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Europe's unions launch coordinated campaign on workers' rights
3 October 2008
European trade union leaders have agreed to establish an integrated campaign to reassert workers’ fundamental rights in response to a spate of controversial decisions in the EU’s highest court.
The top level delegation attending the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) summer school in London, UK, on 26-27 September reviewed the attacks on basic workers' rights in Europe following decisions taken by the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The decisions concern the cases Laval, Viking, Rüffert and Luxemburg – the ITF being the principal defendant in the Viking case. The ECJ effectively ruled that the fundamental rights of trade unions to take action and establish local working conditions through collective bargaining were subordinate to the rights of employers to provide services or establish themselves in different EU countries.
The summer school participants, including ITF General Secretary David Cockroft and ETF General Secretary Eduardo Chagas, agreed to a coordinated campaign to re-establish workers' rights. They also pledged to plan a political, legal and industrial strategy to ensure that workers have the right to insist on equal pay for equal work in the same location and to seek urgent changes in European laws affecting these rights, such as the Posted Workers Directive.
In addition, the ETUC meeting adopted the London Declaration concentrating on the current financial crisis, which it termed a crisis of casino capitalism. The statement made clear that the time had come for a reversal in the erosion of workers’ rights and that the solution to the crisis required fair and decent wages, stable jobs and strong collective bargaining, independent of, not subordinated to, law courts and judges.
During the previous week, union and social movement representatives attending the European Social Forum in Malmö, Sweden, issued a statement reinforcing the need for an urgent campaign for workers' rights. It also called for the ratification process of the Lisbon Treaty to be used as leverage to lobby for a clause on social progress, which would make it clear that workers' rights took precedence over capitalists’ rights.
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