€500m EC fund for workers hit by moves
Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said the aid scheme was meant to soften the blow of restructuring due to increased global competition across the EU.
It was also to “express the union’s solidarity toward those severely and personally affected by trade-adjustment redundancies”. Mr Barroso said the fund would help boost job growth in Europe.
The proposal comes after major job losses in Ireland to China, Malaysia, Indonesia and elsewhere, especially in the manufacturing sector, most recently with 350 jobs lost at NEC in Co Meath.
Mr Barroso said the fund would express the EU’s solidarity with those severely and personally affected by trade-adjustment redundancies.
“In this way, it will provide a stimulus to respond appropriately and effectively to the adverse impact of market opening. The fund will help workers made redundant back to work because we want a competitive, but also a fair EU.”
The so-called ‘globalisation adjustment fund’ aims to offer new skills training to workers laid off or who lost jobs due to major companies moving elsewhere.
EU Employment Commissioner Vladimir Spidla said, under the plan, national governments could ask Brussels to release funds for laid-off workers if there is a “link between job losses and significant structural changes in global trade patterns”.
“The main idea behind this fund is not to help companies or protect failing sectors but to help people get through a difficult situation,” Mr Spidla said.
The commission will adopt a plan outlining the precise conditions that must be fulfilled for a country to apply for the financial injection for its citizens. Under the rules, the money could be used in cases where the dismantling of a major company or industry sector affects 1,000 people or 1% of workers in a certain region.
The fund could be put towards the training of employees to prepare them for other jobs, as well as for helping them out financially for up to 18 months before they are laid off, in the form of income support allowances or complementary wage allowances for workers over 50.
It is estimated that the resources could help around 35,000 to 50,000 people working in the textile or automobile industry or any sectors that may decline due to global pressures.
