Neither a conclusion nor a deadlock was reached in the recent meeting held yesterday by the Minister of Labour, Yiannis Panagiotou, concerning the issue of the employment strategy for third-country nationals.
The meeting took place in a constructive and positive atmosphere, according to participants.
According to information obtained by Phileleftheros, the proposals put forward verbally by the Minister of Labour yesterday contributed to enhancing the role of the Monitoring Committee for the employment strategy.
This would involve a more active and substantive involvement of all social partners.
As known, particularly the trade unions have expressed strong disagreement and concern for about a year now, since the previous government approved the existing employment strategy that continues to be implemented.
This disagreement and concern are also due to the abolition of technical committees that previously operated and had an advisory role, examining applications for foreign workers by sector.
With the abolition of these technical committees, the trade union movement argues that there is now no transparency on the issue and that the current procedures undermine collective agreements.
They demand, among other things, a determination of the terms of employment for foreign workers to end labour market deregulation, exploitation of foreign personnel, and unfair competition between businesses.
However, the framework verbally presented by Mr Panagiotou to the social partners, according to union sources, seems to be moving in the right direction.
Official statements, however, will be made when the proposal being developed by the Ministry of Labour is presented to them in writing.
As agreed upon yesterday, this will happen within the next 24 hours, so that next Wednesday there will be a new meeting between the Minister and the heads of the organisations SEK, PEO, DEOK, OEB, and KEVE, to discuss based on the written proposal that will be provided.
At the upcoming meeting, in April, it will become clear whether there are convergences on strengthening the cooperation of all social partners on the issue.
Initially, according to information, no changes are expected in the existing strategy but an enhancement of the role of social partners in monitoring it, as staffing of companies that applied for foreign personnel, especially for the summer period, has already been completed or is nearing completion.
However, within the framework of upgrading the role of the Monitoring Committee, it is not excluded that it may even have the possibility of recommending the revocation of licenses, which is the responsibility of the Ministry of Labour.
As we wrote, the Ministry has already warned of such a possibility if abuse of the procedures for employing foreign nationals is detected to the detriment of local employment.
