To alleviate the impacts of COVID-19 policies, many initiatives have been developed by civil society organisations – NGOs, local governments, or citizens. A team of national researchers from the RESISTIRÉ project has collected and highlighted a set of particularly relevant initiatives in 27 European countries and in Iceland, Serbia, the United Kingdom and Turkey. These Better Stories currently cover eight specific domains: gender-based violence, the labour market, the economy, gender-pay and pension gaps, gender care gaps, decision-making and politics, environmental justice, human and fundamental rights.

This Better Story has been collected by Igor Živković.

On 26 January 2021, the National Labour Council (NAR) concluded a national interprofessional collective agreement on teleworking during the COVID-19 crisis, which provides a clear framework for the minimum arrangements to be made at company level.

This was done to safeguard the rights of teleworkers. The new collective agreement applies to government-recommended or compulsory teleworking to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. 

The agreement mainly aims at forcing companies that do not yet have a solid framework for telework to make agreements on this issue now. It was agreed upon until 31 December 2021.

The principles of the agreement are related to: 

• Terms of employment
  The provision of equipment and technical support; the use of own equipment and the reimbursement or payment by the employer of related costs.

• Organisation of employment
  The teleworker organises his/her own work, while respecting the agreed working hours.
  

• Control
  The employer shall exercise control over the work of his employees in an appropriate and proportionate manner.

• Collective rights
  Teleworkers have the same collective rights as when they work at the company site.

• Wellbeing at work
  The teleworkers are informed about the company’s policy on well-being at work specifically related to telework. The employer must ensure that the teleworkers are connected to their colleagues and the company, with specific attention to vulnerable teleworkers.

Find out more about this Better Story

To alleviate the impacts of COVID-19 policies, many initiatives have been developed by civil society organisations – NGOs, local governments, or citizens. A team of national researchers from the RESISTIRÉ project has collected and highlighted a set of particularly relevant initiatives in 27 European countries and in Iceland, Serbia, the United Kingdom and Turkey. These Better Stories currently cover eight specific domains: gender-based violence, the labour market, the economy, gender-pay and pension gaps, gender care gaps, decision-making and politics, environmental justice, human and fundamental rights.

This initiative has been collected by Aart Kerremans and Dag Balkmar.

In Essen, Germany, the municipal authorities have set as their long-term objective the connection of green spaces and  waterways  throughout  the  perimeter  of  the  city.  It  primarily  connects  the  Ruhr  River  and  the  Emscher  River  through a network of green routes.

Since the ‘New Ways to the Water’ project started in 2005, an abundance of green routes has been created totalling 150 kilometres, with the objective of ensuring that every inhabitant lives less than 500 metres from one of these routes.

The project was implemented by the City of Essen concurrently with another project aimed at cleaning up the Emscher River, which has had to bear the brunt of a long his-tory of coal mining in the region.

The project also has an important socioeconomic dimension, given that it is connected to an employment scheme providing long-term unemployed people with jobs and training. A lot of the sub-projects that make up ‘New Ways to the Water’ are concentrated in former coal mining neighbourhoods with high unemployment rates as well.

‘New Ways to the Water’ is expected to end in  2022,  but  other projects will continue to improve the liveability of  the  city  and  the  city  authorities  have  plans  in  the  works for future green projects.

Find out more about the project