Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • Strategic autonomy
    • War in Ukraine
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter

Unions are giving workers a European voice in the crisis

Isabelle Barthès and Patricia Velicu 19th January 2023

Trade unions have been winning battles across Europe to halt the erosion of real wages but can’t win this war alone.

unions,trade unions,wages,profits
Metal and electrical workers in Germany represented by IG Metall won a stepped 8.5 per cent pay increase plus a €3,000 bonus (IG Metall)

The past year has been marked by protests, demonstrations and intense collective bargaining across Europe, as trade unions have been fighting to protect the wellbeing of their members. The picture is grim all over the continent. With inflation at levels not experienced for more than 40 years, real wages have fallen precipitously.

In-work poverty is exploding, as the cost-of-living crisis is squeezing those on low and middle incomes. Inequality is booming. Record profits for big business are going into shareholders’ pockets, rather than much-needed investments in the twin green and digital transitions.

Higher wages

With the campaign ‘Together. In Action. For Higher Wages’, industriAll Europe and its members have called for wages to be raised in line with inflation plus productivity gains. We have also called for anti-crisis measures—public policies which are essential, alongside wages policy, to tackle the root causes of the cost-of-living crisis and deal with the consequences of the energy crisis in industrial workplaces. By standing united and co-ordinating our actions, we have sent a strong signal to employers and policy-makers that industrial workers in Europe are fighting this battle side by side.

The campaign has been carried out at all levels. We have made five core demands of European employers’ associations, European Union policy-makers and other stakeholders:


Our job is keeping you informed!


Subscribe to our free newsletter and stay up to date with the latest Social Europe content. We will never send you spam and you can unsubscribe anytime.

Sign up here

  • a pay rise that guarantees decent living standards;
  • fair taxes on companies and the wealthy;
  • support for workers affected by the cost-of-living crisis;
  • financial support for companies struggling with energy costs, with guarantees to save jobs and raise wages, and
  • sectoral bargaining so workers can win better pay.

The ‘Brussels bubble’ of EU opinion is dominated by business and industry lobbies which push for conservative, employer-friendly policies. Take the austerity imposed after the 2008 crash, which decentralised collective bargaining in many member states and led through wage freezes and cuts to a recession. Making workers’ voices heard through our campaign has, therefore, been crucial.

Exchanging views

The campaign has given our members the opportunity to exchange views on the situation in each country, on collective-bargaining demands and employers’ tactics. This has been of particular relevance in big industrial regions, where employers try to play workers and their trade unions in neighbouring countries off against one another.

The best example was industriAll Europe’s participation in the launch of the collective-bargaining negotiations for the metal and electrical industry in Gelsenkirchen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, and at the collective-bargaining committee meeting in Sprockhövel. The federation’s general secretary, Luc Triangle, stressed that IG Metall’s demand for an 8 per cent wage increase in Germany was not isolated but in line with those from unions in neighbouring countries: the FNV confederation in the Netherlands was asking for a wage increase to compensate for 12 per cent inflation; in Austria, the production union PRO-GE was demanding a pay rise of 10.6 per cent.

Such exchanges of information gave industriAll Europe’s members reassurance, amid immense pressure from employers and conservative voices. Across Europe, employers adopted a very aggressive narrative of wage ‘moderation’, appealing to unions’ ‘responsibility’ to restrain their demands and warning against a ‘wage-price spiral’. Trade unions had to be strong, resilient and decisive in this public environment still dominated by conservative and neoliberal views. The figures have however been on our side: after an entire year of employers’ warnings against such a spiral, there are still no signs of it.

While in most countries wages are in fact falling far behind inflation—meaning a real pay cut for millions of workers—many big companies continue to book record profits. These are not however being invested: dividends are growing faster than inflation while private investment as a share of gross domestic product continues to decline. Chief executives have meawhile scooped the pool: United States data covering the largest firms indicate a growth of remuneration of more than 1,000 per cent over the past 40 years, nearly 100 times the rate for average workers.

Company profits reached new highs in the second quarter of 2022. Strong order books and better-than-expected results have been evident not only in energy, but also the steel, automotive and pharmaceutical industries.

Those making money from the crisis should pay for it. They have a responsibility to pay decent wages—and their fair share of taxes. The EU has finally proposed to introduce a minimum corporation tax of 15 per cent for large companies but more needs to be done. Austerity should be avoided at all costs, especially in an environment where social unrest and the far right are on the rise.

Important achievements

The collective struggle has paid off for some, as some of our members have scored important achievements over recent months, winning significant wage increases through collective agreements. The FNV won an 11 per cent increase in the metals sector (duration 18 months). PRO-GE and GPA in Austria secured a 7.4 per cent increase in the metals/technology sector and a monthly lump sum of €75 (duration 12 months). In Belgium, workers will receive an automatic indexation resulting in an 11 per cent rise. And IG Metall achieved an increase of 8.5 per cent, plus a one-off tax-free bonus of €3,000, in the metals/electrical sector.


We need your support


Social Europe is an independent publisher and we believe in freely available content. For this model to be sustainable, however, we depend on the solidarity of our readers. Become a Social Europe member for less than 5 Euro per month and help us produce more articles, podcasts and videos. Thank you very much for your support!

Become a Social Europe Member

But in many countries the mobilisation continues. In Belgium, automatic indexation is under threat from employers who want to abolish it. In France, unions in the energy sector have had to take decisive industrial action on several occasions. In the United Kingdom, the right to strike is subject to a wide range of threats from the Conservative government, as the country is shaken by one of the biggest strike waves in its history. In Romania, on the same day, 5,000 workers from Dacia, Ford and ICA and others affiliated to our member industriAll-BNS took to the streets to demand higher wages, caps on energy prices and sectoral collective bargaining.

Where we have won, the unions’ capacity to act has made the difference. We therefore strongly condemn the continuing attacks on trade union rights, especially the right to strike. Unions in the UK are in an existential struggle—we stand with them and shall resist.

We are experiencing an extraordinary situation. The war in Ukraine shattered the hopes for a fast and peaceful recovery after the pandemic, plunging Europe into the energy and cost-of-living crises which threaten to jeopardise the twin transition. It is difficult to anticipate how long high inflation will last, but we are far away from a return to the very low levels to which we had become accustomed. For trade unions, the pressure to protect members’ purchasing power is growing—recent wins through collective bargaining already risk being eaten away by inflation. 

Industrial unions from all over Europe will meet in Milan at the beginning of February to discuss how they can best find a way out of the crisis. Ensuring a green and digital transition that leaves no worker behind requires a new union strategy for collective bargaining and effective public policies.

If we stand united—‘Together. In Action. For Higher Wages’—we can and shall win.

Isabelle Barthes
Isabelle Barthès

Isabelle Barthès is deputy general secretary of industriAll Europe.

Patricia Velicu
Patricia Velicu

Patricia Velicu is senior policy adviser at industriAll Europe

You are here: Home / Economy / Unions are giving workers a European voice in the crisis

Most Popular Posts

meritocracy The myth of meritocracy and the populist threatLisa Pelling
consultants,consultancies,McKinsey Consultants and the crisis of capitalismMariana Mazzucato and Rosie Collington
France,pension reform What’s driving the social crisis in FranceGuillaume Duval
earthquake,Turkey,Erdogan Turkey-Syria earthquake: scandal of being unpreparedDavid Rothery
European civil war,iron curtain,NATO,Ukraine,Gorbachev The new European civil warGuido Montani

Most Recent Posts

France,demonstrations,strikes,pension reform Why is France unable to reach social compromises?Guillaume Duval
Sunak,strikes,Britons,Britain,UK,cost of living Suave Sunak cold comfort for impoverished BritonsPaul Mason
persons with disabilities,people with disabilities,European Disability Card Equal citizenship for persons with disabilitiesAntoine Fobe
gas,IPCC Will this be the last European Gas Conference?Pascoe Sabido
water Confronting the global water crisisMariana Mazzucato, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Johan Rockström and 1 more

Other Social Europe Publications

front cover scaled Towards a social-democratic century?
Cover e1655225066994 National recovery and resilience plans
Untitled design The transatlantic relationship
Women Corona e1631700896969 500 Women and the coronavirus crisis
sere12 1 RE No. 12: Why No Economic Democracy in Sweden?

ETUI advertisement

The four transitions and the missing one

Europe is at a crossroads, painfully navigating four transitions (green, digital, economic and geopolitical) at once but missing the transformative and ambitious social transition it needs. In other words, if the EU is to withstand the storm, we do not have the luxury of abstaining from reflecting on its social foundations, of which intermittent democratic discontent is only one expression. It is against this background that the ETUI/ETUC publishes its annual flagship publication Benchmarking Working Europe 2023, with the support of more than 70 graphs and a special contribution from two guest editors, Professors Kalypso Nikolaidïs and Albena Azmanova.


DOWNLOAD HERE

Eurofound advertisement

#AskTheExpert webinar—Key ingredients for the future of work: job quality and gender equality

Eurofound’s head of information and communication, Mary McCaughey, its senior research manager, Agnès Parent-Thirion, and research manager, Jorge Cabrita, explore the findings from the recently published European Working Conditions Telephone Survey (EWCTS) in an #AskTheExpert webinar. This survey of more than 70,000 workers in 36 European countries provides a wide-ranging picture of job quality across countries, occupations, sectors and age groups and by gender in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. It confirms persistent gender segregation in sectors, occupations and workplaces, indicating that we are a long way from the goals of equal opportunities for women and men at work and equal access to key decision-making positions in the workplace.


WATCH HERE

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

Let’s end involuntary unemployment!

What is the best way to fight unemployment? We want to know your opinion, to understand better the potential of an EU-wide permanent programme for direct and guaranteed public-service employment.

In collaboration with Our Global Moment, Fondazione Pietro Nenni and other progressive organisations across Europe, we launched an EU-wide survey on the perception of unemployment and publicly funded jobs, exploring ways to bring innovation in public sector-led job creation.


TAKE THE SURVEY HERE

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

The macroeconomic effects of re-applying the EU fiscal rules

Against the background of the European Commission's reform plans for the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), this policy brief uses the macroeconometric multi-country model NiGEM to simulate the macroeconomic implications of the most relevant reform options from 2024 onwards. Next to a return to the existing and unreformed rules, the most prominent options include an expenditure rule linked to a debt anchor.

Our results for the euro area and its four biggest economies—France, Italy, Germany and Spain—indicate that returning to the rules of the SGP would lead to severe cuts in public spending, particularly if the SGP rules were interpreted as in the past. A more flexible interpretation would only somewhat ease the fiscal-adjustment burden. An expenditure rule along the lines of the European Fiscal Board would, however, not necessarily alleviate that burden in and of itself.

Our simulations show great care must be taken to specify the expenditure rule, such that fiscal consolidation is achieved in a growth-friendly way. Raising the debt ceiling to 90 per cent of gross domestic product and applying less demanding fiscal adjustments, as proposed by the IMK, would go a long way.


DOWNLOAD HERE

ILO advertisement

Global Wage Report 2022-23: The impact of inflation and COVID-19 on wages and purchasing power

The International Labour Organization's Global Wage Report is a key reference on wages and wage inequality for the academic community and policy-makers around the world.

This eighth edition of the report, The Impact of inflation and COVID-19 on wages and purchasing power, examines the evolution of real wages, giving a unique picture of wage trends globally and by region. The report includes evidence on how wages have evolved through the COVID-19 crisis as well as how the current inflationary context is biting into real wage growth in most regions of the world. The report shows that for the first time in the 21st century real wage growth has fallen to negative values while, at the same time, the gap between real productivity growth and real wage growth continues to widen.

The report analysis the evolution of the real total wage bill from 2019 to 2022 to show how its different components—employment, nominal wages and inflation—have changed during the COVID-19 crisis and, more recently, during the cost-of-living crisis. The decomposition of the total wage bill, and its evolution, is shown for all wage employees and distinguishes between women and men. The report also looks at changes in wage inequality and the gender pay gap to reveal how COVID-19 may have contributed to increasing income inequality in different regions of the world. Together, the empirical evidence in the report becomes the backbone of a policy discussion that could play a key role in a human-centred recovery from the different ongoing crises.


DOWNLOAD HERE

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us

RSS Feed

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube