EU Parliament's new employment committee eyes AI at work, housing, subcontracting

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The EU needs to keep up with the impact of AI in the workplace, and lawmakers should share best practices from the their own jurisdicitions, the head of the parliamentary employment and social affairs committee (EMPL) told Euronews in an interview.

Nordic countries bucked the trend that saw the The Left group haemmorhage support in June's European elections: Denmark and Finland made unexpectedly big gains with the Finnish socialist Left Alliance (Vasemmistoliitto) winning 17.3% of the vote, giving it three of the country's 15 European Parliament (EP) seats. The party's leader, Li Andersson, a 37-year-old former education minister, received more votes than any other candidate has ever received in a European election, Euronews reported.

Andersson has been appointed chair of the Employment and Social Affairs Committee (EMPL) for the coming two and a half years, where she is ready to tackle challenges ranging from AI in the workplace to labour exploitation within supply chains. 

Euronews: Now that the Committee is in place, what work can we expect over the next five years in two areas where the EU has limited competence? 

Li Andersson: First of all, if you look at the election results and if you look at all the challenges that the EU is facing, for me personally it shows the need to invest in the social dimension of EU policies. So I hope that this is a conclusion that many politicians in different political groups will draw, both from the protests that we have seen in recent years, but also from the election results and so on. So we really have to make sure that the work that the EU does retains its legitimacy in the eyes of the people. 

I think it's really important that the EU also shows that there is a real willingness to address problems through its social policy and labour market issues. So of course a lot of what we will be working on will be defined by what the new Commission will do. And I think one of my main messages was that when you think about the EMPL Committee, it's not enough to have nice objectives and summits and seminars. They (the EU Commission) also need to propose legislative initiatives so that we can do work that really leads to real changes and solutions to problems.

Euronews: What are the challenges and most pressing issues facing the EU in the field of employment and social affairs?

In the area of employment, I would say that there are some important big issues and developments. For example, when you talk about social dialogue, I think you can see in a lot of European countries at the moment a lack of understanding of all the benefits that collective bargaining and this whole model has for everybody, the companies, and the workers. So everybody benefits from it. It brings structural stability to the labour market. And this work needs to be continued in the next government. 

Then, of course, there's still the question of the exploitation of workers in the labour market, subcontracting, for example. Also, the discussion about the European Labour Authority, its mandate, its resources, and its possibilities to work together with national governments, needs to be strengthened to really be able to address these issues. 

And also, there are new issues arising as well. I say we still need to talk about how to make the twin transitions fair. How to make sure that workers are involved in the green and digital transitions, both at the EU level and at the national level. We need to work on AI in our work lives. And in Ursula von der Leyen's speech, there weren't so many concrete proposals on employment, but there was the initiative on the right to disconnect. So that was already included in her political guidelines.

The last point I'd like to make has to do with psychosocial stress and its regulation because that's a huge problem in many female-dominated sectors of the labour market, such as health, social care, and also education. I think it will be important to work on this from a gender equality perspective. 

Euronews: How can the rise of hard and far-right forces affect the work of the committee, given that they are generally opposed to legislative action in areas where member states have the bulk of competences? 

Well, it remains to be seen. I think everybody is waiting a bit to see what will happen because what I have heard from colleagues who have worked in the EMPL committee during the last term is that they felt that there was a very good atmosphere in the committee, a very cooperative kind of atmosphere. So although parties and political groups have different views on many issues, there was still a kind of commitment, a willingness to work on these issues, for example for a more ambitious social policy and on labour market issues, that was somehow connected, also from different political backgrounds and MEPs. So that is what I as the chair, of course, hope we will be able to continue in the coming term. 

And the EU should definitely use the legislative power that it has in terms of labour market issues. Then, it's also important how the Commission will work on, for example, housing and poverty, those kinds of policy issues where they don't have (much) competence. I mean, they still have the ability to push an agenda towards the member states if they want to, and I think that's still looking at the issues that have been discussed politically in Europe around the rising cost of living, the green transition. But for me, it shows the need to do more in terms of the anchor mandate, not less. So I really hope that this will be the attitude that the different political groups will take. 

Euronews: During the last mandate, we saw legislation to protect new forms of work, such as the platform sector, but there are still other jobs that are not fully protected, such as domestic workers. Do you plan to push for more action for those who are less protected?

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On a general level, you can see with platform work, you can see it in the domestic sector, the problem is that there are always new ways in which people are trying to somehow transfer work outside the employment contract, and this has always happened at the expense of the worker. So if we want to make sure that workers in Europe are protected, we have to keep up with what is happening in the labour market. I think that's very clear. But the sectors are changing so fast that legislation is always a bit behind. 

I think the whole idea of looking at AI and working life is very important because that would probably also expand quite quickly, so we need to make sure that both EU and national policymakers keep up with the pace at which things are changing.

Euronews: Some groups are more affected by the cost of living crisis, such as the unemployed, young people or people with disabilities, do you think the EU Parliament should do more to support these people?

The Parliament should take the initiative and think about what kind of new proposals there could be. Maybe also looking at best practices from different countries, what has worked. This is also a place where you can share information and share best practices among MEPs. So I think it's also a way for the Parliament to kind of give initiatives to the Commission and so on to make its own proposals. 

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It will be very interesting to see now, because housing is really going to be an issue for the next Commission, how they are going to work with it in practice. My understanding is that they're thinking about looking at, for example, the rules on state aid. So of course there are ways in which the EU can make it easier for member states to address the cost of living, because as we know, housing is a very crucial part of it, in all the bigger cities, in the different member states there are discussions about the cost of housing and how it affects especially workers with low income and also young students, for example, who have to move out of their flats. So, of course, I personally hope that the EMPL Committee will play a role in this. But it will be very interesting to see what kind of concrete proposals there will be. I think housing is also an issue where best practices need to be shared. 

It's important because you have countries such as Finland, which has done a lot of work on homelessness. And also for a long time, it has achieved quite good results. So I think it also shows that these kinds of social problems can be solved because I think sometimes there's a bit of a lack of ambition or politicians start to think 'we can't do anything about this, so I'll just focus on something else', but you can solve these problems. It has to do with unemployment, youth exclusion, homelessness, and so on. But of course, you need the ambition and the will to really invest.

Euronews: You come from Finland and the Nordic countries have a very different way of understanding social dialogue, collective bargaining and labour relations in general, so how can you bring this different expertise to the discussions in the EMPL committee?

I believe that the most important message regarding the Nordic experience is really that everyone benefits. That's my view. So the company benefits, the employers benefit, the workers benefit and society as a whole benefits. Because when you have a well-functioning system of collective bargaining and you have a high number of organised workers, companies and employers, it brings stability. And it also brings a development where you can take shortcuts, for example, where the differences between wages, the gender wage gap and so on, don't get too big. So it's a way of keeping everyone on board. 

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Euronews: At the end of the last term, the EMPL committee successfully called for Amazon lobbyists to be banned from the Parliament, what message should lobbyists and other corporate powers expect for this term? 

I think the decision on the Amazon lobbyist is actually a good example of what can be expected. If they want to have access to lobbying, then of course they should have an obligation to answer questions and to attend committee hearings. So it's kind of a fair balance.