NEWS

The ETUC co-organized an awareness event around standardization and its relevance for trade unions with affiliate UNI Europa, the European Services Workers Union.

Twice a year, ETUC organizes national workshops in order to increase awareness within the trade union movement about the world of standards, their influence at the workplace, and their development process. On 22 May, together with Spanish trade union USO, ETUC organized a national workshop in Madrid, Spain, which was kindly hosted on the premises of UNE, the Spanish Association for Standardization.

ISO/TC 260 on Human Resource Management is currently looking at preparing an international standard on ‘Guidance for risk management and the ethical use and adoption of technology’. The aim is to propose measures to mitigate the human capital risks and provide guidance for the use and adoption of technology for HR processes / practices and job roles. The ETUC is opposing the proposed work as the development of such a standard raises a number of concerns.

Security staff working at European airports and ports will receive higher levels of training under new standards set in conjunction with trade unions. ETUC and UNI Europa, representing security staff, have contributed to revising two European standards on the minimum criteria for the provision of security services in the aviation and maritime sectors.

The European Commission standardization request in support of EU policy on artificial intelligence (European Commission C (2023)3215), issued in May 2023, requires facilitating an appropriate representation and effective participation of relevant stakeholders in the development of the standards mandated to support the AI Act.

The ETUC participated to the second meeting of the European Commission’s High-Level Forum on Standardization (HLF), held in Brussels on Thursday 30 November. The Forum, chaired by Commissioner Thierry Breton, gathered the various stakeholders involved in standardization to discuss priorities and horizontal issues, including international leadership and education and skills.

Bribery, fraudulent activities, harassment, and discrimination are all forms of misconduct that can occur within an organization. In such cases, an investigation needs to be carried out to find out what happened, and potential risks and solutions.

While the legislative process on the proposal for a Regulation laying down harmonised rules on Artificial Intelligence (AI Act) is still ongoing, the European Commission is seeking to speed up the development of standards on AI, with a view to having harmonized standards produced and available by the time the regulation is applicable at the end of 2024/beginning of 2025. To this aim, the Commission issued on 20 May a draft standardization request in support of safe and trustworthy Artificial Intelligence.

On 5 April, the ETUC submitted its reply to the consultation on the proposed amendment to article 10 of Regulation (EU) 1025/2012 on European standardization, which the European Commission had issued as part of the new European Standardization Strategy package on 2 February.

On 18 March, Isabelle Schömann, ETUC’s Confederal Secretary in charge of standardization, was invited to speak at the EESC expert hearing on “The role of standards for the twin transition and the competitiveness of the EU”, to provide the trade unions’ perspective on the recently published new European Strategy on Standardization.