European coalition calls on EU countries to take action for domestic workers’ rights In June, a multi-stakeholder coalition (C189 Alliance) held an online event and published a report to assess progress and call for more action to protect all domestic workers’ rights, ten years since the adoption of the ILO Convention 189 on domestic workers. The C189 Alliance brings together employers’, workers’ and non-governmental organisations from across Europe as well the ILO and European Commission. The civil society actors also addressed letters to those EU countries (two thirds) who are yet to write the measures of the Convention into national law. Recordings and presentations from the event can be viewed here. New global report finds increase in number of international migrant workers The International Labour Organisation has published a report which estimates that there are 169 million international migrant workers worldwide. This marks a 3% increase in relation to 2017 estimates. In 2019, Europe had an estimated 54.3 million migrant workers, including EU mobile citizens and third country nationals - 40.9 million (18.4% of all workers) in Northern, Central and Southern Europe and 13.4 million (9.4% of all workers) in Eastern Europe. The report finds that COVID-19 has intensified existing vulnerabilities of migrant workers, in particular women, as they are over-represented in low-paid jobs and have limited access to support services. New research finds major gaps in implementation of EU Employers Sanctions’ Directive The EU Fundamental Rights Agency has published new research finding major gaps in the implementation of the EU Employers Sanctions’ Directive when it comes to enabling exploited workers to get justice, nearly ten years since it came into force in 2011. The report highlights the need to improve complaints systems, access to compensation and residence permits, and ensure labour inspectorates focus on protecting workers and not immigration law. With an evaluation report from the European Commission expected later this year, check out PICUM’s latest blog on the issue. Trade union confederations call for better protections for undocumented workers The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) adopted a resolution calling for a holistic and rights-based approach to ensure fairness and equality between local, mobile and migrant workers. It sets out priority recommendations to ensure decent working and living conditions; affirm the obligations of intermediaries; address abusive practices in subcontracting; make social security coordination and protection more effective; expand and improve regular labour migration pathways; and improve rights enforcement and protection of all workers. This includes strong recommendations around undocumented workers’ labour rights, effective complaints mechanisms, regularisation and the role of the European Labour Authority. EFFAT (the European Federation of Food, Agriculture, and Tourism Trade Unions) has also published a position paper on labour mobility and migration, where it calls for measures to ensure all workers – including when undocumented - can enforce their labour rights and improvements to work permits to allow for in-country applications and change of employer