industriAll 15/2013
Resolution on Collective Bargaining and Social Policy 2012-2016
Collective Bargaining and Social Policies
(Document adopted by the 2nd Meeting of the industriAll Europe Executive Committee
Brussels, 12-13 June 2013)
Collective bargaining is a core issue of trade unionism, and we need to defend the
autonomy of the trade union movement versus all external interventions in collective
bargaining systems, and all other efforts to weaken our strength and solidarity. This has
been especially obvious during the economic crisis. We need to develop strategies to fight
such attacks. Collective bargaining provides the best results for the workers when carried
out by autonomous social partners, following the rules and traditions in each country. This is
independent of the present economic and/or political situation in the country. Strong
national trade unions, a strong industriAll European Trade Union (industriAll Europe), and
European-wide coordinated collective bargaining strategies are still the best viable answer
to these challenges.
Our collective bargaining work is based on a sustainable strategy focusing on the
improvement of workers’ working and living conditions. In such a strategy an active wage
policy is an important goal. Therefore we need to co-ordinate national collective bargaining
policies and develop, enhance and promote an active European collective bargaining and
social policy agenda using all necessary tools, including the social dialogue. In order to be
able to follow this strategy, it is necessary to increase the coverage rate of collective
agreements. It is also of great importance to us to fight against social competition, wage
dumping, health and safety risks, and a downward spiral of wages and working conditions. A
precarious situation is not only limited to the conditions at the work place and the working
conditions overall, but is also linked to situations where the job and employment security is
in danger. Without a job we are all in a precarious situation, and that is one of the reasons
that we have to fight for a growing and thriving industrial sector in Europe, capable of
providing decent jobs and fair wages.
We need to continue to keep our policies updated, to make them visible and in accordance
with the interests of our trade union membership, including the interests of our growing
white-collar membership. We also need to support the trade unions in Europe and their
campaigning strategies towards organizing more workers, without overlooking the newer
and traditionally less organized sectors.
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Wage Policies and tools
Wage Policy
All three founding federations of industriAll Europe earlier adopted a Wage Coordination
Rule in each organization. Such a rule is of high priority for the co-ordination of collective
bargaining. The core arguments for such a rule and the content of these rules were
essentially the same, but the texts were slightly different. We have already agreed on a new
joint text and the industriAll Europe Executive Committee has now approved the Wage Coordination Rule for the new federation.
The evaluation of the collectively bargained results should, among other things, relate to
productivity and inflation trends in order to handle situations of negative productivity
and/or inflation and of high fluctuation. It is also important to consider the situations where,
despite the coverage of collective agreements, we find that the wage drift is negative.
We should also monitor more closely the development of the wage share in total GDP and
productivity increases since we note a further and deeper degradation of that share since
the crisis. In fact, many companies seem to be only interested in restoring their profit share
to the former levels enjoyed before the crisis. IndustriAll Europe has – together with other
European federations – to initiate a stronger exchange of experiences with the European
Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) in order to develop collective bargaining strategies.
It is necessary to fight against low wages in Europe through collective bargaining and/or
legal regulation – for instance on minimum wages – in accordance with the practices in
individual countries.
Working time
The negotiations between the social partners regarding possible changes to the Working
Time Directive have failed. The process of changing the Directive will probably continue
within the EU system and the outcome is very important to us. The working time rules shall
not be impaired, but rather improved. The fight against the opt-out clause is one of the key
elements. Another major problem is that more and more workers are not protected by the
Directive. This applies to those workers considered to have an autonomous ability to
influence their amount of working time, or when to work. This situation usually applied to
professional and managerial staff but is now applied to more and more types of workers. In
many cases, according to his/her individual contract, a worker in this situation also has no
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right to payment for overtime. We shall follow and influence the process of possible
changes to the Working Time Directive.
We shall revisit the guidelines of industriAll Europe concerning working time, also taking
into consideration the aspect of stress and burnout.
Work-life balance
The current labour market is demanding more and more of the worker when it comes to
being available to the employer. This tendency has particularly increased due to the crisis.
This especially affects the need for protection to ensure that workers have the opportunity
to attain a good balance between private life and work. This is reflected not least in the
need for working time regulations.
The balance between work and private life is also affected by the rights to various periods of
leave during working life. These may relate to parental leave for the father and the mother
at childbirth, the ability to care for sick children, and also the opportunity to take time off
from work to care for another close relative. Special attention should be given to
guaranteeing continued career opportunities on return from leave.
The economic crisis has worsened the already difficult balance between professional and
private life experienced by women. Precariousness in terms of job security, working time
and low wages as well as in terms of the shortage of child care places, means that women
are in fact penalised both on the labour market and in their own environment.
It is also of great importance to strive to highlight domestic unpaid work and its
consequences for women´s contributions on the labour market. For many women this does
not only have a negative effect on daily income but also on the level of pension benefits
they are entitled to.
We shall evaluate and improve the guidelines concerning social issues.
The Eucob@n system
Annual report
The Eucob@n system has to be evaluated and improved. When doing this it is of importance
to take into consideration our experiences when it comes to analyzing the outcome of the
Wage Coordination Rule. Difficulties can be linked to the fact that analyses are made only
retrospectively, and for a time period of one year. The transparency of the report is crucial.
It is an added value for the participating trade union to be able to compare reported figures
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and data in detail as much as possible. Incorporating the Wage Coordination Rule also
requires a further developed macro-economic chapter where focus is also put on forecasts
of the inflation and productivity trends in individual countries.
“Day-to-day” information
Via their membership the affiliated members of industriAll Europe are also part of a wide
network of trade unions in many sectors. By using this advantage to develop a system for
fast information we can create added value in situations where such information is of the
essence, i.e. when starting and finishing important negotiations at national or sector level,
when proposed changes to labour law have a big impact or when important company-level
negotiations are carried out.
Strengthening the Eucob@an network
The network of rapporteurs giving information to the Eucob@n system is of crucial
importance for the success of the system. They are expected to give information as an input
to the Annual Report, but should also be linked to the daily collective bargaining work within
the affiliated trade union so that they can contribute to the day-to-day information system.
The list of rapporteurs should be updated regularly. They should obtain information, and be
offered training relevant to their task of providing input for the Annual Report.
Eucob@n website
The development of the website will continue. The part of the website that relates to
information from industriAll Europe sectors should be designed in a unified form, utilizing
the best practice from each federation.
Regional collective bargaining networks
IndustriAll Europe needs a strong system of regional networks for collective bargaining. Such
a system is a part of our strategy based on the fact that collective bargaining is no longer of
national interest alone. The existing networks will be evaluated and all sectors should be
invited to either take part in relevant networks or form new ones.
Common demands
The common demand on precarious work is a joint demand coming from all three founding
federations, but the time period for this demand and the way it has been implement has
differed between the federations. In future promotion and monitoring of this demand it is
important that this fact be acknowledged. It might also influence the time period for the
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campaign, and the evaluation of the demand. A joint future campaign plan for this demand
for alI sectors should be made. To conduct a review of the current campaigns and evaluation
methods to be used is also important in this new situation.
In some sectors there has been a common demand concerning training. The evaluation of
this demand continues, and so does the struggle to obtain results.
A common strategy as to what is a common demand and recommendations on how to work
with such demands have been approved.
Demographic changes
Demographic development in society is changing the composition of the workforce on the
labour market. The number of older people that could still be on the labour market will
increase, while the number of young people will fall, not only because of high youth
unemployment since the crisis but also due to demographic reasons. As trade unions, we
remain firmly opposed to raising the pension age.
The need to ensure that workers are able to remain on the labour market until their pension
age or even longer if they so wish is dependent upon the working conditions and on
economic incentives to stay. Work places have to be adapted to ensure this also will be
optimal for older workers. Even so, this can still create extra problems: today, the working
conditions and longer careers, especially combined with high stress levels, already tend to
lower life expectancy. Occupational effects play a big role in this respect and we note a
widening gap, particularly with regard to some more stressful and/or heavy physical jobs.
We also have to guarantee the financial viability of public policies related to social security,
such as pension systems, so as to ensure decent and minimal social revenues above the
poverty level.
We also have to consider that older workers are a major asset in terms of competence.
Competence gained during a working life is important, but technological developments will
require much greater technical knowledge in the future and such training should be given all
generations. Ensuring that workers have the right qualifications to be able to keep the job in
the future is a dual responsibility: the employer has to provide training possibilities and the
worker has to take the opportunity to become more qualified. A trade union task could be
to develop special rules and regulations at the work place for older workers via collective
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agreements, i.e. a ‘senior’ policy. This could include also possibilities for older employees to
leave companies before the legal retirement age and thus create opportunities for young
people. The same kind of task for the trade unions can be linked to the fact that there are
huge, but not always sufficiently utilised sources of competence, skills and knowledge in the
large group made up of migrant workers. Policies for education and training enabling this
group of workers to enter into the regular labour market are of great importance.
Another important aspect of the demographic change in society is the necessity for as many
young people as possible to enter the labour market. A massive unemployment rate among
young people is not only devastating to their self-confidence, both socially and
professionally, but will also be a great loss for society in general. Youth unemployment is a
structural problem in some countries, where we are facing a generation which has no solid
ties to the labour market and secure employment with humane and fair working conditions,
and this will actually increase the problems and make it more difficult to avoid a precarious
situation.
Whereas the crisis has led to very high unemployment in some sectors and areas, we find at
the same time a lack of skilled labour in other sectors and areas. One way of dealing with
this is to increase the number of training offers, with the objective of obtaining stable jobs
under open-ended contracts. Another way is to promote the idea of education within the
school system being more closely linked to the workplace. If the total number of workers is
compared with the amount of training offered, we see that many large companies do not
train a high enough share of workers. Each company should have a plan indicating how
much training will be needed for several years ahead, and how they can guarantee good
training for the workers. The trade unions should take part in the process of drawing up
these plans and take action against misuse of the system of apprentices and trainees, which
could otherwise lead to even more precarious jobs.
Precarious work
In recent decades there has been a dramatic and far-reaching increase in precarious work in
all countries and industrial sectors, which is of major concern. The economic crisis has also
given some employers and governments the possibility to exploit this situation in order to
lower wages, worsen working conditions and introduce precarious work. This development
results in an erosion of the normal living and working conditions for the individual worker
and can also have a negative effect on life expectancy. Particularly affected by this
development are young people, women and migrant workers. Limited use of flexible work is
necessary to be able to deal with upcoming peaks of work, but a flexible labour market
without enough social security, including training, and active labour market policies to
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reduce unemployment, is a precarious one. A precarious situation can also arise when
workers are targets for non-solicitation agreements between employers. Employers agree
that they will not employ workers from the other partner´s company, and this can have a big
impact on the individual workers´ possibilities to change employment and secure better
conditions. The presence of temporary agencies, even for engineers and managerial staff, is
also increasing. This development puts pressure on the trade unions when it comes to
organizing, and obtaining collective agreements for workers working under circumstances
that we are not used to encountering.
We need to:
Promote the use of open-ended contracts
Limit the use of temporary and fixed-term contracts
Reject the extensive use of forced part-time contracts and promote the workers’ right to
transfer from part-time to full-time contracts if they so wish
Reject the use of bogus self-employment and zero-hour contracts
Limit the use of temporary agencies
Promote the organizing of temporary agency workers, and include them in the struggle for
decent wages and working conditions
Fight against all kinds of discrimination on the labour market
European transnational agreements and systems
European Framework Agreements
The negotiation of European Framework Agreements at transnational company level is
important for the trade unions. Experience with such negotiations shows that it is essential
for European trade union federations take part in such negotiations and be signatories to
the agreements following the mandate system. The implementation of the agreements
relies on national industrial relations systems and the traditions in each country. It is
therefore important that such implementation takes place.
European system for transnational company agreements
The problems regarding a decision on an optional system for implementing transnational
company agreements still remain unsolved despite of the efforts made by the EU
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Commission. We have to focus on future developments. Clear focus will also be needed
when the discussion of a future European industrial relations system is put on the agenda.
The right to strike shall be fully respected as a fundamental right and this right shall be
carried out in accordance with national law and practices.
Social Policy Issues
In many situations – differing from country to country – the collective bargaining tool is used
together with efforts to change the legislative rules in a positive way. It is therefore
important to be able to get a quick and good overview of developments at EU level in order
to be able to pay special attention to the initiatives introduced there. At the moment such
issues are: working time, flexicurity, pensions, health and safety at work, and the
interpretation and implementation of the Posting Directive. All these issues require reevaluation and/or reconfirmation of our former positions. In order to see our policies
through we need to influence the EU Commission, EU Parliament, and other counterparts,
as well as the ETUC.
Another important issue to consider is the existing systems of whistle blowing, and their
related problems. We have to examine possibilities to protect workers against the negative
impacts of these systems.
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