political power not only to oppose progressive economic policies but also to further stratify the labor market based on nationality, religion, gender and sexual orientation”.
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