INVITATION to trade-unions and other organizations

European Assembly of the Unemployed and Insecure Workers in the Struggle

Brussels
11-12 December 2001

Dear friends,

After Cologne in 1999, Paris-Créteil in 2000, Brussels will play host to the third Assembly of the organizations fighting against unemployment and insecure work on the 11 and 12 December 2001, just before the EU summit of Laeken.

After some short improvement, unemployment goes back up in the EU countries. The attacks in the US and the war have reinforced the recession, which can be seen through the redundancies which flourish in the different economical sectors. There is also, meanwhile, a generalization of insecure jobs.

We already analysed this situation as the result of the EU's Broad Economic Orientation Guidelines during our last assemblies. The measures taken by Schröder in Germany, the PARE in France, the Vande Lanotte programme in Belgium are indeed the concrete manifestations of the EU directives, which aim at compromising the unemployment and social benefits and at turning unemployment into compulsory insecure jobs.

During our third assembly, we will be pursuing these analyses, country by country, but we also want to go further with our demand of the right to a guaranteed income, our refusal of insecure jobs and of the workfare policies on the European scale so that we can make our actions and initiatives converge on this scale.

This is indeed a matter of urgency, as a constitutional process should start during the Laeken-Brussels summit with the aim of codifying the rights on the EU scale. The second-rate Charter of the Fundamental Rights, which was proclaimed in Nice and which does not include any social right, would then become the preamble of this constitution and the reference text.

We do count on your presence. Please find enclosed the proposal for a schedule and some booking forms. As before, participants have to pay for food and lodging. We also ask all the countries to help with the expenses concerning the organization of the Assembly itself.

The Euromarches Secretariat deals with the concrete organization of this third Assembly, which is open to all the organizations fighting against unemployment and insecure work and in which is involved the European Network of the Unemployed (ENU).

For booking, please contact your trade union or organization, or send us an e-mail: marches97@ras.eu.org

For the Euromarches Secretariat
Michel Rousseau