LEUVEN – As part of the United States and European Union Trade and Technology Council (TTC) Ministerial meeting, Ambassador Katherine Tai, United States Trade Representative, and Valdis Dombrovskis, Executive Vice-President and Commissioner for Trade at the European Commission led the principals’ meeting of the U.S.-EU tripartite Trade and Labor Dialogue (TALD) on April 4. The meeting included key U.S. and E.U. labor and business representatives and staff from the U.S. Department of Labor, DG Trade, and DG Employment, and focused on a successful, just, and inclusive green transition and future engagement under the TALD.
“Approaches to decarbonization that protect and center workers and workers’ rights should be a priority in building a green economy that is truly sustainable, resilient, durable, and inclusive,” said Ambassador Katherine Tai. “Our partnership with the European Union, and our collaboration with labor unions and business leaders, is critical for creating good-quality jobs as part of our climate policy and investments.”
The TALD was launched at the U.S.-EU TTC Ministerial meeting in May 2021. Under the TALD, the United States and the European Union jointly consult workers’ organizations and business representatives on transatlantic trade and labor issues, especially in relation to the work of the TTC Working Group on Global Trade Challenges.
The meeting of the TALD builds on a three-hour Transatlantic Initiative on Sustainable Trade (TIST) labor workshop hosted in January 2024, on the margins of the last TTC Ministerial, entitled “Promotion of Good Quality Jobs for a Successful, Just, and Inclusive Green Economy.” The U.S. and EU convened labor, business, and civil society to discuss the opportunities and concerns transitioning to green economies raises on both sides of the Atlantic when it comes to sustaining and creating high-quality jobs. A readout of the workshop is available here.
In a previous May 2023 meeting of the TALD, union and business leaders presented joint recommendations on combatting forced labor in global supply chains. In follow-up to those recommendations, Ambassador Tai and EVP Dombrovskis outlined how both sides have identified specific recommendations to implement and begun collaborating at a technical level to inform each other’s approaches on similar challenges we may be facing.
The U.S. labor and business participants included representatives from the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), U.S. Chamber of Commerce, U.S. Council of International Business (USCIB), and Information Technology Industry Council (ITI).
The EU labor and business participants included representatives from the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), BusinessEurope, and SMEUnited.
