Today, I had the honor of addressing the ITF Road Section, outlining the key priorities for the next five years.

You can read my full speech below.

Brothers and sisters,

Talking about the priorities for the Road Section for the coming years is talking about about protecting and empowering workers in the road transport industry.
The challenges we face are urgent, and recent events have made that clearer than ever. Take, for example, the truckers’ strike in Grafenhausen, Germany. Eastern European drivers were forced to endure appalling conditions—living for months in their trucks, denied their wages, and treated with complete disregard by exploitative subcontractors. These drivers had to strike just to demand what was owed to the: their salary. It was a fight for dignity, a reminder that exploitation remains rampant in our industry.

Our 2024-2029 strategy is built on three pillars: Expanding Membership, Exercising Power, and Transforming our Industry.

First, expanding membership. We must strengthen unions, especially in regions where organizing is difficult. Being close to workers, understanding their struggles on the ground, is key to growing our movement. We see this across Europe and around the world.

Second, exercising power. We need to focus on where we are already strong and expand to other sectors — especially warehousing, logistics, and e-commerce. Companies like Amazon, DHL, and UPS dominate the supply chain, and by organizing workers here, we can set industry standards. Our campaigns to hold these companies accountable, as some affiliates are already doing with Amazon, show that our collective power can improve conditions not just for a few, but for all.

Finally, transforming the industry. This is about making road transport an attractive and respected sector with decent working conditions. We need Safe Rates as a standard for everyone. Truckers should never have to fight for wages that are rightfully theirs. And, we must ensure better conditions for women and young workers by improving access to sanitation and safe parking facilities.

Our Global Safe Rates Campaign and our push for supply chain legislation will help drive these changes. By targeting key players in the global logistics industry, we can raise standards across the board. And by focusing on women’s inclusion, we can create an industry that is truly equal and respectful.

Together, with your solidarity and commitment, we will expand, we will exercise our power, and we will transform this industry into one that provides safety, fairness, and dignity for all.

Brothers ans sisters, our slogan is « we move the world ».
Well Brothers and sisters, let us move the world and make it a beter place for transport workers!

Speaking today at the ETF Logistics Conference! It’s a privilege to stand alongside fellow union leaders and experts as we discuss the future of logistics and the challenges we face in this crucial sector.

You can read my speech below.

Welcome to this logistics conference organised by the European Transport-workers’ Federation.

In fact, this is our second logistics conference! 3 years ago, we kicked off the ETF work in logistics at this same place, here in this very room.

At that first conference, we already emphasised on the importance of the logistic sector for transport workers! It was a very important day for the ETF, very energising for all of us. Finally, after years of discussions, we decided that we had to look at what unites us, rather than at what divides us, in the interest of the workers we represent.

Logistics is the part of transport where all our unions are growing in terms of membership. My own union BTB is growing in membership constantly, and we realised this mostly by our growth in the logistics sector. <cijfer invoegen> cijfers opgevraagd bij Koen. No less than 16,5% over the last 5 years.

As we will have a chance to discuss later today, it is also the sector where more concentration of power is happening. We are facing giant companies, managing the whole supply chain and beyond. Yesterday I investigated how much staff Amazon employs worldwide. It is over 1,5 million! And chat GPT also told me that the business turnover is 575 billion dollars! Important enough to unions to work on that kind of companies, isn’t it?

The same company Amazon uses an anti union surveillance system, called SPOC (geoSPacial Operating Console) that tracks organising efforts by unions, and uses this system to organise reactions by the line managers.

And there is very little governance from the national governments and from the EU. EU is failing to developing legislation on logistics, to stopping unethical subcontracting, to stopping social dumping, to stop ping the race to the bottom in our logistics sector.

So non-respect of labour rights and working conditions, abusive subcontracting, exploitation are very common. And this has to change!

And as ETF President I can tell you that I am very proud of the work that we have been doing since our first conference! Over the last three years, we have got more and more relevance in our work. When I talk about relevance, I mean that we are doing things that are meaningful for the workers we represent.

Since then: at ETF we have a person in charge, a full plan, new ideas, a logistics manifesto.
We had a European action day on 4th of October 2023 with actions in Sweden, the UK, Italy, Spain, Belgium, …
ETF participated to a subcontracting action day 2 weeks ago in Straatsburg. T, together with two other European federations with 750 participants demonstrated before the European Parliament.

And this weekoday my uinion BTB is organizing leafletting actions in 70 … companies, in support of this conference!.

ETF organized trainings, coordination, research projects, concrete support to members,

We developed company networks, with strong links with EWCs, in companies like CEVA, FEDEX, UPS, Amazon, …

By doing so, we are occupying space and finally are being the voice of workers in logistics.

And the other good news is that we managed to do all of this in full cooperation with ITF. So we are happy to have our General Secretary General of ITF, Stephenve Cotton, with us today!

As we need knowledge and expertise, we are also building a network of experts around us: labour lawyers, experts in new technologies, trainers, sociologists, researchers… Some of them will take the floor today.

To do all this, we need collective intelligence and brains, and we need the power and determination that we use on our most important battles.

So I am very happy to be here today, and I am sure you’ll all be very active and make today a moment to exchange and build ideas and synergies.

And do not forget, b Brothers and sisters,
USWE, the transport workers do have the leverage to organise the logistic sector.
USWE, and only USWE, the transport unions have the power.
The muscles and the guts to kick open the doors of the logistic companies open.

So to Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and other big shots in the industry
I promise: watch out, ETF and ITF are coming!
to stand up and to fight back!

The ITF is launching a global action week for Safe Rates from Aug. 26 to Sept. 1, 2024. The action week marks a pivotal moment in road transport safety with the introduction of Australia’s comprehensive new Safe Rates system.

This legislation, supported by the government, workers, and industry stakeholders, sets fair pay and conditions for the entire road transport sector, including the gig economy. It’s a significant step towards making our roads safer and ensuring sustainable working conditions.

Below you can find the speech I gave at the conference in Australia.

Let me first tell you that for BTB this “safe rates” campaign is a combination of multiple factors.

• Safe rates
• Road Transport Due Diligence
• Economic employers’ accountability

And it is a possible solution to end social dumping in Europe

The principle of safe rates is important in Europe nowadays. That is because of two very important elements in the European transport sector today: the booming of the transport and logistics sector and the “import” of cheap labour in the transport sector.

Speaking about the booming of the transport and logistics sector: 75% of transport operations in Europe are done by road. So road transport is crucial for the economy. However employers talk about a shortage of drivers, because they can not find enough workers to drive the trucks. In Europe there are actually 233.000 vacancies for professional drivers. Jobs that could be created, but there are no workers available to fill in the jobs. There are even predictions about 745 000 open jobs in 2028.

Even employers’ organisations have to admit that this lack of drivers is not only due to a booming market, but mainly because older drivers retire and young workers are not willing to fill in the open jobs.
In our opinion, drivers’ shortage is a false way of looking at the problem. We rather mention the shortage of “good jobs”. This explains the fact why young people do not want to work in our industry. They are discouraged by the low wages, the bad working conditions, the long working hours and the extreme flexibility. We have to emphasize that in well-paid sectors there is no shortage of staff. There is no problem in finding people willing to work as a docker in Belgium for example.

And then there is the problem of import of cheap labour by the employers. We talk about social dumping in road transport. This is encouraged because of the race to the bottom on the transport prices. Transport must be cheaper and cheaper. The working conditions and the wages of the drivers are the first to experience the negative effect of this race to the bottom.
In Europe social dumping is frequently organized in the transport sector by transport companies hiring drivers from cheap labour countries. It started with Eastern European workers driving in Western Europe, but with Eastern European wages and working conditions.

Then came the so called “third country” drivers, workers from countries outside of the European Union.

Today we even talk about African and South-East Asian truck drivers working in Europe for wages and working conditions far lower than the standard.

I can give you the example of 100 drivers in Liège, who were sacked via a Whatsapp message by a subcontractor of Amazon called KM Group. Amazon lowered unilaterally the transport price they pay to the subcontractor. The consequence was that the subcontractor could no longer transport the goods for the price Amazon was willing to pay.

Another example is that of the Gräfenhausen strike, where for the first time in history East European drivers went on strike against the Polish transport companies Lukmaz, Agmaz and Imperia, all owned by the same owner by the way. They went on strike because they were not payed as it should be, and because of bad working conditions.

These subcontractors were in fact operating for big multinational companies like Ikea, Volkswagen, DHL, LKW Walter, Sennder and CH Robinson.

I can tell you about 300 Philippino drivers recruited to work in Europe. Our Danish colleagues from 3F discovered a facility where 300 drivers were staying during the weekend. The exploitation of these workers by human trafficking was largely documented by 3F and ITF.

Recently we heard that Kenyan drivers are recruited to come to work in Europe on false promises. The reality is that, when they come to work in Europe, they will be the victims of exploitation.

This social dumping kills the transport sector and makes working conditions even worse. It makes staff shortage even bigger. Who wants to work in a sector where exploitation is becoming more and more the standard instead of the exception?

The big question now is what strategies European unions can follow based on these observations?

• We need to go for a better legislation on a national and on a European level.
• We need to interpell employers and employers’ organisations.
• We need to go after the “clients” in the transport sector, the so called “economic employers”.

To enforce a better legislation on a national and European level also means that on a national level, we have to negotiate higher minimum wages and push the governments to put more resources in social and labour inspections.

On a European level we have negotiated the Mobility Package to fight social dumping. We can now also use the European Platform Economy Directive to clean up the sector. But we also need to put more effort into control and enforcement. ELA, the European Labour Authority, is actually not able to play the role of a real European inspection service, so on that level, there is work to be done.

Also on a European level we need to interpell the employers to higher the wages in the sector by means of sectoral negotiations. We need to negotiate with employers’ organisations to create a level playing field to end social dumping, which is much more than false competition.

Both my union, BTB, and the European Transport Federation ETF, are working on this. We talked with IRU (international transport employers’ organisation) and several other employers’ organisations about the safe rates campaign, pointing out the advantages for them. This dialogue already started in 2023 and is still continuing with different meetings planned the coming months.

We will need to go after the “clients” or the “economic employers” in the supply chain. Multinationals like I already mentioned before (Ikea, Unilever, BMW, Danone, …) must take responsibility for what happens in their supply chain.

We must “blame and shape” the bad operations, like we already did with Ikea.

The foundation, financed by ITF, gathers facts and figures about the multinationals’ supply chain to confront them with the real practices for which they are also responsible.

For us, the ITF Safe Rates Campaign is an instrument to tackle the problems I just enumerated.

Safe rates guarantee a salary that ensures the workers of a decent income, enabling drivers to pay their bills at the end of the month.

Safe rates exclude the hyper-flexibility, unreasonable overtime, … and thus create more road safety.

Safe rates need to be guaranteed or supported by legislation.

Transport companies need to be forced to follow the safe rates legislation.

Safe rates will force economic employers to pay the correct price for transport and logistic operations.

Safe rates need to be controlled by governmental inspection services and trade union inspectors.

Yesterday 65 BTB shop stewards gathered in Brussels for a “safe rates” conference, which means that my union is fully engaged in this “safe rates” campaign.

Hereby I do confirm that BTB will fully stay engaged in this important ITF campaign.

Today I had the opportunity to address the ITF Africa Regional Conference in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire and give some insight into how my union BTB have demonstrated global solidarity in Africa by listening to the voices of transport workers and working together to combat multinational employers.

You can read my full speech below.

Hello comrades,

I bring you the most fraternal greetings from my union in Belgium
UBT/BTB
The Union of Belgian Transport Workers.
52,000 trade unionists affiliated to my union salute you!

And I’d like to start my speech with a joke
When I arrived in Côte d’Yvoir a few days ago
I wasn’t the only Belgian visiting the Côte d’Yvoir
There was also the Queen of Belgium
who arrived to visit this country
But we weren’t on the same plane
And we had other priorities
I chose to be with you.

I’m going to speak in French
I had thought of doing half and half
French/English
But that’s less comfortable for the interpreters
And since we are on the Côte d’Yvoir
I’ll speak in French.

I would also like to convey to you the most fraternal greetings
from the European Transport Workers’ Federation.
I would like to remind you that
The ETF represents more than 5 million workers,
200 trade unions in 38 European countries.

I am here as President of the ETF,
and I am accompanied by Livia Spera, our General Secretary.
On her behalf too, I’d like to thank you for your warm welcome
for your warm welcome and hospitality.

I have to tell you that I am very happy to see so many friends in this room,
because I have friends in Africa.
They are all friends I have known for a long time.
Comrades whom I have met through working together
with many trade unions in Africa.

You should know that I’ve been visiting Africa
at least once a year since 2015
To visit the two projects that my union has
in that continent.

So this African affiliates conference is not a first contact for me,
nor a one-off event,
No, it’s an extension and confirmation of numerous contacts with African unions.

Because my trade union organisation
the UBT/BTB, has been involved in ITF cooperation projects since 2015,
and we did so at the request of Steve Cotton, the ITF General Secretary.

And I want to tell you that for me, for us,
solidarity is not just a word
we say at our meetings.
The solidarity that I, my union and the ETF advocate,
translates into concrete action.
Some people like to talk about solidarity,
but we want to put it into practice
In collaborative projects that strengthen the unions
Involved in these projects.

That’s what prompted us to respond favourably to the ITF’s call.
Not because we think we should be paternalistic and come here to Africa in Côte d’Ivoire or Kenya and tell you what to do.
Quite the opposite.
If we are here, it is also to listen to you and we are convinced that by working together,
my union, the UBT and your unions,
you and we can all learn,
exchange good ideas,
share good practices, give each other ideas
and develop strategies together.

We also believe that everyone has the right to live happily
in the country where they were born.
And we believe that everyone has the right to a decent job,
a good job in the country where he or she was born.
And we also believe that everyone has the right to be respected in that job and to be able to work in good conditions
with a decent wage that pays the bills at the end of the month.

My brothers and sisters,
I had the opportunity to visit the ports of Mombassa in Kenya
and Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire,
I visited car parks in Kenya and Côte d’Ivoire.
I visited logistics depots in Nairobi,
I spoke to airport staff in Kenya and Côte d’Ivoire.
I spoke to port workers, lorry drivers, bus drivers and taxi drivers in various African countries.

And it’s true that there are differences between the situation in Europe and that in Africa.

But I also found that the challenges facing transport workers
are not so different.
We are all faced with the same multinationals, such as Bolloré, Boluda, Kuhne&Nagel, DHL, Amazon, Uber, and so on.
We are all confronted with the exploitation of workers
and employers who do not respect workers.

We are all faced with digitalisation, artificial intelligence, automation…

We share the same problems.

So we have a choice, my brothers and sisters:
either we meet all these challenges in our own country,
or we can do it together, in the knowledge that we are stronger when we work together.
Employers and multinationals have an international strategy,
If they have one, we must have one too.

Comrades, grand speeches are all very well,
but I believe that true solidarity is measured
by what we build together in everyday life.

And I tell you, comrades, I promise you that UBT, BTB,
the ETF,
Livia and I will continue to build together with our African friends.
In the years to come, you won’t just hear us talking about international solidarity. You’ll see us on the ground, with concrete projects, acts of solidarity, a presence on the ground. You will see that you have friends in Europe, just as we know that we have friends in Africa.

An African trade unionist from the Kenya Dockers’ Union taught me an African proverb:
if you want to walk fast, then walk alone,
but if you want to walk far, walk together.
And that’s what we’re going to do in the coming years.
Walk far, so walk together.
Together, we are strong!

Viva the ITF
Viva the African unions
Long live international solidarity.

Today two hundred BTB shop stewards gathered in Blankenberge for the closure days of four years of union training.

I addressed the shop stewards in my opening speech, wich you can read below.

Welcome comrades,

Before you stands a proud President
As President, I am proud to find myself
In front of 200 BTB activists in this hall
200 militants who have undergone 4 years of training

This means, comrades, that you have all completed 20 days of training.
On various subjects
This training has enabled you to do your job as a trade unionist even better

And it’s true, comrades,
The better trained you are – the better armed you are
to take on the employers.
Because knowledge is power

You all have mandates in Committees of Safety and Work Councils
This mandate is not easy to carry out
In front of you you have employer representatives
who are shrewd, who have degrees, and who can afford lawyers.
Which costs a lot of money.
Employer representatives who often have no social reflex.

And very often we have colleagues who are grateful to us.
When we are succesful
But we also often have colleagues
Who look at us with great expectations
And from time to time with unrealistic expectations

In this context, you have the onerous task of achieving social progress.

So your mandate is not an easy one
Fulfilling a mandate is difficult
You’ve taken the time and energy to follow trainings.
And today, I’d like to thank you for that.
And tomorrow, on Friday, you will receive your certificate,
Your diploma
And you can be proud of it!

Comrades,
You are, as it were, the elite troops of the BTB
Our best shop stewards who attended four years of formation
Also during COVID
Even online

So it is time today to thank you
Not just for deployment in training
But also for your union struggle
your commitment to colleagues every day
You took every problem that came on your plate seriously
Any attempt by employers to curtail your rights was stopped

Let’s hear an applause for yourselves!

But this was also made possible by our trainers
By the trainers of ABVV-Metaal in Flanders
And from Cepag in Wallonia
They too have given their best for four years
And they will do so for the next two days as well
So they too deserve our thanks.
Applause for them

Comrades,
We face a big, important challenge this year
In May, we have social elections
And then we also get a diploma
Our colleagues-workers can vote
And will pronounce on which union
has worked best over the past four years.

And the challenge for BTB is:
Do we remain the largest union in the industry?
Last time we jumped over ACV Transcom
May will show whether we still have the confidence of transport workers
Whether each of you worked well and whether your co-workers think you did a good job.

I don’t know how you guys look at it, but I am confident that BTB will be successful, that you will win these elections.

For indeed: we did do a good job over the past four years
And the transportation workers know that.

And comrades,
We can be quite proud of all we have accomplished over the past few years.

If during and after the covid crisis, wages remained at level
And the index was fully applied,
This was thanks to the pressure and struggle of the FGTB and of BTB.

If minimum wages were raised by the government
Then this is thanks to the struggle of the FGTB and the BTB

If the government raised the minimum pensions,
Then again, this is thanks to us, the FGTB, the BTB.

Because comrades
We as BTB can be proud of that, too.

Every time the FGTB decides to mobilize and to take action
Then we will be there.
And our mobilization force is strong.
Because time and time again, proportionately many BTB shop stewards have been mobilized
We may be the smallest federation in the FGTB
We are the strongest when it comes to mobilization.

A big thanks for that too.

But also in our sectors
We have done a good job comrades

Who created the new job classification
For truckers in road transport?
It’s thanks to the BTB that we have obtained a classification adapted to the current situation, and we have even obtained wage adjustments for many drivers with this new classification.
And ACV Transcom was nowhere to be found when it came to applying pressure and win your case.

Who took action when our bus drivers were mugged ?
We are the ones who fought for more respect for drivers
And to put pressure on employers for more preventive measures
To avoid insults, physical and psychological aggression, …
And again I ask you
Where was ACV Transcom?
We are the ones who took action.

Who has been campaigning for more and better parking lots for truckers and coach drivers? For more parking spaces, clean parking lots, and especially safe parking lots for truckers and coach drivers?

Who is in the front row in the fight against social dumping?
Who published black books to wake up public opinion and politicians and demand action?

Who denounced the abuses in parcel services with concrete facts and figures? Who supplied the facts against the exploitation of post.nl and DPD and GLS?

Who, comrades, is defending employment at the airports and fighting for the renewal of the operating license, that is, for the employment of handlers?

To each of those questions comrades, there is only one answer!
It is us
It is the BTB
And we should dare to be proud of that!

We did the hard union work comrades,
And ACV Transcom ran after us,
If they didn’t get in our way already!

Comrades, I ask you to dare to explain that to your colleagues.
Be proud of what your union realized,
Be proud of what you yourself realized at company level.

And with that results list, we can’t help but regain the confidence of transport workers in May.

We still have a good three months to campaign
We still have three months to prepare for the final sprint
I urge you to confidently run that campaign

Because BTB is equivalent to
Strong Work
BTB
Is frankly strong.