The German Services Union Verdi criticizes what it considers a “hammer blow” in the planned supply chain regulation. The European Commission’s plans to harmonize sustainability requirements for European companies, presented on Wednesday, are rejected by the union.
“The European Commission has given in to the European business lobby” said Verdi Chief Frank Werneke. This is deregulation pure and simple, to the detriment of workers and the environment. What the Commission plans is a dismantling of the European supply chain directive and a massive restriction of the scope of the sustainability reporting directive.
Earlier, the European Commission had presented its plans for the so-called Omnibus procedure and thus given in to the long-standing criticism from business associations of allegedly excessive bureaucracy. In the case of the supply chain directive, the Commission wants to, similar to the German Supply Chain Act, effectively limit the duty of care of companies to direct suppliers, according to Verdi.
This, however, would lead to the absurdity of the corporate duty of care. “The overwhelming majority of human rights violations occur deeper in the supply chain” said Werneke. Furthermore, the Commission wants to abolish civil liability and deprive trade unions and NGOs of the opportunity to represent victims in court. Civil liability and collective legal action are, however, necessary to enable victims to access the courts. Without the risk of being sued, the incentive for companies to take action against human rights violations in their supply chains would be much lower, Werneke said.
In the case of the sustainability reporting (CSRD), the Commission wants to, among other things, reduce the scope of the directive to companies with at least 1,000 employees, thus freeing an estimated 90 percent of the originally affected companies from the reporting obligation. However, this would no longer make it verifiable for most companies whether they were meeting their duty of care along the supply chain, the Verdi chairman said. All this under the pretext of bureaucracy reduction is a mockery for all the people who suffer along the supply chain from irresponsible corporate behavior. Human rights must not be sacrificed to the whining of business associations, the Verdi chief said.