Multinationals and bigdata companies have a global strategy

The days when business decisions were made at a national level are far behind us. Large companies such as Amazon, Meta, Uber, Lufthansa, Maersk, Keolis, DSV, DFDS, Swissport, Aviapartner, Ryanair, PSA, DP World and Hutchinson operate all over the world and often have a lot of political influence.

In fact, the political influence exercised by these companies should certainly not be underestimated. See the role Facebook and X (formerly known as Twitter) play in the political debate, deciding what kind of coverage is or is not allowed on their platforms. They decide whether or not Donald Trump can continue with his toxic political propaganda on Facebook and X. They set the algorithms – which are often not transparent – that determine which political content is featured on your social media. They weigh in overtly on the political agenda.

See also how Uber has managed to wipe out taxi regulations in several countries or have them rewritten to suit their requirements. This has also happened in Belgium: a number of decrees regulating the taxi industry were simply changed to allow Uber to enter the taxi market.

That’s why the importance of international trade unionism cannot be overestimated. If ‘they’ have a global strategy, then ‘we’ must also have one.

Trade unions obviously need to be organised at company, sector-specific and national levels to best defend workers’ rights. That is where their power base lies. But if we are unable to develop common approaches and shared strategies, if we do not exchange experiences, share information and cooperate on an international level, then we are doomed to be on the losing side of history.

Stock market guru Warren Buffett once said, “Yes, there is a class war and we are winning”. Our response should be: “No, we are fighting back!” The medals will be handed out on the finishing line – and we will go for gold!

ITUC must do more and better!

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) must be an international organisation that is prepared to tackle the global challenges facing unions head-on. The organisation and its leadership must be dynamic, flexible, relevant, visionary and unifying. Moreover, the leadership must be without reproach. The negative consequences of the possible corruption in the Qatar matter should serve as a lesson, although the allegations have yet to be proven. In any event, we need to organise internal operations transparently at all levels and be free from influence.

Unions never got anything by asking nicely for it. On the contrary, we have got things done because we have fought for them. Therefore, in addition to our lobbying work, we need to place greater emphasis on campaigning. And do so with a highly appropriate strategy. Negotiate when possible, take action when necessary.

Taking a strategic approach means setting practical goals and establishing a clear roadmap for achieving them. In doing so, we must focus on multinational companies and we must do so together, across national borders.

Strengthening tripartite organisations

ITUC must be the voice of workers in international institutions such as the International Labour Organisation (ILO). But it must also represent the voice of the workers in the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Group of Twenty (G20), etc. Nor should work with the United Nations be neglected. In this instance I am thinking about the workings of the Social Commission and the Human Rights Commission.

The relevance of the work done for members should be the main focus of an international organisation. If participation in tripartite organisations does not yield anything, it is a waste of time. We need to negotiate agreements and compromise, and bring those results back to our members. We cannot afford to merely stand on the sidelines and say no.

However, it is imperative to continue investing in the ILO. 2019 marked the 100th anniversary of that particular tripartite organisation. In fact it is the only tripartite consultative body within the United Nations, with governments, trade unions and employer organisations all represented there.

It aims to ‘pursue social justice and protection of workers everywhere’. Through the conventions it promulgates, the ILO imposes an international code on rights at work. It also monitors the enforcement of those international labour standards in the 187 member states.

Those international labour standards are often underestimated. And yes, they are also often violated. Yet the conventions concluded within the ILO are extremely useful. The ILO is actually a world parliament for labour issues. And if we are aware of the work there is to do there, then we must invest more in the negotiations that take place within the organisation. I know: it’s too slow, too laborious. But it exists. If we as a union do
not use this forum, do not seize the opportunities that the ILO offers us, then we are really making a mistake.

The recent and important ILO Convention 190, by the way, is a good example of the usefulness of tripartite negotiations. These negotiations cost blood, sweat and, probably, many tears of disappointment because they progressed far too slowly.

But in the end, a convention to curb violence and harassment in the workplace finally emerged within the ILO in 2019.

This convention makes it easier for unions worldwide to enforce legislation in their countries. And trade unions worldwide can now petition their governments to ratify that convention.

And that too is only progressing slowly. Belgium took five years to ratify the convention and in June 2023, became the 30th country in the world to sign up to the convention, and the sixth in the European Union. I know, it’s all far too slow. But the convention also gives ammunition to lawyers in my country to tackle workplace violence.

Tripartite consultation could also be strengthened within Europe, for example by better monitoring what happens within the European Economic and Social Committee. But can employer and employee organisations influence European politics? The Committee is a structured advisory body of the European Union. Its opinions may not be binding, but they still have an undeniable influence on decision-making in Europe.

So yes, we should spend time, money and resources to overhaul the tripartite consultation system and make it work better and faster. Too many attacks on social dialogue and tripartite bargaining have gone unanswered on our side. It is high time we found allies in the economic and political world so that we can redevelop collective negotiations and agreements and share the profits of capitalism. Billions of dollars in profits are finding their way to the wallets of the happy few.

Negociation where possible, action where needed

Without power, we cannot hope for positive results at the negotiating table. The partners on the other side of the table need to know that the union is not a lobbying machine. They need to know that we have the numbers, that we have the power.

Talking alone will not lead us to great victories. Unions have never achieved results by asking for something nicely. Through history, we have changed the world by organising, mobilising, campaigning. Action is the engine of social progress.

ITUC, the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) and all global trade union federations must therefore be louder and have a greater presence on the frontline of the global confrontation with deregulation and liberalisation. We can do that by believing in the power we represent, by using that power to create awareness and influence policymakers, and by putting pressure on governments and politicians.

Member organisations must really engage with ITUC

The biggest mistake national unions can make today is to retreat to the national level. Unfortunately, that is often exactly what they do: they think they can solve it in their own country. That’s a terrible mistake in a global world. Unfair competition, tax havens and delocalisation are a few examples of the problems we face on a global scale.

Trade unions must take responsibility for what needs to be done in ITUC. The ITUC team is David versus Goliath if they do not have the strong support of trade unions behind them. Member unions must be willing to get involved, by running campaigns at a national level and participating in ILO meetings.

We need campaigns at global level in which all member unions can participate. I myself am involved in a national transport union, a national confederation, and I am very active in the European as well as international transport workers’ federation. Nevertheless, I must admit that I do not have sufficient knowledge of the campaigns that the ITUC is running at the moment. That is primarily my own responsibility. But at the same time, the ITUC must also ask itself why people are not aware of what it is doing. The people at ITUC need to think more about how to spread their knowledge more evenly. I am sure there are very few trade unionists who are really aware of ITUC’s campaigns. If our own people do not know what we are doing, how can we expect other stakeholders to know? Moreover, I am convinced that a global organisation like the ITF can play an important role in energising the ITUC. It is a strong international federation. With a solid financial backbone and strong structures. The leadership of the ITF must also use those strengths to bolster the ITUC.

Besides, global federations need to cooperate more. One federation alone cannot achieve what cooperating federations can achieve together. Today it sometimes seems that competition between federations is more important than what we can substantively achieve together. Moreover, international federations should be more involved in the functioning of the ITUC and have a structural say in the organisation. Now only the national confederations have real decision-making power. This should be corrected by including the voice of international sector federations.

A capitalist company is run on the basis of authority, whereas a union is a democracy. While this difference makes us what we are, it also means that global trade unionism is a complicated undertaking. We all want the same thing, but trade union traditions, cultures and experiences are very different worldwide.

We must deal with this diversity and work patiently to develop a common strategy. A democratic organisation in which all unions have a voice must remain the priority of our global union. This is not an easy task, but it will make unions stronger globally in the face of their political and economic counterparts.

Progress is impossible without change. So the new leadership must come up with fresh and innovative proposals to breathe new life into the organisations. The new leadership must give hope to workers and convince them to join the organisation.

The European Trade Union Confederation must take to the streets again!

13th December 2001. I’m standing on the stage at the end of a trade union demonstration, which ends at the Heysel in Brussels. I see masses of people marching, as far as the eye can see. The demonstration was organised on the initiative of the European Trade Union Confederation. I am one of the organisers of the demonstration on behalf of the FGTB. Together with my fellow organisers, I am euphoric. One hundred thousand protesters marched from Emile Bockstael Square to King Baudouin Stadium. 41 unions from 20 European countries took part in the demonstration. And although the bulk of the participants were mobilised by Belgian trade unions, this is still a feat of European trade union power. 600 coaches filled with Belgian demonstrators arrived along with 350 buses from other European countries. Many demonstrators came from our neighbouring countries with sizeable French delegations on top of that. There were also activists from Poland, Croatia, Slovakia, Greece, Portugal, Italy and Austria.

The demonstration was organised to mark the Belgian presidency of the European Union. The huge turnout was a demonstration of trade union power. With that demonstration, we sent a strong message together: that Europe must be more than a market, more than an economic project. It was a clear call to work for a social Europe.

The demonstration in 2021 was preceded by a European demonstration in Ghent on 19th October of the same year, under the theme: For Social Europe and Solidarity. And before that another on 21st September in Liège, under the theme: The euro arrives … and employment! No fewer than three (!) European demonstrations in four months to weigh in on Belgian presidency.

I did not remember exactly where I went with the FGTB everywhere during that period to participate in ETUC events. So I took a quick look at the ETUC website. And I have to say that the list is a long one. Porto (2000), Nice (2000), Barcelona (2002), Brussels (2003), Rome (2003), Brussels
(2005), Strasbourg (2006), Ljubljana (2006) and so on. And I could go on like this for a while.

It was a time when the ETUC was effectively in mobilisation mode, attending just about every major European summit to put its views forward. National unions took the lead, while their colleagues from other countries joined them in proportion to their mobilisation strength. They were all demonstrations that profiled the European trade union as a solidary and close-knit community and sent a powerful message to the political world. In my opinion, it is time to do so again.

European trade unionism is more than a lobbying tool to the corridors of European power. Of course it has to be done, of course we must defend our proposals to the European institutions. It goes without saying that we must back up our trade union wishes and demands with well-argued cases.

But all that has to be accompanied by a clear demonstration of union strength. And it may well be then that lobbying employers and their organisations can free up more money for more lobbying: they have the money, but we have the numbers. They may have the big money, but there are many of us. Unions must reclaim their place, including on the streets.

But demonstrating or building power relationships obviously only makes sense if we can also cash in on those power relationships. By hammering out agreements, enforcing social dialogue and negotiating honourable compromises with employers and international bodies.

No future without international vision

Achieving our goals is only possible if national trade unions are willing to organise internationally. International trade union work should therefore be more than lobbying, carried out by technocrats in international secretariats. Trade union work is carried out by networks of national organisations, willing to free up resources and people to work internationally.

If transport unions want to keep making an impact, we cannot deal with our local businesses without seeing the overall picture. Multinationals use subcontractors who in turn use other subcontractors, for example for transport or storage. They may not employ the drivers directly, but they are the principals. It is they who organise tough competition and even a race to the bottom.

Trade unions must organise globally, create their own networks and engage with economic employers. Developing strong trade unions in Eastern Europe is crucial in this regard. It is not just a question of solidarity on behalf of Western European trade unions, but it is a question of their own strength and survival.

A great example of international cooperation that really works is the inspection network built by the ITF in the maritime sector.

When I was in Kenya on a previous occasion, the inspector of the International Transport Workers’ Federation was called on to provide assistance to some Tanzanian sailors. These sailors had been arrested by the police for being in Kenya illegally. We joined Betty Makena, a small, fierce, African trade union activist. And we were confronted there with what we did not think possible.

The six sailors had embarked on a Taiwanese fishing vessel. These ships fish along African coasts and deliver their cargo to mega-sized factory ships, which immediately process and freeze the fish. The six Tanzanians had protested against their inhuman treatment, were dismissed and put off the ship. They had to transfer to a smaller ship from the same fleet, but as the vessel could not dock against its big brother, the sailors – along and their bags – were simply thrown overboard (one of the fishermen could not swim). Eventually they were picked up by the smaller ship and put ashore in Kenya. Obviously they didn’t have a residence permit to be able to stay there.

The ITF stood up for those boys and they were lucky. We boarded the ship, questioned the captain, intervened with the shipping company through ITF headquarters, threatened media interest, intervened with the Kenyan government. In the end, we obtained the release of the sailors. They also received their back-pay and a ticket to return to Tanzania. There was a clause in their contract – I am not making it up – that said it was normal for African sailors to be bullied and mistreated by the rest of the crew and that they should have realised this when they took the job. None of the six could read or write and they scribbled something that was supposed to pass for their names under that contract. In the meantime, I learnt that slave labour in fishing, especially in the Far East, is by no means the exception.

The ITF has 125 inspectors whose job it is to board ships to check the wages and working conditions of crew members. These inspectors work in more than 100 ports in 50 countries. In 2021, they conducted 7,265 inspections to help thousands of seafarers with wage claims and repatriation cases. And this was despite Covid 19 restrictions at the time, which prevented inspectors from boarding ships for much of the year.

Inspectors are trained to detect exploitation, overtime and even signs of forced labour and modern slavery. On many ships, inspectors have the right to examine wage bills and labour contracts and check recorded working and rest periods.

The ITF reported 85 cases of abandonment to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) last year, a historically high number. Abandonment amounts to the ship owner leaving the crew to their fate, with no support. In many of these cases, the crew left behind had been waiting for weeks or months for unpaid wages – like the seamen aboard the storm-hit MSC Lidia.

Jason Lam, an ITF inspector in Hong Kong, helped eight Burmese seafarers working on the MSC Lidia recover nearly $30,000 in unpaid wages. And this after they ran aground in October 2021 as the result of a typhoon that almost shipwrecked them. The shipowner refused to pay the two months’ wages he owed the seamen, abandoned them and ruled out any help to get them home. Lam campaigned for weeks on behalf of the sailors and it finally had an effect. On 2nd November 2021, the crew flew home with full pay in their pockets.

Our message is loud and clear: an injury to one, is an injury to all. The entire trade union movement will always rally behind any worker or union attacked for exercising their fundamental right to strike.

The decision to strike is never taken easily. It is the last resort, when all attempts at dialogue fail it provides some rebalance of power.

When trade union power declines, inequality rises. That’s what the evidence from around the world shows.

The growing assault on trade union rights is, therefore, of deep concern to everyone interested in reducing inequality.

Europe’s rating in the Global Rights Index produced by the International Trade Union Confederation has plummeted over the last decade as a result of the now “regular” violations of union rights by employers and the state.

In France, Confédération Générale du Travail leader Sébastien Menesplier has been ordered to a police station in an act of authoritarian revenge for organising protests against the government’s pension reforms. Protests which were made necessary by the completely undemocratic way in which those reforms were pushed through, without any social dialogue with trade unions.

In Belgium, we’ve seen Delhaize bosses repeatedly call in the police to enforce their profit-at-all-costs franchise model rather than uphold the country’s long tradition of social dialogue.

In the United Kingdom, the government has responded to calls for negotiations over pay by placing even more severe restrictions on what were already some of the most draconian anti-strike laws in Europe.

All of this comes at a time when Europe is facing a social justice emergency.

Working people are suffering a historic cost of living crisis caused by corporate greed. And the answer from politicians has been to hit workers again through wage restraint, even though the data proves inflation is being driven by excess profits.

The extra profits generated through price speculation are being stripped out of companies and handed to shareholders in record dividend payments rather than reinvested.

Strong trade unions are needed now more than ever to rebalance the power between boardrooms and the shop floor in Europe.

That’s why we’re taking action across Europe to win a fair deal for workers. Organising in workplaces, mobilising on the streets, and political campaigning.

And I’m determined that we will no longer have to fight with one hand tied behind our backs. We have already won an EU directive which promotes collective bargaining and now we’re going to turn the tide on union busting completely by securing a ban on public money for companies that don’t respect union rights, don’t reinvest profits, and don’t pay fair wages.

It is not acceptable that a company like Ryanair, which has widely refused to engage in collective bargaining and sacked or sanctioned striking workers, has received almost a billion euros in EU funding over the last decade.

Trade unions which are free to organise, negotiate, and strike are the counterbalance that Europe needs.

The next step is to make union busting, in all its forms, a crime.

Transport and the economy is global. Transport workers and their unions need to think and act globally to win power and change in their workplaces.

Free trade, climate change and new technology mean workers everywhere are increasingly exploited in the same way. Global capital, led by multinational corporations at the top of supply chains, continues to try and put workers against one another at a global scale. As businesses have sought cheaper ways to move people and goods, governments have ripped up labour safeguards to encourage and increase competition. This has eroded standards across the transport industry and makes global solidarity, action and power more important than ever.

Change doesn’t happen by itself. Decent pay, limits to working hours, paid leave, safety, equal pay for work of equal value; positive workplace change has only been possible because workers organised themselves into unions and demanded it. In a globalised economy, decisions impacting on workers are taken regionally and globally – in either a multinational HQ or an intergovernmental regulator – often designed to escape organised labour and societal responsibility.

Maritime employers flag their ships abroad in countries of convenience. Airlines base their employees contracts in different countries to avoid labour laws. E-commerce shifts its profits to offshore havens to avoid paying tax. Trucking companies register their companies in other countries to avoid paying minimum wages. These are global issues impacting local workplaces and they cannot be solved by one union in one country.

Only the combined power of the democratic global union movement will influence those decisions – workers, in strong unions, united across borders and sectors, speaking with one voice.

There is enough money in the global economy to pay workers a decent wage. Take shipping. In 2022 alone, the industry is estimated to have made more than $200 billion in profit. Operating profit margins for some of the shipping giants were above 50% in the past two years – that is, more than 50 cents out of every dollar from customers stayed in a company as profit.

As unions, if we are united internationally, we can challenge industry. We can bring responsible employers and governments with us and isolate the bad actors. We can win consensus that minimum standards benefit everyone: workers, employers and wider society. The pandemic opened the
eyes of many to the role transport workers play in the global economy. We can demonstrate that sustainable business models must be underpinned by strong regulation, which includes the effective enforcement of workers’ fundamental rights including freedom of association and collective bargaining.

The power to influence policy does not just come from workplaces, it also comes from solidarity with other workplaces. Transport workers can win change by combining with other workers, in manufacturing, in retail, in construction, in agriculture, in healthcare and education. By bringing national unions together within and across borders, as well as by working with global unions across these sectors and with the ITUC, we can exert more leverage over multinationals and governments and win better outcomes for our members.

The solidarity between workers in the global labour movement is unique. We support one another in dispute, in times of hardship and in times of crisis. We share values of peace, justice, respect and equality, and we are united in our aim to be the counterforce and build a better world.