Brussels (Brussels Morning Newspaper): Over 1000 cleaners security guards and food service workers will gather in Brussels on October 1 to demand reforms to the EU public procurement directive which affects wages and working conditions .
More than 1000 cleaners security guards and food service workers will gather in Brussels on October 1 at Place Jean Rey starting at 12:00. They are coming together to demand immediate changes to the EU public procurement directive. These rules mean that public authorities hire private companies to provide goods and services which directly impact wages and working conditions.
How do EU Procurement rules affect wages and public service quality?
These rules basically mean that when public authorities hire private companies to do work it can influence how much people get paid and the conditions they work in. Because of the rules that prioritize choosing the cheapest option almost half of the public contracts in the EU are given to the bidder with the lowest price. This information comes from a study by the European trade union federation UNI Europa one of the groups helping organize the event.
The unions view this as directly impairing the quality and standard of the public service in the EU. The social aspects are left out by the public authorities while awarding contracts with an eye on the financial pressures immobilized by the procurement rules. These contracts provide jobs to millions of workers in the EU constituting an approximate 14 percent of overall GDP output for the EU. In 2022 expenditure on health represented 15.3 % of GDP above the average of OECD countries which equalled 14.55 % at that time. Total government expenditure in Belgium accounted for 28.6 % of GDP less than the average at the same time.
