Working together for employment, employability and decent work

Transcription

1 Working together for employment, employability and decent work Fight against undeclared work at a tripartite Level in Greece: A good practice for the social dialogue in the time of crisis High- Level Working Group on Employment and Labour of the Union for the Mediterranean Barcelona, 29 March 2017 Athina Malagardi, ILO National Program Officer

2 Greece: 7 years of deep recession at the Greek economy and the labour market ; 23,1% Unemployment rate on Dec2016: 19,5% men; 27,6% women; 45,2% for the young people from 15 to 24age; Coverage of Collective Bargaining: 85% in 2009, 40% in 2013 and about 10% in 2016 ; Brain- Drain: young scientists (25-39 years old) according to the Bank of Greece (2015) left permanently the country for better jobs from the beginning of the financial crisis

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4 25% of GDP the size of the informal economy - one of the largest size of the undeclared economy as percentage of GDP in the 28 EU countries; 96% of all enterprises are micro enterprises with 1-9 employees, employing 55% of the labour force and the highest percentage of selfemployed people in the EU28 at a rate of more than 32% (14% in the EU-28). According to the 2013 Eurobarometer survey, of all undeclared work in Greece: 67.3% was waged employment with : 13.3% wholly undeclared waged employment and 54% under-declared employment, 10.2% was undeclared self-employment and 22.5% was paid favours for close social relations.

5 28 billion EUR was the evaded taxable income for the self-employed in Greece estimated in 2009, implying that on average the true income of self-employed was 1.92 times their reported income (Artavanis et al., 2012).

6 3- year ESM support program for Greece August 2015, a three-year European Stability Mechanism (ESM) support program for Greece was approved by the ESM Board of Governors and cosigned by the Greek authorities and the European Commission. This includes a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that spells out the detailed policy conditions attached to the financial assistance to Greece (European Commission, 2015a). A key deliverable of the MoU is that the authorities will adopt an integrated action plan to fight undeclared and under-declared work in order to strengthen the competitiveness of legal companies and protect workers as well as raise tax and social security revenues. This will include improved governance of the labour inspectorate and specify technical assistance. As a first step, the authorities will link the tax, ERGANI and social security fund reporting framework to detect undeclared work (European Commission, 2015a: 22).

7 ILO/EC project Supporting the transition from informal to formal economy and addressing undeclared work in Greece The ILO in the frame of this project and in close collaboration with the Greek Government and the national social partners has produced, through a participative and consultative process, a report on the Diagnosis of Undeclared Work The Diagnostic report was endorsed by the Greek Government and the social partners in a high level tripartite validation meeting held on 6 th of July Additionally, through tripartite dialogue, a road map for addressing undeclared work in Greece has been designed and validated in a tripartite validation meeting on 26 of October This road map, aims to contain a balanced regulatory and policy framework for preventive and appropriate corrective measures that will facilitate the transition to the formal economy and tackle undeclared work for the next three years

8 Website to increase the awareness of the multiple costs of undeclared work and non-tax compliance Both the diagnostic report and the roadmap against undeclared work in Greece are available at the website:

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10 Social Dialogue in Greece: From 2010, tripartite social dialogue has been under stressed due to prolonged recession. In Many countries where fiscal adjustment programs were implemented a deficit of social dialogue has emerged. OKE s role (National Economic and Social Committee), as a national body responsible to conduct social dialogue, as laid down by the Constitution, on any subject of general national policy, with particular emphasis on the guidelines of social and economic policy, has dramatically shrunk with most of its interventions being ignored and its resources decreased.

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12 Tripartite National Councils/ Committees In many cases at the past most of the tripartite National Councils / Committees of political level (e.g. National Committee of Employment) have served mainly communication purposes and are used as publicity platforms of governmental policies and not as structures of social dialogue. In the National General Collective Agreement to 2014 the five national social partners that represent the workers (GSEE) and the employers (SEV, GSEBEE, ESEE, SETE) in Greece agreed on a National Social Partners' Plan of Joint Action to restore confidence and empower their effective participation in social dialogue. In this initiative, national social partners have given great importance to ILO s technical contribution.

13 Fight against undeclared work in a tripartite Level in Greece: a good practice for the social dialogue in the time of crisis In the field of the ILO/EC project the tripartite social dialogue begun by the diagnostic mission which took place in Athens for 10 days on April 2016 by a high level team of experts that prepared this comprehensive Diagnostic Report: Professor Colin Williams from Sheffield University, Dr. Stavroula Demetriades from EUROFOUND and Professor Eleni Patra from the American College of Greece. This team with the technical support of the ILO discussed with all the key stakeholders the aspects of undeclared work in Greece.

14 Key stakeholders- Greek Government: Ministries Ministry of Labour, Social Security and Social Solidarity - SEPE (National Labour Inspectorate: Executive Secretary/ERGANI/ARTEMIS/ Inspectors) Ministry of Finance - Special Secretariat Financial and Economic Crime Unit- SDOE - General Secretariat for Information Systems- GSIS - General Secretariat of Public Revenues Ministry for Interior and Administrative Reconstruction - Financial Police Division - Hellenic Police Headquarters Ministry of Rural Development and Food

15 Key stakeholders-social partners EMPLOYERS: - Hellenic Federation of Enterprises (SEV) - Hellenic Confederation of Professionals, Craftsmen & Merchants (GSEVEE) - Hellenic Confederation of Commerce and Entrepreneurship (ESEE) - Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises (SETE) WORKERS: Greek General Confederation of Labour (GSEE)

16 Key stakeholders- Funds and Research centres: Social security authorities and Funds: - Social Security Organization for the Self-Employed (OAEE) - Organization on Social Security and Agriculture (OGA) - United Insurance Fund for Employees (IKA) Research Centres: Labour Institute of GSEE (INE-GSEE) Institute of Commerce and Services (INEMY-ESEE) Small Enterprises Institute (IME-GSEVEE) Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research (IOBE) Centre of Planning and Economic Research (KEPE) Society of Labour Law and Social Security (EDEKA)

17 Key stakeholders- Universities, Chambers and other agencies: Universities: National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (EKPA) Athens University of Economics and Business (AUEB) Chambers: Athens Chamber of Commerce and Industry (EVEA) American Hellenic Chamber of Commerce Others agencies: Public Employment Agency (OAED) Bank of Greece Greek Ombudsman Organization for Mediation and Arbitration (OMED) Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) Economic and Social Council of Greece (OKE)

18 Results from the Diagnostic mission: The Diagnostic report and the Roadmap against undeclared work After this participative diagnostic mission was created the diagnostic report as the result of this process and all this feedback which has been validated in a tripartite high level workshop with the presence of the Minister of Labour, Social Security and Social Solidarity and the Presidents of all the national social partners on 6 th of July After this tripartite validation the Greek Government with the national social partners worked very closely on the 25 Recommendations proposed by the Diagnostic report and lot of meetings and discussions took place for this reason The result of this tripartite process was the creation of the Roadmap against undeclared work for the next 3 years. This roadmap has been validated in a tripartite level on 26 th of October 2016.

19 Social dialogue for the next 3 years : a non stop process against undeclared work How? Through the new Tripartite -institutional body with equal representation of all the parties Government, workers and employers. This Tripartite Body will be responsible for implementing the holistic integrated strategic approach towards tackling undeclared work, including the monitoring of this roadmap involving social partners in the design and implementation of economic, employment and social policies.

20 The New Tripartite Body with equal representation by the Government, workers and employers Will progress reports every 6 months on the implementation of the roadmap; will establish feed up into the EU Platform for tackling undeclared work, and will create evaluation methodology and setting objectives specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time- bound.

21 The national social partners will participate in the social dialogue on : The evaluation of the impact of sanctions and the framework for the fines, based on prevention, company viability and motivation for declaring the workers; Increasing responsibility in public works and on the Framework for public works that will hold the contractor responsible for violation of labour laws by the subcontractors and it also requires that contractors come from the white list of the ministry of labour; The evaluation of the service vouchers system, especially in the agricultural sector which has a high level of seasonal workers who are undocumented migrants, will become better regulated and will lead to a more robust method of controlling undeclared work in the sector and additionally in household and personal services;

22 On Tax Incentive scheme for formalization Dialog with the social partners on tax incentives for formalization; Identification of target areas; On the Fight against bogus self- employment Tripartite dialogue under the coordinating body on the fight against bogus self-employment. The dialog will produce an action plan for bogus selfemployment.

23 On Introducing a voluntary supply chain responsibility initiative; On the Ratification of the International Labor Convention 129; On the Information and awareness campaign for the benefits of declared work may increasing the level of voluntary compliance. The social partners already participate at the website providing their feedback. In addition, they will launch new campaign strategy based on the results of ILO s campaign, involving multiple different actions (contests, social media, talks in schools). On the pilot program and the elaboration of an inspection plan for a location using tripartite consensual strategy and new inspection methodologies to address undeclared work.

24 Ex post evaluation on 2019 for the fight against undeclared work At the end of the third year on 2019 the Greek Government and the social partners will make an ex post evaluation of policy measures.

25 Now is the time for actions and implementation! The Commitment of the Greek Government and the social partners on working together and learning from each other on the transition from the informal to formal economy will be judged not only by the planning but by the actions. And at this stage for the next three years based on the roadmap and the national action plan a lot of actions should be done.

26 Thank you for your time and attention.