The Council of the European Union has given this Tuesday the definitive ‘green light’ for the new law on “adequate minimum wages” throughout the community bloc, with which it hopes to contribute to guaranteeing decent working and living conditions for workers in Europe.
The approval of the 27 comes after, on September 14, the European Parliament approved in Strasbourg by a large majority (505 votes in favor, 92 against and 44 abstentions) the new regulation, which the Member States will now have two years to transpose into national law.
The directive establishes procedures for the adequacy of national minimum wages, promotes collective bargaining on wage setting and improves effective access to minimum wage protection for workers who are entitled to a minimum wage under national law, for example, through a national minimum wage or collective agreements. .
Member States that have national minimum wages must establish a procedural framework to establish and update these minimum wages according to a set of clear criteria.
The Council and the European Parliament had already agreed that updates to the national minimum wage would take place at least every two years (or at most every four years in the case of countries using an automatic indexation mechanism), with the provision that the social partners would be involved. in the procedures for setting and updating national minimum wages.
When people have to count their pennies due to the energy crisis, this law is a message of hope. Minimum wages and collective wage setting are powerful instruments that can be used to ensure that all workers earn wages that allow them a decent standard of living.”
This legislation was initially proposed by the European Commission in October 2020, and the principle of adequate minimum wages is included in the action plan of the European Pillar of Social Rights, adopted in May last year during the Porto summit, in the framework of the presidency of the Council of the EU in the first half of 2021.
Source: Observadora
