What changed between the plenary report and the adopted text

I. whereas social welfare systems contribute to guaranteeing a decent life; whereas those systems include social security, healthcare, education, housing, employment, justice and social services for disadvantaged groups, and play a key role in achieving social sustainable development, promoting equality and social justice and ensuring the right to social protection as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948); whereas social protection policies are vital elements of national development strategies to reduce poverty and vulnerability across the life cycle and to support inclusive and sustainable growth;

J. whereas social dialogue and collective bargaining are key instruments for employers and trade unions in order to establish fair wages and working conditions, and strong collective bargaining systems increase Member States’ resilience in times of economic crisis; whereas societies with strong collective bargaining systems tend to be wealthier and more equal; whereas the right to collective bargaining is an issue that concerns all European workers, which can also have crucial implications for democracy and the rule of law, including respect for fundamental social rights; whereas collective bargaining is a European fundamental right and the EU institutions are bound by Article 28 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights to respect it; whereas, in this context, policies that respect, promote and strengthen collective bargaining and the position of workers in wage-setting systems play a critical role in achieving a high standard of working conditions;

K. whereas collective bargaining is a key instrument to promote rights at work; whereas, according to OECD data, over the last decades both trade union density and collective bargaining coverage have significantly declined; whereas collective bargaining coverage has been decreasing in 22 of the EU’s 27 Member States since 2000; whereas the quality of work and of the working environment is higher on average in countries with well-organised social partners and a large coverage of collective agreements; whereas collective bargaining, provided it has a wide coverage and is well coordinated, fosters good labour market performance;

L. whereas, according to Eurofound, collective bargaining has come under pressure and the recession of 2008 has resulted in its decentralisation; whereas, while every sixth worker in the EU is estimated to be covered by a collective wage agreement, there is difficulty in obtaining reliable evidence in the form of more in-depth coverage data as regards collective bargaining and collective agreements across the EU; whereas, according to data provided by the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), the average level of union membership across the EU is around 23 %, with a great variety in union membership rates between Member States, ranging from 74 % to as low as 8 %; whereas the membership of employers’ organisations and the share of the markets they represent vary significantly as well;

M. whereas social investment is about investing in people in order to improve their living conditions; whereas key policy areas for social investment include social security, healthcare, long-term care, education, housing, employment, justice and social services for disadvantaged groups; whereas well-designed social policies strongly contribute to sustainable development and growth as well as to protecting people from poverty and acting as economic stabilisers;

N. whereas the poverty rate is predicted to increase as one of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic; whereas women, young people, older people, persons with disabilities and large families are more endangered by this development; whereas the number of single-person households and older people living alone is increasing; whereas single-person households are at greater risk of poverty and social exclusion, and, particularly, older women are at higher risk of poverty than older men if they live alone; whereas lone parent households are at high risk of poverty and deprivation, and have difficulties budgeting due to single incomes and lower employment rates; whereas an increasing number of young adults are now relying on the parental home to protect them from poverty, but 29 % of households with three generations are at risk of poverty and 13 % are severely deprived;

O. whereas gender discrimination in the home and on the labour market can result in an unequal distribution of resources, making women more vulnerable to poverty and social exclusion than men; whereas if they fall into poverty, women have less chance of getting out of it;

P. whereas both horizontal and vertical labour market segregation in the EU are still significant, with women over-represented in less profitable sectors; whereas in particular women with precarious contracts have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, as they were the first to lose their jobs, resulting in financial consequences for their families and for their economic independence, as well as leading to them receiving insufficient social security protection in times of crisis;

AB. whereas the pandemic has particularly affected the elderly, in some cases aggravating the situation of those who are isolated; whereas the elderly are most at risk of lack of access to the internet and modern technologies, and are consequently at a higher risk of exclusion, including digital exclusion;

AC. whereas the crisis has resulted in rising urban poverty, affecting more middle-income households and creating new at-risk groups, and is leading to deepening territorial inequalities, exacerbating social disadvantages in deprived urban areas as well as unequal access to public services and generating increasing demand for social services and social infrastructure at local level, at a time when local budgets are overstretched;

AD. whereas research based on the 2015 European Working Conditions Survey shows that twice as many regular teleworkers report working in excess of the 48 hours stipulated in EU legislation and resting for less than 11 hours between working days, as compared to those working on their employers’ premises; whereas almost 30 % of such teleworkers report working in their free time every day or several times a week, compared to below 5 % of office-based workers; whereas regular teleworkers are also more likely to report suffering from work-related stress, being affected by sleep disorders and struggling to reconcile work and family responsibilities;

AE. whereas as a result of COVID-19 and the measures to tackle it, namely confinement and teleworking, women in abusive relationships have become permanently exposed to violence, which has increased the number of cases of violence against women; whereas one consequence of confinement has been an explosion in gender-based and intra-family violence, by around 30 % in some European countries; whereas, in total, more than 243 million women between the ages of 15 and 49 have experienced sexual and/or physical violence worldwide in the past 12 months;

AF. whereas the pressure on women has increased further; whereas the new forms of work imposed, which are extendable and come at the expense of the separation between work and private life, have led during confinement to an explosion of new forms of psychological and sexual harassment, both online and offline; whereas the vast majority of companies and governments have not put in place any measures to counter these phenomena;

1. Highlights that the EU has embarked on a transition towards a low-carbon, climate-neutral, resource-efficient and circular economy that must ensure the highest levels of social justice, increasing wellbeing, social progress, security, prosperity, equality and inclusion and leaving no one behind; believes that sustainable development is deeply rooted in the European project and European values, and that social sustainability is a fundamental prerequisite for fair and inclusive green, digital and demographic transitions; insists that, in order to reduce inequalities, these processes must be framed in a transition that can offer social opportunities and shared prosperity; stresses that social justice, decent work with living wages, equal opportunities, fair mobility and robust social welfare systems are essential elements in the just transition to a sustainable and social Europe;

2. Believes that this recovery period must be the time for reforms fully committed to the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), based on solidarity, integration, social justice, a fair distribution of wealth, gender equality, high-quality public social welfare systems, quality employment and sustainable growth - a model that ensures equality and social protection, takes into consideration the needs of vulnerable groups, enhances participation and citizenship and improves living standards for all; considers this to be the best way for an EU to emerge from this crisis that is more sustainable, more resilient and fairer for the next generation;

3. Emphasises that progress towards a sustainable, fair and inclusive social Europe requires a strong shared commitment, both to the advancement of the UN 2030 Agenda and to the implementation and materialisation of the principles and rights contained in the European Pillar of Social Rights; highlights that an ambitious political agenda with identifiable, feasible, sustainable, clear and mandatory targets and indicators of social sustainability must be designed; points out that the next EU Social Summit planned for May 2021 in Porto would be the perfect opportunity for adoption of this agenda at the highest political level by the leaders of the 27 Member States and of the European Council, the European Parliament and the European Commission; calls for the involvement of social partners throughout the process;

Governance framework for social progress

4. Considers that the Porto agenda should take a double approach, i.e. it should focus on the social sustainability part of the EU’s Sustainable Development 2030 Agenda, while at the same time paving the way for the materialisation of the EPSR principles through adopting an Action Plan as well as serving as a follow-up to the Lisbon strategy, setting ambitious and mandatory targets and instruments defining the road to social progress and sustainability; believes that this agenda could contain the strategic framework for a sustainable, fair and inclusive social Europe for 2030;

5. Stresses that the goals of a new agenda for a strong social Europe must focus on protecting everyone and especially the most vulnerable and on making the recovery inclusive and socially just, and that these goals must be reinforced through mandatory enforceability, taking into account national specificities and needs and mirroring economic and environmental obligations whose observance is linked to access to European funds; considers that, in this sense, EU and Member States’ policy actions, programmes and reforms should be designed in a way that would contribute to the achievement of these mandatory objectives and that legal protection should imply that actions, policies, programmes or reforms that could have a potential negative impact on or hamper the progress towards the achievement of these objectives should be prevented;

6. Is convinced that a governance framework for a social and sustainable Europe should be anchored in the following reforms: the integration of the EPSR and a social progress protocol in the Treaties, protecting social rights at the same level as economic freedoms in the single market, and the adoption of a Sustainable Development and Social Progress Pact making social and sustainable targets mandatory, in order to achieve the UN SDGs; considers that, additionally, the Semester process should follow the Community method and be agreed between the Council and the European Parliament, while more social policy areas should fall under the qualified majority decision process, in particular non-discrimination, social protection of workers (apart from cross-border situations), protection of workers whose employment contract has been terminated, the representation and collective defence of the interests of workers and employers, and conditions of employment for third-country nationals legally residing in the EU;

Financial means for a strong social and sustainable Europe

7. Calls on the Member States to make full use of flexibility in the application of EU rules on public finances and fiscal policies, in order to accommodate exceptional spending so as to prevent and mitigate the social consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, strengthen social welfare systems, and finance quality jobs, public services, the fight against poverty and the green and digital transitions; welcomes NextGenerationEU, the EU’s recovery plan; stresses that just green and digital transitions can only be achieved with appropriate support for education and social care and healthcare infrastructure, in order to ensure social fairness, social cohesion and prosperity for all; is concerned that, in the current crisis, social welfare systems are experiencing unprecedented pressure and that related public expenditure will increase exponentially; underlines that the expenditure for the crisis measures should not come at the expense of the least well-off, but should be borne fairly; stresses, therefore, that in order to fuel the recovery, the EU’s investment effort through the Recovery Plan must have a strong social dimension, strengthening social welfare systems and investing in social security, access to healthcare and education, affordable housing, employment, justice and social services for vulnerable groups, in order to combat the social impact of the crisis; considers that investment in education, well-designed progressive tax and benefit systems, social investment and the provision of quality public and social services are essential levers for preventing the transfer of disadvantage from one generation to the next; stresses the importance of the implementation of the EPSR in the context of the European Recovery Plan and the Recovery and Resilience Facility, at the same level as the Green Deal and the digital transition; calls, therefore, for the upcoming reforms linked to the recovery package to include upward social convergence as one of the main objectives of the national reform programmes, including through financial support; in this sense, believes that the new Porto 2030 targets should be supported in the Recovery Plan, alongside the economic and environmental targets;

9. Recalls that short-time work schemes are an effective tool to safeguard jobs during an economic crisis; welcomes the establishment of the Instrument for Temporary Support to Mitigate Employment Risks in an Emergency (SURE) as an emergency measure to support Member States’ short-time work schemes in the context of the COVID-19 crisis; underlines that this is a key instrument to support national short-time work schemes, thus making it possible to safeguard jobs and skills and to preserve a large proportion of wages and incomes; invites the Commission to carefully evaluate the performance of this temporary instrument and examine the possible introduction of a permanent special instrument in this respect, to be activated – upon request by Member States – in case of any unexpected crisis that leads to a steady rise in expenditure for short-time work schemes and similar measures; calls on the Commission and the Member States to ensure that financial assistance is provided only to undertakings that are not registered in the countries listed in the common EU list of third-country jurisdictions for tax purposes or in Annex 1 of the Council conclusions on the revised EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes; calls on the Commission and the Member States to ensure that beneficiaries comply with the fundamental values enshrined in the Treaties, and that companies receiving public financial support protect workers, guarantee decent working conditions, respect trade unions and applicable collective agreements, pay their share of taxes, and refrain from share buybacks or paying out bonuses to management or dividends to shareholders; stresses the importance of combining short-time work programmes with education and professional training for the affected workers;

10. Welcomes the announcement by the President of the European Commission proposing an EU Unemployment Benefit Reinsurance Scheme, and urges the Commission to present its proposal; calls for this instrument to protect all types of workers, reduce pressure from external shocks on public finances, and safeguard national unemployment benefit systems during crises that lead to a sudden rise in expenditure; calls for this proposal to cover EMU countries with the possibility of non-EMU countries also joining;

11. Welcomes the introduction of a Just Transition Fund; stresses that broad social acceptance of environmental protection and climate action measures is vital for their effective implementation; urges Member States to effectively involve social partners, regional and local government and civil society in the elaboration of Territorial Just Transition Plans; recalls that climate change and the subsequent structural changes are already having a severe impact on many European regions and their people; stresses that the creation of green and decent jobs is crucial in order to achieve an inclusive and balanced job market to accompany the fair and just transition towards a renewables-based, highly resource- and energy-efficient, circular and carbon-neutral economy and to make sure no one is left behind; insists on increasing the amount put forward in May 2020 for the Just Transition Fund by the Commission in its amended proposal; calls for the fund to have sufficient financial means to support regions in transition and to ensure that new quality jobs are created and that social cohesion is the guiding principle for providing support under the fund; stresses that the revised European Globalisation Adjustment Fund is pivotal in supporting social plans for workers hit by restructuring, and calls on the Commission and the Member States to agree to a substantially increased budget for this instrument as part of the broader European Just Transition financial support; calls for sustainable and ambitious use of the funds available in order to support those regions which are most vulnerable and are lagging behind, by using transitional measures where needed; recalls the importance of eligible projects being consistent with the climate neutrality objective for 2050 and its intermediate steps up to 2030, as well as with the European Pillar of Social Rights;

12. Stresses the changes that just transition brings to the labour market and the distribution of the new green jobs; calls on the Commission and the Member States to develop strategies to ensure women’s access to new green jobs and to reduce the gender gap in employment in the renewable energy sector;

13. Recalls that, before the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 100 million Europeans were struggling with poverty and material deprivation on a daily basis and that the situation will deteriorate further as a result of the crisis; recognises the crucial role of all European funds and programmes in the social area and the even more essential role the future ESF+ and the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF) will play in the next 7 years; stresses that the recovery efforts should boost jobs and growth and the resilience and fairness of our societies, and should be complemented by a strong social dimension, addressing social and economic inequalities and the needs of those hit hardest by the crisis, particularly vulnerable and disadvantaged groups, such as those in poverty, the unemployed, the elderly, young people, persons with disabilities, single parents, mobile workers and migrants; welcomes the Commission’s undertaking to mobilise the EGF in response to the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the social and economic level, and stresses that extending the scope of the EGF to digital and green transitions will require sufficient funding for the years to come; calls on the Member States to make full use of this fund in order to accompany the displaced workers in these transitions;

14. Is concerned that in the context of the recovery from the COVID-19 outbreak, the need to tackle poverty, including child poverty, will become imminent in the coming years; underlines that Member States should allocate at least 5 % of the European Social Fund (ESF+) resources under shared management to support activities under the European Child Guarantee (ECG); stresses that it is essential that a separate budget of EUR 3 billion is created for the first year of its implementation, with the EU suffering the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, which will have an ever greater impact on children as the most vulnerable group among the most disadvantaged, and that a total of at least EUR 20 billion is invested in the ECG in the period 2021-2027; urges that this be complemented by a comprehensive Anti-Poverty Strategy including measures ensuring decent and affordable housing and tackling homelessness; recalls that any strategy to eradicate child poverty must take into account the reality of single parenthood and families with large numbers of children, given that single-parent households and households with many children are among the vulnerable groups in society; also underlines that Member States should allocate at least 3 % of the ESF+ resources under shared management, in order to tackle food and material deprivation as well as supporting the social inclusion of the most deprived;

15. Highlights that the COVID-19 crisis has already left many people jobless, especially young people who find themselves more often in precarious employment; welcomes in this context the Commission’s plans to strengthen the European Youth Guarantee, and calls on the Commission and the Member States to make the fight against youth unemployment a priority; highlights that it is necessary that Member States continue to invest sufficient ESF+ resources in measures to support youth employment and that they must therefore allocate at least 15 % of their ESF+ resources under shared management to targeted actions and structural reforms to support quality youth employment; recalls the need for a binding, more effective and inclusive Youth Guarantee that provides remunerated traineeships, apprenticeships, and internships, for all groups of people not in education, employment or training (NEETs), within a clear quality criteria framework governing the Youth Guarantee; condemns the practice of unpaid internships when not related to the obtention of educational qualifications, as a form of exploitation of young workers and a violation of their rights; calls on the Commission to put forward a legal framework for an effective and enforceable ban on such unpaid internships, traineeships and apprenticeships;

The Porto Agenda: targets and proposals

16. Believes that the Porto Agenda, as a strong Social Europe agenda for sustainable development, should encompass economic, social and environmental wellbeing indicators and should cover the following areas: decent work, social justice and equal opportunities, robust social welfare systems and fair mobility; considers that, in order to achieve more tangible results, this new agenda should combine quantitative and qualitative targets and should be anchored in a rights-based approach;

17. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to actively tackle the digital divide in access to public services, many of which have been digitalised during COVID-19, by ensuring EU financial support for social innovation at local level for making public services more easily accessible, including capacity-building and the scaling up of innovative bottom-up initiatives for e-inclusion and data literacy, so as to ensure that all citizens have access to high-quality, accessible and user-friendly services of general interest;

1. Decent work and sustainable and inclusive labour markets

18. Notes that decent wages are a key element of fair working conditions and for a thriving social market economy, and that wage levels should enable workers to meet their needs and those of their families; believes that every worker in the EU should receive a wage which ensures at least a decent standard of living; believes that strengthened collective bargaining is the best way to promote decent wages within the EU; calls on the Commission to identify barriers to collective bargaining within the EU and takes note of the proposal for a directive on minimum wages and collective bargaining; underlines that this directive should contribute to eliminating in-work poverty and promote collective bargaining, in line with national traditions and with due respect for the autonomy of national social partners and well-functioning collective bargaining models; reiterates its call on the Commission to carry out a study on a living wage index, in order to estimate the cost of living and the approximate income needed to meet a household’s basic needs for each Member State and region, since this could serve as a reference tool for social partners; insists that statutory minimum wages are set at a level above a decency threshold, with the full involvement of social partners, as this contributes to eliminating in-work poverty, guaranteeing an income for every worker above the poverty level while taking into account the variations in costs of living within Member States; calls for a coordinated approach at EU level in order to achieve real wage growth, avoid the downward spiral of unhealthy labour cost competition, and increase upward social convergence for all;

19. Calls on the Commission and the Member States, together with social partners, to commit to reaching collective bargaining coverage of 90 % by 2030 in those national systems that combine statutory and social partners’ regulation of employment and working conditions; stresses that collective bargaining contributes to the social market economy, as aimed for in the Lisbon Treaty; reiterates that the European treaties, which explicitly protect the autonomy of social partners, and the self-regulatory systems in place in some Member States, must be protected in order for social partners to regulate autonomously, ensuring strong legitimacy and collective agreement coverage progress; calls on the Member States to remove any national legislation that hampers collective bargaining, including by ensuring trade unions’ access to workplaces for the purpose of organising; underlines that reforms in Member States should not negatively affect collective bargaining and that it needs to be promoted at sectoral level, including by supporting the capacity-building of social partners; urges the Commission and the Member States to fully involve social partners in European policymaking, including in the European Semester process; believes that the proposed targets would contribute to the eradication of in-work poverty and to ensuring fair wages for European workers;

20. Calls on the Commission to revise the European public procurement directive in order to establish preferential treatment for companies complying with collective bargaining agreements; also calls on the Commission to strengthen the social clause and exclude from tenders companies which have engaged in criminal activities or union-busting or have refused to participate in collective bargaining, ensuring that public money is used to invest in those engaged in Just Transitions with the aim of promoting collective agreements and increasing trade union densities; considers furthermore that all EU financial support to undertakings should be made conditional on their compliance with the applicable working and employment conditions and/or employer obligations resulting from the relevant collective agreements; urges the Commission and the Member States to ensure that public service institutions, whether privately or publicly managed, provide decent working conditions for their staff, respecting in particular the freedom to negotiate and conclude collective sectoral or company-level agreements and the right to adequate wages;

22. Stresses that a European agenda for quality jobs is not only a question of decency, but is also good for the economy as it improves productivity and boosts internal demand; considers that a quality job must include a living wage, job security and access to social protection, lifelong learning opportunities, good working conditions in safe and healthy workplaces, reasonable working time with a good work-life balance, and trade union representation and bargaining rights; calls on the Commission to include the overall objective of raising work quality at the European level in the Semester process and the Social Scoreboard, with a view to guiding and assessing the contribution of employment policies across Member States to the implementation of the SDGs and the EPSR; calls on the Member States to give the social and employment-related Country Specific Recommendations, especially those issued in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, the same importance as they give to the economic and budgetary ones;

23. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to ensure the revision of the EU Employment Guidelines no later than one year after their adoption in 2020, in order to take into account the COVID-19 crisis and its social and employment consequences, and to respond better to similar future crises; insists that, in order to strengthen democratic decision-making, the European Parliament must be involved in defining the Integrated Guidelines for Growth and Jobs, on an equal footing with the Council; calls on Eurofound to contribute to the measurement of job quality in different contractual and employment settings and to provide policy-relevant analyses to assist the improvement of job quality and make work sustainable;

24. Is concerned about the increased number of workers in precarious and non-standard forms of employment, bogus self-employed and workers with zero-hour contracts, including in national public administrations; calls on the Commission and the Member States to work towards the objective of eliminating involuntary temporary and involuntary part-time employment by 2030 and towards the target of 80 % of jobs created being middle- or high-paying and concentrated in sustainable sectors; urges the Commission and the Member States to eliminate the practices of zero-hour contracts and bogus self-employment;

25. Calls on the Member States to commit to eliminating work-related deaths and reducing work-related illnesses by 2030; urges the Commission to come up with a new Occupational Health and Safety strategy, tackling both physical and mental health of workers, in order to achieve this aim; believes that this strategy must include the revision of the health and safety framework directive in order to protect workers during emergency situations like pandemics, as well as ambitious legislative proposals on musculoskeletal and stress-related disorders, in cooperation with social partners; calls on the Commission to continue to update the Carcinogens and Mutagens Directive (CMD) and propose Binding Occupational Exposure Limit Values (BOELs) for a minimum of an additional 50 substances by 2024, and to include substances with damaging effects on the reproductive system in the Directive and introduce stricter limit values on harmful substances such as carcinogens and mutagens; stresses that the EU must follow up on the European Framework for Action on Mental Health; notes that one of the targets is also the prevention of cancer, as 40 % of cancers are considered to be preventable; calls on the Commission to present an ambitious Beating Cancer Plan to help reduce the suffering caused by this disease; calls for the role of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work to be strengthened in order to promote healthy and safe workplaces across the Union and further develop initiatives to improve workplace prevention in all sectors of activity;

26. Calls on the Commission to present a strategic EU care agenda as a further step forward in qualitatively empowering the healthcare sector in the EU, including personal and household services workers; reiterates that the care agenda needs also to reflect the situation of the 100 million informal carers in the EU, who provide 80 % of long-term care but remain mostly unrecognised; calls on the Commission, in coordination with the Member States, to develop a regulatory framework that guarantees quality care services, including assessing new opportunities in the healthcare sector benefiting consumers and patients, while respecting the role of public and private institutions in the provision of services to citizens and ensuring decent working conditions for carers;

27. Acknowledges that fair, socially sustainable work and real employee participation in shaping working conditions are more important than ever, in digital platforms as in all other sectors, and that workers must have democratic influence over the governance of work; underlines that the benefits of digitalisation must be shared broadly and equitably and that workers in the digital sector must enjoy the same rights and working conditions as those in other sectors; calls on the Commission to propose a directive on decent working conditions and rights in the digital economy, covering all workers, including non-standard workers on atypical contracts, workers in platform companies and the self-employed; calls on the Commission to ensure in this directive that platform businesses comply with the existing national and European legislation, to clarify the employment status of platform-based workers through the rebuttable assumption of an employment relationship and to safeguard their working conditions, social protection and health and safety, as well as their right to organise, to be represented by trade unions and to negotiate collective agreements, including for the self-employed; urges the Commission to come up with a targeted revision of EU competition law so as to allow collective price-setting for the precarious self-employed, in order to ensure a better balance in bargaining power and a fairer internal market;

28. Stresses that the COVID-19 pandemic has underlined the importance of digital solutions, particularly teleworking; urges the Commission to present a directive on minimum standards and conditions for fair teleworking, to protect the health and safety of workers and to ensure decent working conditions, including its voluntary nature, respect for working hours, leave, work-life balance and other digital rights at work such as the right to disconnect, the protection of workers’ privacy, including through remote monitoring or any other tracking, and the prohibition of microchip implants on workers and of the use of artificial intelligence in recruitment processes, while taking into consideration the European Social Partners Framework Agreement on Digitalisation;

29. Calls on the Commission to introduce a new framework directive on workers’ information, consultation and participation for European company forms, including subcontracting chains and franchises, and for companies that use European company mobility instruments, in order to establish minimum standards including on anticipation of change and restructuring, in particular at company level; also calls for a revision of the European Works Council (EWC) directive to ensure inter alia proper enforcement, access to justice and effective sanctions for violation of the rules and improve the functioning of the special negotiating body, including a transnational information and consultation process, to be properly conducted and completed before any decisions are taken; calls on the Commission to promote employee share ownership, as a tool to enhance the inclusion of workers by improving democracy at work, while reducing inequality as well as the risk of job losses during downturns;