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.

 

Today I spoke at the workshop “What social Europe do we want?” organized by the ABVV. Read the full speech below.

 

Comrades,

First of all, I would like to inform you that BTB, has published a memorandum in response to the many elections coming up this year. In it we give our vision of how the political world can help us achieve “fair transportation.”

A good portion of what is described in this memorandum is about Europe. By the way, this memorandum also includes ETF’s manifesto, in which our European transport union lists the priorities for fair transport.

Our BTB memorandum contains many proposals that can and must only be realized at the European level. I often say that 85% of the rules that apply in the transport sector are set at European level or even global level.

Of the elections coming up this year, these are an absolute priority battleground for the European Parliament!

After all, the right, the far right and the extreme right threaten to become stronger in these elections, and I can give you a piece of paper: that is not in the interest of the working population, that is not in the interest of our members, and that is certainly not in the interest of the (transport) workers. So we must mobilize as a union to strengthen the progressive forces in Europe, and for BTB these are those parties that have helped us in the past period to enforce progressive emphases in Europe.

The examples of how important the European battleground is are legion.
It will not surprise you that I mention social dumping as one of the essential issues at the European level.
Twice, the status of our dockworkers has been under attack from Europe, through proposals contained in Port Package 1 and 2. The European mobilizations that we organized were twice successful.
If today there are European rules on social dumping in road transport, it is because of trade union mobilization, and because we had friends in the European Parliament who helped us push these rules through. Kathleen Van Brempt and Astrid Jongerius spring to mind. The mobility package was a bad proposal from the committee. Trade union action ensured that it became an acceptable compromise with many union accents.

So a first message I want to give is that we as a union should be less ambiguous about Europe. Just because we are against the policy that the committee is pursuing today does not mean that we should be against Europe.
The European idea, the European construction has provided peace in Europe for 79 years. Moreover, it is not only an insurance against internal war, but also a guarantee of economic resistance in the geopolitical field. How could a small country like Belgium hold its own in the globalizing world against the super-aggressive politics of – say – China?

By the way, I am not so sure that our British comrades are so happy about their Brexit.

But I’m sure our truckers don’t want to go back to the good old days when they needed 26 different currencies when driving internationally. Let alone had to face 26 different mountains of paper in terms of administrative and border formalities, not to mention the long waits at the borders. The same goes for aviation, inland navigation, etc. The saying “things were better in the past” is simply wrong, and we must dare to say that as a union.

But we should also have the courage to say that today’s Europe is not the kind of Europe we want. In the ETF manifesto we clearly state that Europe did not respond correctly to the social, economic and political challenges of today, and on the contrary, has bet on liberalization, privatization, deregularization. And that has reinforced the distrust of working people towards that distant – and in their eyes bureaucratic – Europe. And count on populists to capitalize on that.

It is up to us to put another Europe on the map. And that will require more European commitment from the unions.

You know that I wrote a book entitled “The world is ours”. In it I argue for more international trade union engagement. So we also need to make Europe “ours.”

And when Miranda Ulens, our general secretary, recently warned in a Facebook message – quite rightly, by the way – about the new austerity policies that are rearing their heads in Europe, we have to ask ourselves why there were so few FGTB members present at our December 12, 2023 demonstration?

Those who today advocate for another Europe, they must work for it in concrete terms. And that means mobilizing our members and militants for another Europe when the chips are down. And just as we never got anything just like that, we will have to fight for it. If we do not engage with Europe, Europe will not fail to engage with us. And if we don’t fight for our share, our members will foot the bill at the end. And so comrades, next time Ester Lynch calls for a European mobilization, we will have to do more and better.

Comrades, allow me to get a little more specific.

If there is one area where I want more Europe, it is in the area of enforcement. What good are European rules if half of Europe wipes its pants on them? What is the benefit of having a good mobility package if it is not applied?

What is the benefit of having a European Labour Authority if it is a paper tiger? This European Labour Authority was created by European Commissioner Marianne Thyssen at the time. We hoped that this would become a kind of embryo for a European Social Inspectorate. Today it appears that the ELA is to be given much more and stronger powers. The inspections they carry out today are no more than symbolic and are always announced in advance. And even then they catch almost 67% offenders when they go hunting with the fanfare in front.

Meanwhile, unscrupulous fraud continues in road transport: Over the past six months, the Belgian Federal Police has fined more than 85% of the Eastern European drivers inspected during truck checks on the highways in the province of Liège for violating driving and rest periods and the return rules of the EU mobility package. A total of nearly 700 checks were carried out, with violations found in 596 cases. For example, 112 drivers from Lithuania, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania had not been home for three months or more, while 136 drivers had been on the road on Western European roads for more than two months. Another nearly 70% (412 drivers) had not observed the mandatory weekend rest outside the cab.
Since summer 2023, Belgian police have been randomly checking Eastern European trucks on highways for compliance with the EU mobility package. This resulted in nearly 1.4 million euros in fines last year.

Just recently, BTB provided the inspection services with the coordinates of a whole row of “Christmas parking lots” where drivers had to leave their trucks when they went to their home countries – usually Eastern Europe – for the holidays. The fact that the vehicle was left here and then picked up here to start work again shows that they are covered by the Belgian collective bargaining agreement “Equal pay for equal work” and thus must be employed under Belgian wage and working conditions. So there is still a lot of work to be done.
But in the Netherlands there are hardly any checks on compliance with the EU mobility package. So it is high time for more powers for ELA, for more controls, and for tougher enforcement.
We also have skewed situations in the maritime sector, for example. Belgian officers in the merchant navy sailing under the Cypriot, Maltese and Italian flags are refused affiliation by the social security systems of the countries concerned. Actually, they are thus obliged to work “in the black.” So the European Commission is apparently less lenient when it comes to the enforceability of European budgetary rules than when it comes to the correct application of its own social regulations.

But the principals of transports must also take responsibility. Large multinationals such as IKEA, DHL, … should not pretend not to know what is happening in their transport chain. Last year, Eastern European truckers went on strike twice. They put their trucks aside because they had been squeezed like lemons for months. The strikes in Gräfenhausen were news all over Europe. The drivers were striking against their Polish employers. And in the end they won, getting their back wages paid in full. But what did it turn out? That those shadowy Polish transport firms were driving in subcontracting for big players like Ikea, Volkswagen, DHL, LKW Walter, Sennder and CH Robinson.
BTB and ETF thus suggest that in Europe we go full steam ahead with the introduction of “corporate responsibility,” the liability of the prime client. Strengthening due diligence laws and making them applicable to the chain within the EU. Introducing effective chain liability in the transport sector, which also applies to wage debts and is retroactive.
Finally, I would like to make a plea for supporting politicians who dare to stick their necks out in the European Parliament. For example, BTB fully supports Kathleen Van Brempt’s proposal to work on a European port strategy. The strategic importance of our ports and port infrastructure is essential for the Belgian economy, and thus for employment in Belgium. The Port of Antwerp is the first economic hub in Belgium. However, concerns about foreign interference in our ports are real.

China is using its economic power and maritime sector to gain increasing influence in critical infrastructure in Europe. In countless ports throughout the European Union, we see the influence of foreign powers and China in particular growing. From the port of Piraeus in Greece, where two-thirds of the shares are owned by the Chinese state-owned COSCO Shipping, to the ports of Hamburg and Zeebrugge, where the same COSCO owns part of the terminal.
And I don’t think, comrades, that we want to import the Chinese model of state capitalism here in Belgium. That is why I am making an appeal here today to heed Kathleen’s call – supported by the European Parliament – to wake up the commission and take action to safeguard the interests of Europe, and of European workers.

 

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!