034 October 2022

Trade unions in Europe in 2021

European trade unions are well aware of their loss of membership and influence due to the austerity policies implemented after the 2008 crisis and the rise of the new economy, which has accelerated precariousness.

A study published by the Primero de Mayo Foundation, Un futuro sombrío: estudio de la afiliación sindical en Europa desde 2000, acknowledges the existence of “an almost permanent and unequivocal trend towards de-unionisation”. The paper by Kurt Vandaele elaborates on the need to defend workers’ rights in new scenarios, such as the platform economy and their new role in a just transition, to remain “a countervailing power both in the labour market and in society”.

In Spain, the challenge facing trade unions affects fundamental workers’ rights. Their weakness due to lack of representativeness is less decisive; however, compared to employers’ organisations, they are more uncertain. In any case, the agreements between the government, trade unions and employers, such as the one reached between the Ministry of Labour, the employers’ associations CEOE and Cepyme, CC OO and UGT, on the rights of workers on the platforms, constitute a basis of stability in the face of the process of political radicalization.

The trade unions bear the brunt of recovering the rights lost by the People’s Party labour reform in 2012, as the EU demands. Repealing that reform essentially means restoring the unions’ power in collective bargaining. The reform established the prevalence of company-level agreements (which generally set worse conditions) over higher-level sectoral agreements. The change weakened protection for many workers.

Europe is trying to correct its mistakes. Collective bargaining, which involves agreeing on core working conditions between unions and employers, is once again on the outside. Professor Antonio Baylos has highlighted, in Modernisation and reform of the industrial relations system, “the revitalisation of collective bargaining that the EU is promoting in a very powerful way, especially through the proposed directive on the European minimum wage and the promotion of collective bargaining”. The recovery of trade union power is vital to revive the economy, as Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz explains in Rewriting the Rules of the European Economy. The American economist advocates strengthening trade unions with more responsibilities. He warns that “decentralisation of collective bargaining weakens the bargaining power of workers”.

Stiglitz points out that “in Ireland, Eastern and Southern European countries, decentralisation has gone even lower, down to the enterprise level. The troika’s strategy for recovery was internal devaluation, which required wages to fall. Companies and governments were pressured to weaken trade unions”. He recalls that “unfortunately, these changes did not lead to improved competitiveness, growth and employment”.

The trade unions are reliable allies who are once again indispensable in these turbulent times in Spain and Europe.

Source: https://elpais.com/economia/2021-03-29/los-sindicatos-en-la-europa-de-2021.html