This flagship event – part of CECOP’s campaign on quality jobs – was hosted by Smart Belgique, a cooperative of self-employed workers founded in 1998. Anne-Laure Desgris, Vice-President of CECOP & Co-CEO of Smart Belgique, opened the conference by underlining how Smart contributes to job quality through secure pay, access to social security, and participation in decision-making, without compromising autonomy at work.

Wouter Zwysen, Senior Researcher at the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), provided an overview of the ETUI’s job quality index. He emphasised that assessing job quality requires taking multiple dimensions into account, such as work-life balance, working conditions, and income quality. Results show that job quality has increased over time, however, Western Europe scores higher than Southern and Central-Eastern Europe, even when the findings are divided by gender. Furthermore, there has been minimal improvement for youth, migrants, and people with low education.

CECOP also unveiled its new report, “Quality Jobs, the Cooperative Way”, written by Mila Shamku, an independent expert on EU affairs. It illustrates, through a political lens, what quality jobs mean for the cooperative movement. In particular, the report defines the key dimensions of a quality job, such as fair wages and working conditions and democracy at work: characteristics of the cooperative model.

“On top of CECOP’s policy recommendations aimed at feeding the Quality Jobs Roadmap, we call for a greater coherence across all upcoming EU initiatives impacting the world of work. When designing such initiatives, it is essential that the EU systematically assesses their impact on the quality of jobs.” – CECOP Secretary-General Diana Dovgan

Diana Dovgan, Secretary-General of CECOP, presented the policy recommendations outlined in the report. In particular, CECOP recommends that the European Commission:

  • Recognise and promote the worker-ownership model as an employment relationship characterised by quality working conditions.
  • Ensure better access to finance for cooperatives, taking into account their specific characteristics.
  • Provide targeted support to cooperatives to expand their training programs.
  • Consider non-standard workers’ needs and remove legal barriers to the creation of cooperatives of autonomous workers.
  • Promote workers’ buyouts as a way to create quality jobs by establishing a “workers-first job retention strategy”.
  • Include in the Quality Jobs Roadmap the development of an EU-level set of indicators on the definition of quality jobs, with worker ownership as a stand-alone indicator.
  • Prioritise reforms in public procurement rules, state aid regimes, and financial instruments that reflect the unique nature of cooperatives.

The above interventions were followed by a policy panel. Joël Le Déroff, Policy Officer at the European Commission in Unit C3 - Social Dialogue, DG EMPL, discussed the upcoming Quality Jobs Roadmap from the perspective of the Commission. Drawing on the European Commission’s commitments to quality jobs and referring to the European model of competitiveness, this tool is structured around three main pillars: improving working conditions and ensuring fair wages; thinking and adapting to the digital, green and demographic transitions; creating and supporting high-quality jobs in the labour market.

“Among the dimensions that describe quality jobs, we are strongly committed to the social environment, working intensity, training and skills development. The worker ownership model is also very important.” – European Commission Policy Officer Joël Le Déroff

MEP Idoia Mendía, (S&D, Spain), praised cooperatives for their ability to put people at the core of the economy, build bridges with local communities and provide quality jobs. She added that the cooperative model can be effective in addressing uncertainty, precariousness, labour market transformation and the twin transition thanks to its greater flexibility and democratic governance, as demonstrated during the 2008 economic crisis and, more recently, the Covid-19 pandemic.

“In the cooperative model, quality work is not only an ideal to strive for, but also an existing economic and social reality, where people participate democratically in decisions aimed at innovation and increased productivity.” – MEP Idoia Mendía

Sincere recognition for the contribution of cooperatives to promoting social and economic growth in Europe also came from MEP Maravillas Abadía Jover (EPP, Spain). She also welcomed the upcoming Quality Jobs Roadmap as a policy framework that ensures stability in an evolving labour market shaped by the digital transition. However, she cautioned that this will only foster sustainable competitiveness if it offers businesses and workers concrete opportunities to invest in human capital.

“Cooperatives offer essential value and should be considered strategic allies in the economy. Their unique governance model allows for workers’ integration, lifelong learning and professional development. This means that they are already generating quality jobs.” – MEP Maravillas Abadía Jover

In the last panel, co-operators presented the practices of their organisations, based in Italy and Spain respectively. Giorgia Soldoni (Italy) is the President of Centro Papa Giovanni XXIII social cooperative, which has been providing social and health services to people with disabilities, employing disadvantaged persons in the catering sector, and offering career guidance to vulnerable individuals since 1997. She underlined the role cooperatives have in engendering common good both internally and in the local community, and called on the EU to provide specific support to social cooperatives in order for them to revitalise the value of social work while ensuring economic sustainability, create partnerships at the local level, and promote a human-centred digital transition.

Pablo José Mohedano Cabezas (Spain), President of Givit Delivery Coop platform cooperative, stressed that cooperatives promote critical thinking and enable transparent data sharing among workers, compared to other forms of enterprise in the same sector. Givit was founded in 2019 in response to precarious work in the delivery sector and now has over 1,000 members and a €9 million turnover. The information obtained from the data collected in Givit is used to make strategic decisions collectively and consensually. The main challenge mentioned by Mohedano Cabezas is to scale without losing democratic governance, which will only be possible if unfair competition and access to funding are addressed effectively at European level.

“It is a matter of consistency for European institutions to firmly include the cooperative movement in defining job quality, as it is a model that places people at the heart of its business. In this respect, we must work together toward a sustainable future in which no one feels excluded.” – CECOP President Monica Fantini

The President of CECOP, Monica Fantini, concluded the conference. In her view, the most important aspects of job quality are work-life balance, equal pay, and professional development in areas such as innovation. As there is still much to be done in this respect, she warmly invited all stakeholders to continue playing an active role in the discussion.

This event has been funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however, those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.