As working people, we face enormous challenges ahead. In many cases, we are already facing them today. If we want to avoid penalising working people, then we must be ready with answers.

Climate transition

The biggest challenge facing us worldwide is global warming. This is not something hovering in the distant future. We are already noticing the effects in our daily lives. Think of the droughts and crop failures in Australia or Africa. The widespread forest fires in Canada, the United States, Spain and Greece. And the harrowing impact of floods in Italy, Libya, Germany, the Czech Republic and the Dutch and Belgian Meuse region, as well as the Alps. Already many people worldwide are fleeing climate change. With a rapidly rising global population, migration will do nothing but grow. Climate change is already prompting many companies, governments and individuals to accelerate investments in the electrification of their production methods and transport modes. And this has a direct, immediate impact for everyone working in the transport industry.

Automation, digitalisation and the race to the bottom

Electrification often goes hand in hand with accelerated automation, digitalisation and the meteoric development of artificial intelligence – and so on. All this combined is currently revolutionising our economy. I can imagine that truckers and taxi drivers are very worried when they see self-driving vehicles being developed. In fact some of them here and there are already operational. Tech companies have also set a race to the bottom in motion worldwide. By ‘outsourcing’ physical labour, they are playing off logistics service providers who, in turn, are competing increasingly fiercely with each other. Everything has to get cheaper and cheaper – and this is at the expense of working people. ‘Techploitation’ is placing pressure on public services. Wages are dropping, often as the result of using cheap labour. And social dumping, ‘legal’ or otherwise, is commonplace all over the world.

Populism and the far right

Alienation and a sense of unease are taking hold of people. Fear of insecurity is a major socioeconomic consequence. Especially for those in the lowest wage categories. And growing anti-politics leads to more populism and leaning to the far right. Populism and the far-right pose a real threat in this regard. Because even our own supporters are not deaf to far right and populist slogans that are spread by the Pied Pipers of Hamelin, who try to seduce working people with a false narrative of hatred, division and exclusion.

If we don’t want history to repeat itself, trade unions will have to do more than step up their fight against populism and the far right!

These are just some of the social phenomena we will need to get our teeth into. What follows is a summary of the main challenges we face as unions in the coming years. Some of these challenges will be on our radar for several more years to come. Others will already have a defining resolution in 2024. For instance, I am thinking of the European elections, the outcome of which will be crucial for the future of Europe and for working people across the continent. And elsewhere in the world, too – because Europe is not an island. Whether we like it or not, we are all global citizens now. And, for the record, I feel like a citizen of the world.

The transport industry is characterised by low profit margins, high levels of competition, few barriers to entry, and high turnover rates. Local and regional transport markets play an integral role in global supply chains, whether it’s passenger transport, cargo freight transport, or even the fuel required to run the industry and the broader economy. While in theory this provides transport workers with greater leverage in industrial negotiations, it can also expose them to the consequences of corporate decisions made in boardrooms on the other side of the world from where their local, or even national, unions operate. To be heard we need to stand up. We need to organise across local and international workplaces and supply chains. We have to align local action with international campaigns and to effectively hold decision makers to account where they seek to silence and ignore local worker voices.

TONY SHELDON °26/08/1961. Australia. Senator for the Australian Labor Party. President of the Australian Senate Education and Employment Committee. Former national secretary of the Transport Workers Union of Australia (TWU) and former president of the road transport section of the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF)