Vienna, 24 May 2019

Leaders of Europe’s national trade unions today re-elected Luca Visentini as General Secretary and elected Laurent Berger as President of the European Trade Union Confederation.

They also adopted a new manifesto and action programme for 2019-23 for ‘A fairer Europe for workers’.
The ETUC Congress, meeting in Vienna, also elected
two Deputy General Secretaries – Ester Lynch and Per Hilmersson;
three Confederal Secretaries Liina Carr, Isabelle Schömann and Ludovic Voet;
four VicePresidents José María (Pepe) Álvarez, Miranda Ulens, Bente Sorgenfrey and Josef Středula.
Luca Visentini was elected General Secretary at the previous ETUC Congress in Paris in 2015. Before that he was ETUC Confederal Secretary from 2011, and a member of Italian union UIL since 1989.
Laurent Berger is Secretary General of French trade union CFDT, a post he has held since 2012.

Policies adopted today by ETUC Congress, as part of the ETUC manifesto and Action Programme 2019-23, which the ETUC will press the new European Parliament and Commission to implement, include

• Reform of EU economic policymaking, budget and Monetary Union to promote social justice, job-friendly investment, sustainable growth, and fair, progressive taxation as
  objectives of EU economic policy.
• Full implementation of the 20 principles of the European Pillar of Social Rights adopted by the EU in 2017, including gender equality, equal opportunities, the right to fair wages and the right to education, training and life-long learning.
• EU action to support stronger collective bargaining – negotiations between employers and trade unions on pay and working conditions – in all EU countries.
• a socially just transition to a low-carbon, digital, automated and global economy – with EU legislation, policies and funds to ensure that no one is left behind
• Shape the future of work with EU law to reduce precarious employment, establish workers’ rights in new forms of work, stop wage and social dumping and build fair worker mobility and equal treatment;
• Reform of EU law to strengthen information and consultation of workers, the representation of workers on company boards and European Works Councils.

“The mission for the next term will be to fight the attacks on democracy and tolerance” said Luca Visentini, “and to go further than the Juncker Commission in promoting social justice, quality jobs and higher wages across the EU.”
“We will also be pressing the EU to tackle climate change with renewed urgency and to do more to proactively manage climate action, digitalisation and automation so that nobody is left behind.”