On 3 August 2021, eight partners from seven EU countries gathered for the kick-off meeting of the “European market environment in the construction sector. Enhancing the free movement of posted workers in EU” – EMEcs Project.

This project is funded by the European Programme for Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI) and it follows two other projects focusing on the posting of workers, the Information Sharing Agreements (ISA Project) and the Youth Employment Skillset in Posting (YES Project).

The project aims to understand how posted workers in the construction sector have been affected by the measures introduced by Member States to fight the Covid-19 pandemic, how these obstacles to posting can be overcome and how workers can be better protected in the future. To do so the project will develop an evidence-based understanding of the challenges created by the COVID-19 as well as an evaluation of the countermeasures adopted to face the pandemic. Once gathered a basis of evidence and data, the project will focus on the exploration of new tools to monitor and enforce rights of posted workers as well as on the formulation of EU level policy recommendations to better support posted workers in future emergency situations.

The consortium is led by the Joint National Committee for Buildings Workers’ Welfare Funds (Casse Edili – CNCE), which will coordinate project’s activities with the support of Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini – FGB, tasked with scientific coordination, and of the European Association of Paritarian Institutions – AEIP for dissemination activities. National partners are:

• Trade Union ‘Budowlani’ – ZZ Budowlani (Poland)
• SOKA-BAU (Germany)
• FUNDACION LABORAL DE LA CONSTRUCCION DEL PRINCIPADO DE ASTURIAS – FLC Asturias (Spain)
• Instituto Universitario de Lisboa – ISTE-IUL (Portugal)
• Casa Sociala a Constructorilor – CASOC (Romania) as associate organisation.