This week I had the honor of opening the ITF – International Transport Workers’ Federation Arab World Regional Conference in Oran.

You can read the speech I gave below.

 

Dear friends,

Dear comrades,

I am happy and proud that as President of the ETF I can speak here today at the ITF Arab World Conference.

I am particularly proud and delighted because the countries of Europe and the countries of the Arab world are in fact neighbors with a common border, the Mediterranean.

Which means we share a lot.

We share a past

But we trade unionists, above all, we want to share a common future, a future of solidarity. 

And yes, our affiliates face the same challenges.

Deregulation.

Privatisation.

The low-cost model that they try to impose on us everywhere.

The exploitation of workers.

Attacks on unions and union representatives.

There are so many levels at which our affiliates, the European trade unions, and those in the Arab world can collaborate and therefore must collaborate.

And we already do.

In aviation we have developed the joint medco project.

And this collaboration between our unions in the aviation sector demonstrates that we have every interest to work together. 

Let’s first talk about global warming and climate change.

We all know earth is getting warmer with all the negative consequences.

Extreme heat, forest fires, floods, shortage of drinking water and large-scale famines. 

This kind of problems don’t stop neither on either side of the Mediterranean.

We will not accept workers to pay the price for this climate change.

We want the polluters to be called out.  Let us together call on employers and governments to invest in sustainable innovation, in public transport and in infrastructure.

Comrades,

After the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria we directly launched a humanitarian campaign.

And as President of the ETF, I am extremely proud that the ITF and the ETF together have been able to develop this international solidarity.

Comrades,

Some want Europeans to believe that refugees and immigrants are the cause of the crises with which we are confronted in Europe.

But we trade unionists know that no one leaves their country for fun.

Refugees coming to Europe flee for wars, for famine, for poverty…

Not only do we have to be extremely vigilant and rigid with regard to racism and with regard to exclusion.

We also have to fight together against wars between people, against starvation, against world poverty.

Let’s also talk about human rights.

Around the world, both with you and with us, human rights are in question. 

Journalists and trade unionists are intimidated and sometimes even imprisoned.

I am referring to what happened recently in Tunisia.

We clearly denounce the harassment and imprisonment of Tunisian trade unionists.

And we also denounce that Esther Lynch, the General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation, was expelled from the country after taking part in a demonstration, as a sign of solidarity with Tunisian trade unions.

The right to strike, the right to organize trade union actions, freedom of press, these are human rights! 

And it is our responsibility to defend these human rights.  And let’s be clear, comrades, we demand that all trade unionists who are today in prison – anywhere in the world – be released unconditionally.

Allow me to take this opportunity to explicitly thank the ITF of the Arab world, in the person of Bilal Malkawi and Nermin Al-Sharif for their intervention in an incident with Italian fishermen.

Thanks to your intervention, these fishermen, who were detained on Libyan territory, were released.  You have proven that international solidarity is not an empty word for Arab trade unionists, but that it materializes in practice.

Comrades

We, trade unionists, always have our heads in the clouds.

We dream of a better world for the workers we represent!

But we also have both feet on the ground. 

We work day after day to achieve that dream. 

Step by step.

By negotiating, when possible,

But by taking action when it is necessary!

So, comrades, let us be well aware that we are stronger together.

Long live union unity!

Long live international unity!

Long live the ITF!

Together we are stronger!

On January 25 2023, the European Transport Workers’ Federation (ETF) hosted the EU Transport Commissioner Adina Vălean, and the European Parliament’s TRAN Committee coordinators – Marian-Jean Marinescu (EPP), Petar Vitanov (S&D), Ciarán Cuffe (Greens/EFA) and Elena Kountoura (The Left) in a panel discussion on the “Future for Transport”.

In front of an audience of policymakers, transport attachés of the national permanent representations to the EU, representatives of employers’ associations and other transport stakeholders, the debate centred on the causes of and possible solutions to the structural issues facing transport and transport workers, revolving mainly around the unprecedented labour shortages and the deteriorating working conditions and salaries in transport.

As ETF President, I represented transport workers on this panel discussion. Afterwards, ETF caught up with me to ask some questions about the key topics of the discussion.

If you had to pick up three priorities to address the current problem in transport work, what would these be?

“We need to put people at the centre of transport – workers and users/customers. We must re-shuffle transport and it’s goals and priorities should reflect these people. We need a pact, a political plan with clear objectives that puts people first. Putting people first is a political choice, not a utopian ideal. If we have political willingness, it can be reached, and this is what ETF and all our unions are doing daily: working to put people, and transport workers, at the centre of transport and transport policy.

There is an inspection and enforcement problem in transport. The Mobility Package was the outcome of many discussions between trade unions and the European Parliament and Commission, and we came to a good result that would tackle social dumping and exploitation in transport. It was a good result, but the question is – what is enforced? Is legislation backed by inspections and enforcement? Legislation at the national level against social dumping and exploitation existed already before the Mobility Package, but there were also issues with sufficient inspections, and now we have the same problem.

For example, in Belgium the 2nd largest transport company was caught by inspection services and police organising social dumping and even human trafficking. This began a whole discussion of whether there was to be an investigation and legal proceedings, but the only consequence was a €200,000 fine and a suspended sentence for the CEO. This is only one example of the lack of inspection and enforcement for social legislation. This opens it up for people to question the efficacy of legislation such as the Mobility Package.

The 2nd priority is to do something about precarity of jobs and illegal subcontracting. I agree with the commissioner in that regard, labour shortages exist because the jobs are unstable or badly paid. There are lots of issues in the eCommerce and logistics sector – precariousness and low quality jobs are a big issue.

A 3rd priority is minimum wage. There was a big discussion in the European Union around minimum wage. We don’t want that all workers throughout Europe are paid the same, we need decent wages everywhere and we can achieve this through good CBAs. Is it too much to ask that all have a minimum wage to ensure them a decent living? And this should definitely apply to third-country nationals to ensure that there is no exploitation. This would create quality and attractive employment for all, and help lessen labour shortages in transport.

Some of the other panellists today advocate for further liberalisation, but they must understand that it’s not normal to discover nearly 200 road freight drivers in Denmark in a camp living in unacceptable circumstances, as our unions did. This motivates us unions to lobby for regulation and legislation that protects these people. We saw in maritime that P&O fired 800 workers through a video message  and replaced them instantly with cheap labour – this is not only unacceptable, but not a viable method to organise transport.

We don’t need to create regulation only for more bureaucracy, we must create efficient regulations to control and combat exploitation in transport. If we can clean up transport through regulation, we will answer the problem of labour shortages. Young people don’t want to work in transport, because they understand that the conditions are bad. We must create quality transport to motivate young people to work in this sector. We must realise that there is a real problem in transport and that labour shortages will exist for a long time unless we adapt.

Moreover, labour should be organised in a way to make it accessible for all to do that job. It is not normal that baggage handlers suffer broken knees, shoulders and backs at 45. We must reorganise work to make it more ergonomic. We must regulate to ensure the health and safety of workers. Baggage handlers lift more than 5 tonnes per day, and there are many other examples from different transport sectors – so we must reorganise this so that all workers, no matter men or women, can work easily and safely, and then there will be more women in transport.”

Do you think that the EU has given up on employment in sectors such as shipping and long-distance truck driving? If not, how could we reverse the current situation, and how could we put an end to social dumping practices in transport?

“We as unions are not giving up on this and we won’t.  But the priority is clear: whether it is an EU citizen or a third country national, we need the same working conditions, that have to be the ones of the place where the work is performed. We can make it cheaper and cheaper, but the truth is the process is not bottomless. We have to make conditions decent: everyone’s welcome to come and work in the EU at EU conditions.  As an example: why can’t the seafarers employed on vessels that trade in European waters have the right to European salaries? Many European countries and the EU have given up on maritime employment many years ago and yet they haven’t learnt from past mistakes. We have been asking for a European maritime space for years now, where seafarers enjoy European conditions.

We have continued along the same way with road and then urban public transport and now airports. This trend is becoming more and more visible and it is the duty of policy-makers to put an end to it. It is highly hypocrite to complain about flights being cancelled or delayed due to lack of staff and close an eye on the bad working conditions at handling companies. 

It is clear that policy decisions have created these situations. One example on all is aviation: the push to extreme liberalization, the push to be cheap, to competition, has created year by year the chaos that we experienced last summer. We keep being asked the question: how can we save the holiday season? How can we save the summer? Well, there’s no magic stick, just a profound review of policies and a rethink of the sector on the whole can heal a sick sector such as aviation.

The same mistake should not be made in other sectors.  As an example: The European Commission is currently revising the Train Drivers’ Directive. ETF is highly concerned by several of the proposals the Commission makes, as they would seriously endanger the safety on the rail, for example by lowering the language knowledge requirement for drivers. Drivers not being able to speak to colleagues, to infrastructure managers, or in the worst case to emergency services creates a serious risk. European policy makers must listen to the expert advice of train drivers to keep the job safe and attractive.”

Modal shift has been a priority for EU and national transport policies for decades already. Why do you think this objective has not been reached and what should be done differently?

“I believe there have been a number of issues, among them underinvestment and privatisation that have not worked.

We must make public transport more attractive than the car. Public transport must be organised in a way to make it more attractive, that’s how simple it is. To make it more attractive it must have more frequent journeys, at earlier and later times. This needs greater public investment  but also a sector that is attractive for workers to work at these earlier and later times.

Road transport is very cheap and road freight is incentivised  to shift to rail. The price of road transport is kept artificially low through rules not being enforced and unscrupulous companies undermining social benefits and working conditions to save money. The same is true for aviation.

There are high ambitions for the railway sector to play a key part in more sustainable transport systems, but for rail to be able to live up to these expectations, the sector needs investments, not only in infrastructure and rolling stock, but especially also to attract and retain enough workers.”

We have seen many experiments in Spain and Germany offering low-fares for citizens, to encourage greater public ridership. This is linked to transport poverty, but trade unions have some doubts about the implementation of these plans. Could you please elaborate on this?

“Public transport is a public good and cannot be a profit-making activity. Public transport played a key role in guaranteeing mobility to essential workers and to allow low-income people access to jobs and services. The energy crisis brings another urgency to good public transport.

But, there is no public transport without workers and still public transport fails to attract workforce. The shortage of staff becomes critical and undermines any attempt at shifting ridership to public transport

So, in our view low and free fare should be regarded as a means of redistribution of wealth and  applied in a targeted manner. This approach ensures fare revenue and a certain balance. Low or free fares must also be planned and agreed upon in consultation with the social partners  and public transport must be compensated by other revenue sources to allow investment in infrastructure, fleet improvement, etc. Low and free fares must be accompanied by measures that ensure adequate levels of pay and working conditions and must be a part of long-term national strategies.”

Were there any agreements among the panellists here today?

“It is true that we agreed to disagree on a lot of topics here today, but there have been many issues that we have found agreement. Safe parking areas for drivers, this is something that we found agreement on. We need safe parking areas with decent facilities, where good food is available and accessible, and we should develop our agreements on this.

We disagreed on many topics, such as the investment in rail. While many rail services in Europe are state-owned, these states have disinvested in rail. We still have concrete examples of the outcomes of the privatisation of rail. So the dichotomy told by some panellists today is false, it is not between state-owned and private rail, but between invested and non-invested rail services and other public transport.

The commissioner and I agreed on the fact that we need well-paid and well-protected workers in transport in order to make transport a sustainable and attractive sector for workers. We have also agreed on the modal shift, we need to solve the problem of social dumping in freight transport, otherwise the modal shift and intermodality won’t be successful, because it will still be too cheap to transport freight by road. So we have agreed to clean up the trucking industry, and we have agreed that there is a lot of work to do on this.“

In Brussels the first European gathering took place of riders and unions dedicated to Just Eat. A gathering that is organised in the framework of a project, financed by ETF, and runned by the Danish union 3F and the Belgian Transport Union BTB.

ETF is a European federation of transport unions. Today, the ETF represents more than 5 million transport workers from more than 200 transport unions and 38 European countries.

So we could ask ourselves: why does a federation that organises workers from the trucking industry, the dockworkers, workers in aviation, rail,… set up a project about “Just Eat / Takeaway”.

I would say: it is all about the platform industry!

Just Eat is a company in this fairly new sector, a sector that is still searching for its place, a sector that is still struggling to have a fair and right business model, a sector where there is still a lot of room for improvement for the worker. It is also a sector propelled by the digitalisation and globalisation. It is a sector where one eats competitors or gets eaten themselves.

All over Europe (and beyond), trade unions are working to strengthen workers’ rights in these new sectors and companies.

And let’s be clear, a lot of these platform companies have a more than lousy reputation when we talk about workers rights. These companies are often multinationals, Multinationals that have a global vision, that have a global strategy,

Workers face the same problems and hazards in several countries. It is therefore necessary for us, as trade unions, also to work together on this at a European level.

Together we can achieve more, together we are stronger. After all, there are  quite a lot of challenges we have to deal with: In Belgium, a workers salary and his or her’s working conditions depend on to what joint bargaining committee you belong.

And for us, Belgian unions, delivery workers like riders of Just Eat should be part of the transport joint committee.

But riders are not placed in the joint committee where they belong, that of freight haulage, including the sector-wide agreed rules and conditions.

No, they were enrolled in a joint committee with less protection, with lower minimum wages. Just Eat deliberately chose to ignore the proper sector, not out of ignorance, but knowingly. Because that way they have to pay the riders less, because that way the riders have fewer rights and protection.

It is a large-spread technique by platform companies that is called declassification.

And of course this is not the only problem,

For instance, riders have to purchase some of their necessary equipment themselves. An essential part of their equipment is a good, modern and therefore costly smartphone. A rider cannot work without it but the company does not provide this essential work tool.

Riders obviously work for a living. But the wages for platform workers also in Just Eat are not as it should be. It is not a wage they can live on.

Regular promises to increase wages are made though. But in practice, very little comes of these promises.

The riders’ area of operation is public roads, often in crowded cities. Every time a rider goes out, she or he enters traffic as a vulnerable road user. Sometimes in an environment with adapted cycling infrastructure, but in many cities in an environment where the car is king. Work accidents are thus a reality for riders. And yet we see that these often go unreported. That these often go un-recognised. This cannot be.

Employers are not only responsible to keep their workers working in the safest possible environment, if something goes wrong then they need to take responsibility. Riders are humans, not disposable products.

In Europe, and certainly in Belgium and Danmark, there is a decades-long tradition of social dialogue. Social dialogue is necessary to create a good and safe working environment.

And yet they manage to reject social dialogue in Belgium and many other countries. Despite the reality and size of the companies, despite the large number of employees, they refuse to comply with the rules of the game. It is time for real social dialogue.

ETF is following a double strategy to tackle the problems of riders in the platform economy.

We want better regulation, and we are working very hard to have a European regulation for platform workers that betters life of the workers. Actually there is a big discussion in European Parliament about the platform regulation. And we give full speed in lobby-ing and action to have better legislation.

But we also want to build union power with the workers. Being present in companies like Just Eat Organising the workers and try to make them speak with one voice to their employer. Makes them stronger and will change their working conditions for the best.

This conference is meant to get to know each other. To exchange experiences: what is going wrong, but also what is going right.

Today is a kick-off:

How are things going in the various countries

What statute, or statutes, do the riders have in the various countries

What rights does everybody have

What agreements have been made, have collective agreements been reached

How can we help each other

These are today’s goals, a first step to improve working conditions together. To start social dialogue. To do our work as trade unions.

Workers’ rights have always been created out in solidarity.

Solidarity between workers of a company,

Solidarity between workers of a country,

Solidarity between workers globally.

It is together that we are stronger!

The Executive Committee of the ETF gathered in Vienna for the first real meeting of the ETF’s Executive Committee after the congress in Budapest.

The ETF congress in Budapest was enjoyed very much by all participants. A lot of decisions were taken there. The work program was adopted, 19 motions were passed to Congress. But now the hard work starts. Making those decisions concrete, implementing an integrating them in the day to day work, setting up campaigns, …

A lot of work on the plate of the General Secretary, the secretariat and the sections. But also for all of us.  Affiliates take the decisions at our congress, but are also responsible to execute them giving the support that is needed to the team to make it real. So we will need all of you to work on the objectives we decided on.

Let’s face it, the situation for us, the trade unions is not easy for the moment. We are still not completely out of the covid crisis, and we are facing already another deep crisis.  The war in Ukraine, but also speculation flames the inflation.  The energy prices we all have to pay are mountain high, shopping in the supermarket is extremely expensive, …

For the people we represent, it becomes more and more difficult to pay the bills at the end of the month. That is why a lot of us, trade unions are in “action modus”. It’s been quite a “hot” fall this year with strikes in several countries. Strikes of transport workers who are sick and tired of not receiving fair pay and having to work in indecent working conditions.

Transport workers still having to cope with the refusal of employers and workers’ federations denying them decent pay rises and improved working conditions.  Although the employers’ organisations themselves predict a big shortage of workers in different sectors in the near future. IRU for example is predicting that the shortage of truck drivers will triple between now and 2026.

And sure, employers will tell us that competition is hard, and that they have no margins for pay rise. Well, the big electricity provider in Belgium, Engie is making millions because of the energy crises, and their shareholders in Paris are cashing big profits.

And Jef Bezos sends rockets in space, while the Amazon staff is exploited and denied fundamental rights.

So it is not more than normal that in the meanwhile in several countries like France, the United Kingdom, Holland, Belgium there are general or sector linked strike actions. And also here in Austria the rail workers will be on strike this week because of the lack of investments in rail, for decent jobs, pay, decent conditions and decent rail services.  We will organise a solidarity action during the coming days with our Austrian friends of rail that are on strike.

Different comrades were also present during the ITUC congress in Melbourne last week. Some of us in the ITF delegation, others in their national delegation.

I would like to mention the election of the new General Secretary for ITUC, Luca Visentini, who was elected with a majority of more than 70 %. We congratulated him on behalf of ETF, but we hope that he will be able to bring new dynamics in the organisation and to make it even more relevant for the affiliates.

This means of course that Esther Lynch will take over his tasks as General Secretary of ETUC until the elections of a new secretariat within ETUC in May of next year. We all know her, we were able to nominate her, and we know that she will be in big support of ETF.

But when I mention ETUC and ITUC I want to emphasise that the expectations we have of the two organisations are not fulfilled as they should be.  How come  that we have such a big challenge in Europe on inflation and energy prices that are unpayable, with a late or even non-reaction of the commission and the council, without a mobilisation on a European scale by the ETUC?

How come the ETUC is not proposing a mobilisation on a European level to give a clear and strong signal to Europe that we want them to do more and better when it comes on protecting workers purchasing power, salaries and working conditions? I know that Livia Spera, ETF’s General Secretary, with some other European federations and national unions, did plead for it, but just up to now ETUC is not able to put a mobilisation proposal on the table. Since it is my conviction that we will not be able to solve the problems in the different countries, without European coordination, I think we need to continue to insist and asking for European action by ETUC.