I had the honor to speak at the Amazon summit in Manchester. Read my full statement below.
If I have to give an introduction this morning, I will do it as the president of the European Transport Workers’ Federation.
We organise 5 million members from 38 counties in Europe.
They are affiliated to 200 unions
I am telling this because it is important to know that my introduction will be from a trade union perspective.
And if I talk about a trade union perspective, it means the perspective of working people.
A lot of them working in precarious jobs, or jobs that are not the jobs where one has a royal income.
For a lot of them at the end of the salary there is still a bit of the month to come…
And even if a lot of these members have low quality jobs, they are jobs that guarantee an income to families.
First I would like to comment about the slogan of this conference.
“Make Amazon pay!”
It is important that we know what this means for us.
Off course we have to blame Amazon!
Expose them because of exploiting their workers.
Because of not respecting them.
Because of creating a working environment that is not safe.
Because of imposing extreme flexibility to their workers.
Because of denying them the most basic right to organize.
Because of developing anti-union approach.
And because of having a business model, that is bad for the workers.
So yes, let us blame and shame Amazon for this!
But for us – ETF – this is not enough.
We think we must go beyond of a political campaign.
We think that the first and most important job of a union is
to make the life of the workers represent a better one.
And to do so, we need to organize them.
If we really want to change the business model of Amazon.
If we want to improve the situation of the workers that work for Amazon, we need to kick the door of this company open for unions.
We need to force this company to deal with trade unions. We need to make them understand that it is impossible to operate without social dialogue, without taking into account the aspirations of their workers.
We think that we must force Amazon to deal with us. To make agreements.
Agreements that regulate and improve the situation of the Amazon workers.
We all agree on the principle that Amazon, as any other company, should be held accountable for decent working conditions, the environmental and societal impact of its activities, as well as for paying taxes in the countries where it operates.
The central question is: how are we going to reach this objective?
For us at the ETF, it is clear:
We have to combine organizing and giving a strong voice to the workers, with gaining support from policy-makers at all levels’.
And yesterday we had a good example of how this can be done. The Italian unions and the former minister of labour explained us how they got the door to this company open.
Unions taking action, joining forces between the drivers and the warehouse workers of Amazon.
Putting pressure on the company and on those that are politically responsible.
A labour minister then forced Amazon to open the social dialogue with the unions.
And unions have been able to make an agreement that is a strong one.Including the Amazon workers AND their subcontractors.
An agreement that is so strong that workers from other companies are willing to come to work for Amazon now. Because there was a “before” and there is an “after” agreement situation.
The Italian unions did not limit themselves to go for “shaming and blaming”.
They went for organizing.
They went for industrial action.
They also did political lobbying and forced Amazon to deal with them. And that is exactly what we want to promote as ETF.
It is a good example of how it is possible with a well elaborated trade union strategy having different irons in the fire to make the difference.
And this example is an interesting one, because it also demonstrates that we can do it.
Off course Amazon is a symbol, but the supply chain is more than this one company.
At ETF we really are convinced that we have to go beyond this one company.
Amazon is often seen as a special company, and it is true that its business model has been disruptive to many of our sectors.
But many transport companies, in all sectors covered by ETF, can’t be defined as easy ones, when it comes to sitting at the negotiating table.
However, in many cases we have forced them to engage with us, after long political and industrial action.
We are familiar with difficult companies.
Remember Ryanair!
The CEO of Ryanair, Michael O’ Leary, was telling us 10 years ago that it would rather freeze in hell before he would recognize unions!
And you know what?
Today we have agreements with Ryanair in different countries.
Because we forced them to…
So Amazon might be special, but again, not that special
There are many similar companies in Europe. One of them is the Danish nemlig.com
It is, or I should say it was, a copycat of Amazon on Danish level.
Same business model! Subcontracting as a business model. No union recognition, no respect of the CBA’s, …
But our Danish affiliate did fight back.
Posting for months in front of the company
Mobilizing workers for solidarity actions. Lobbying politicians.
Addressing the clients, …
And yes, after a long battle nemlig.com signed a collective agreement with our member 3F.
By the way: yesterday I heard the panel about “last mile delivery”.
In our opinion – whatever we think about last mile delivery – it is naive to think that this will disappear on the short and even long run.
Let us be honest: we all do order on internet! We all – from time to time – do go for home delivery.
Maybe some of you don’t, by principle, and that is very OK. But let’s face it:
the amount of people that do, is enormous, and this will not disappear because we think it is not the right way.
Our challenge as a trade union then is:
What do we do?
Shouting loud and clear that this is a sector where people are exploited, but leaving the workers of these companies on their own?
Standing at the sideline and fighting against these companies? But in the same time not doing our job as trade unions?
Hoping that everybody goes shopping to the local supermarket or local bakery, like the speaker from Paris suggested?
Just a sidenote: in a lot of these supermarkets and local shops the working conditions of the workers are not the best ones neither!
Or do we organize the workers of these companies?
Giving them a voice.
Giving them power by organizing them, and then all together with them going after the companies.
To change their business model.
To impose better wages.
To have safety at the job.
Our strategy as ETF is exactly to do so.
ETF develops a strategy to challenge the logistics sector. Having in mind our first duty: making the life of the workers in the supply chain better.
We wrote down and discussed a “Logistics Manifesto” about how we want to deal with logistic companies.
I pick up only one of the points that we highlight in this manifesto:
“We demand for an end to the systematic use of outsourcing, agency work and other precarious forms of work.
Decent work can only be achieved by bringing core business operations in-house.
Subcontracting chains must be shortened and made transparent in order to protect the safety and working conditions of workers from unscrupulous employers.
Common EU rules are needed to deter illegitimate subcontracting and protect workers.”
We have 5 of these guidelines about logistic work in this manifesto, because we think we have to go for better income for the workers that operate in the sector
To go for better working circumstances.
To go for cutting in the possibilities of subcontracting.
To give decent contracts to the logistic workers.
To go for safety at the job
This manifesto is kind of guideline for our affiliates willing to go for organizing logistic workers.
If you want to learn more about this manifesto: see our ETF website.
With this manifesto in the hand, we also started up an action program.
Since the beginning of October we organized actions in different countries all over Europe. In Belgium, Spain, Italy, Denmark, Germany, the UK, Sweden, were already organised
Still coming are France, Norway, Slovakia, Turkey, Bulgaria and even Ukraine.
And we are determined to continue our efforts to organize the logistic workers.
Because unions never obtained anything by just kindly asking for it.
Every single step forward for the workers, we realized by fighting for it,
And that ,Brothers and Sisters, is exactly what we will do!
