“Our European Sector Skills Council is celebrating its first anniversary today and we should be proud of the work done so far” – declare the European Social Partners, which includes the European Tanners’ Confederation – Cotance. “We took the right decision to start our Skills Council, as human resources and thus education and training is at the heart of TCL companies’ preoccupations. Our production models are in constant development and greater integration of innovations and technologies in our processes will occur and will be needed. Hence the crucial importance of adapting the offer to demand in terms of Vocational Education and Training (VET) for our competitiveness and the strengthening of the TCL sectors. The ESC-TCL has a key role to play through the mobilisation of knowledge and best practices to be replicated through the network to maximize our impact.”
One of the first very concrete effects of the existence of the ESC-TCL is the recent creation of the Osservatorio Nazionale Concia (ONC is part of UNIC), Italy’s National Tanning Observatory, which will act as the national ISP for this country, and is already participating, in the joint effort at European level. “Participation in the ESC-TCL is a fantastic opportunity” – declared Silvia Pedrana (ONC, Italy) – “The fact that the largest leather producer in Europe, in terms of employees and output, saw the interest of establishing a national ISP as a consequence of the creation of the TCL Skills Council proves how valid this approach is to address the delicate and crucial challenges we are facing.”
“The seven recommendations emerging from our analysis are reflected in the proposal for future work, our follow-up project currently under evaluation by the Commission” – stated Gustavo Gonzalez-Quijano (Cotance), Francesco Marchi (Euratex) and Luc Triangle (industriAll – TCL) “As social partners, we are ready to keep investing in this approach and we are pleased to see that the current ISP members are also keen on pursuing their efforts in this realm. There are other key countries that we look forward to welcome in the partnership: we feel that the excellent results we have presented will help us in convincing them to team up”.
About the European Skills Council – TCL
The ESC- TCL (http://europeanskillscouncil.t-c-l.eu/eng/default.aspx) is an initiative of the European Social partners industriAll-European Trade Union (The European Trade Union for Textile Clothing Leather and Footwear), EURATEX (The European Apparel and Textile Confederation) and COTANCE (The European Leather industry organisation), with the financial support of the European Commission- Directorate General for Employment and Social Affairs.
Practically, The ESC-TCL aims to identify and monitor training needs, communicate on those needs to Education and Training entities, promote activities that match identified training needs with the market offer, and elaborate and support specific projects and initiatives at EU and national levels.
Based on a networking of several existing national Industry Skills Partnerships dedicated to Education Training and Employment (Opcalia – Textile Mode Cuirs (FR), COBOT (BE), IVOC (BE), Creative Skillset (UK)), and newly created Osservatorio Nazionale Concia (IT)) and other key players from these Industries (National sectoral Organisations, Universities, Research centres, companies, Public authorities, Trade Unions, Technical institutes etc.) the ESC-TCL aims at improving the quality of the European labour force in TCL Industries, and to assist enterprises and workers / students and job seekers to be better prepared in meeting changing competitive demands.
