2.7 million EU workers can’t afford heat: study

BRUSSELS, Sept 27, (AP): Almost 3 million European Union workers can’t afford to heat their homes amid a rise in energy prices, according to a labor organization’s study released.

The European Trade Union Confederation, which represents 45 million members, said that 15% of the EU’s working poor - the equivalent of 2,713,578 people - lacks enough money to turn on the heating.

Wholesale prices for gas and electricity have surged across Europe, raising the prospect of increases in already high utility bills and further pain for people who took a financial hit from the coronavirus pandemic.

“There are millions of low-paid workers in Europe who have to choose between heating their home or feeding their family properly or paying the rent despite working full time,” ETUC Deputy General Secretary Esther Lynch said. “Unfortunately, rising energy prices mean even more people face returning from a long day or night’s work to a cold home this winter and their children doing their homework in the cold.”

The union confederation called on the European Union to introduce a “threshold of decency” into a draft minimum wage directive to guarantee that statutory minimum wages never pay less than 60% of the median wage and 50% of the average wage of any EU country.

The confederation said that 20 EU members currently have statutory minimum wages that fall below those levels.

The ETUC said it based its study on data from the EU’s statistic agency. The figures it used refer to the number of workers who earn less than 60% of the national median “equivalised income”, a measure of household income that takes account of the differences in a household’s size and composition.