Social
dialogue, social pacts
A
«social Europe» has been a standing demand of
the European trade union movement on the
governments and on the EU for many years. If the
integration of Europe should be successful, it
had to be accompanied by a strong social
dimension – a people’s Europe. This, also,
was the expressed aim of the European social
democracy – to regain control of capital
forces and create the «social Europe» through
the European Union. Now, social democratic or
social democratic dominated governments for the
first time since the establishment of the EEC,
have been dominating the EU for a couple of
years. The «social Europe», however, is still
in store. A social Europe as an
alternative None
of these demands or demonstrations took the form
of rallies in favour of the Maastricht Treaty or
the Stability Pact, or demands to the European
Commission or the Council of Ministers to force
the integration process. They all were protests
against a development which people increasingly
face the direct consequences of– in the form
of mass
unemployment, cuts in welfare and attacks on
wages and working conditions. The demand for a
«social Europe» is raised as a reaction
against, or as an alternative to, the concrete
development of the real existing EU project. The EU in the
global play The
EU of today, with its single market and monetary
union, is the concrete political expression of
the globalisation process in Europe. Whatever
was the initial reason for establishing the EEC,
the driving force in the development of the EU
today is the struggle for markets and hegemony
which is going on between the three centers of
the international capitalist economy – USA,
Japan and the EU. The aim is to strengthen the
European corner of the global triangle, to
create a stronger home base for the «European»
multinational companies. With
this analytical approach, it becomes much easier
to understand the social consequences of the EU.
We get a clearer understanding that the
establishment of an economic and monetary union
in Europe, under the current conditions, will
mean continued deregulation, privatisation,
market orientation, flexibilisation of the
labour market and cuts in public spending. It
becomes easier to realise why what has been
labelled the European social market economy is
disintegrating around us. It also becomes easier
to understand why the social democratic «social
Europe» is still in store, even if social
democrats politically are now dominating the EU. The «social Europe» which
failed The
German Minister of Finance, Oskar Lafontaine,
demanded that the European Central Bank cut
interest rates in order to increase economic
activity and create more jobs. The Italian Prime
Minister, Massimo d’Alema, meant that it was
time to reconsider the rigid budget discipline
included in the Maastricht Criteria and the
Stability Pact – for the same reason-to create
jobs and reduce unemployment. The French Prime
Minister, Lionel Jospin, supported the
initiatives. It was time to do something with
the European mass unemployment. Their demands
represented a traditional Keynesian stimulation
policy. Lafontaine also stressed that the
introduction of the Euro should not lead to a
transfer of industrial production to countries
with lower wages, that the speculation economy
should be kept under tighter reins and that
taxation and social welfare should be harmonised
to prevent further social dumping. The
complete backlash arose at a meeting of the
Council of Ministers of Finance in Brussels on
22 November 1998. There, Oskar Lafontaine, as
well as other social democrats, who had argued
for a change of policy, had to realise that they
were almost powerless. The European Central Bank
had made it quite clear that according to the
European constitution, it was independent and
not subject to political regulation. Interest
rates were part of the Banks domain. The
European Commission had equally made it clear,
that the budget criteria of the Maastricht
Treaty and the Stability Pact were fixed. They
were now part of the EU constitution and could
only be changed through consensus. Thus,
Lafontaine discovered what some of us already
knew, that the European Central Bank does not
take instructions from outside, that the hard
budget criteria are fixed by agreement, in other
worlds, that the European Union represents an
institutionalisation of a neoliberal and right
wing monetary policy which cannot be put aside
however good people’s intentions are. The
institutions, laws and regulations of the EU are
not neutral frames in which anything and
everything can be put. They reflect the balance
of power in the EU area. They get their specific
form and content based on the fact that the
hegemonic forces – today offensive and
aggressive capital forces – structurally are
fortifying their power through the
institutionalising which is going on.
In other words, Keynesianism is
prohibited in the European Union today. Thus,
the Council of Ministers ended up with a
statement in which, among other things, the
following political gobbledygook was presented: «Globalisation
require economic reforms with the aim of
creating a just and socially acceptable system»,
and this sounds indisputable full of promise.
The problem was that it continued like this: «To
achieve this, the economy must be made more
effective, the market must rule, and the
obstacles for free trade must be removed.» It
was further underlined that: «The free flow of
capital has been positive for the newly
integrated countries in the world economy. It is
a precondition for economic growth and
development that each country chooses a strategy
aiming at opening their markets for foreign
companies.» It was on the background of this
statement that the American business newspaper
International Herald Tribune commented that «there
is not much left of the left». The
later dramatic resignation of Oscar Lafontaine
as German Minister of Finance, further
emphasised this situation. Because of his
proposals of taming international financial
movements, he had already, by a British
boulevard newspaper, been branded the «most
dangerous man in Europe». On the day when he
took his hat and left, speculators in Europe
celebrated by sending the Euro, as well as the
European stock exchanges, to new heights. The
balance of power in Europe was clearly
visualized! The social democratic project of
creating a «social Europe» from above had run
aground and is no longer mentioned by leading
European social democrats.
The role of the trade union
movement In
this way the social deficit goes hand in hand
with the democratic deficit of the EU, and the
20 million unemployed and the 50 million poor
people of the EU member countries have little to
look forward to from the official EU
institutions. Here is where the role of the
trade union movement will be crucial. More than
anything else, the current situation invites a
social struggle for a social Europe. The driving
forces of the economic process of globalisation
as well as the neoliberal development of the EU,
will have to be confronted. The nation state is
still an important framework for this struggle,
but the perspective has to be social and
international. This means that we have to
develop a new political platform, new strategies
and tactics adopted to this situation. The powerless «social dialogue» At
the EU level, we have, over the last years, seen
growing activities in the form of consultations,
negotiations and so-called social dialogue
between the parties on the labour market. Apart
from that, lobbying has got an ever more
important role. The problem is that this has
become an activity which to a large extend goes
on disconnected from the trade union members –
actually also to a high degree independent from
the trade unions’ activities at the national
level. The result so far is a strengthened
top-down development and the growth of an
enormous European bureaucracy in the trade union
movement. A real trade union response, where
they organise and mobilise their strength, based
on active rank and files and their ability to
put power behind their demands, has not so far
been a feature at the EU level. Everybody
who has been involved in trade union struggle at
the national level, knows that without the right
to take action, there is not much to achieve at
the negotiating table. This is the fundamental
problem within the EU today. «Negotiations» at
the EU level take place without the right to
take industrial action. Thus, this process has
so far given very little trade-off. Employers
who know that their counter-parts have no way to
put force behind their demands, are
understandably not very accommodating at the
negotiating table.«Negotiations» in this form
was introduced in the EU constitution by the
Maastricht Treaty and further developed in the
Amsterdam Pact. It says that on relevant areas,
the parties on the labour market should first be
given the opportunity to negotiate. Should they
agree, the Commission could transform the
agreement into formal EU legislation (directive).
Should they not agree, the Commission could
propose a directive on its own initiative. So
far, this process has produced three directives
– one on the right to maternity leave, one on
part-time work and one on temporary work. They
are all about minimum standards. The shipping
and rail transport industries also have
negotiated agreements on working hours, which
are now being turned into directives. Class compromise in crisis The
stability and the duration of the economic
growth period in the first 20-25 years after WW2
formed part of the conditions for the relatively
stable class compromise. The economic growth
gave room for an even increase in wealth for
most people and important reforms in favour of
the person in the street and the trade union
movement, which, for its part of the compromise
had to accept the capitalist mode of production,
the private ownership of the means of production
and the one-sided right of the employers to
organise the process of production. For
the same reason, the position of the trade
unions as part of this compromise easily becomes
undermined when the capitalist economy develops
into a crisis. This is exactly what has happened
over the last 20-25 years. The historic and
economic preconditions for the class compromise
are disintegrating. The consensus-policy
therefore is creaking at every joint. Under
pressure from the ever harsher fight for market
shares, capitalist forces have gone on the
offensive in order to increase profits - among
other things by weakening trade union rights,
keeping wages down and cutting public spending.
Thus, the consensus model which was established
in Western Europe after WW2, is on the verge of
breaking down. In
country after country trade unions have
experienced that rights which were achieved
through struggle, or through peaceful
negotiations during the consensus period, cannot
be taken for granted. Thinking in terms of class
compromise, many people no longer understand
what is going on at their workplaces in the more
and more harsh and hostile labour market. This
«difficult-to-understand»-situation is being
exploited by cynical rightwing populists, like
Le Pen in France, Jörg Haider in Austria,
Gianfranco Fini in Italy and more or less
violent racist and neofascist groups –
especially in Germany. They further gain ground
because of the disintegration of the social
democratic parties and a lack of credible
alternatives on the left. These
dramatic social changes have so far in most
European countries been met with a pragmatic
policy of defensive adaptation by the trade
union movement. France has in some areas been an
exception, where trade unions have carried out
comprehensive and successful industrial actions.
Over the last couple of years, trade union
struggle has increased in other European
countries as well – after a period in which
industrial actions, with a few exceptions, were
almost absent in the European labour market for
a number of years. The policy of adaptation In
this situation, a great part of the
international trade union bureaucracy
concentrate its activities on the establishment
of minimum social standards – through the ILO
or in the new agreements which are being
developed within the framework of the World
Trade Organisation (WTO) or other, regional
trade blocks (EU, NAFTA, ASEAN, MERCOSUR and
others). An army of trade union bureaucrats has
in this way become travelling agents for trade
union powerlessness. Most people who have been
involved in these kind of activities know that
the results have been extremely lean. Not
least within the EU this activity has been
developed considerably. In addition to the ETUC
(European Trade Union Congress) and the European
sections of the international trade secretariats,
a number of national confederations and trade
unions also have established their offices in
Brussels. As a channel for information this may
be important, but in the area of lobbying, the
cost-effectiveness of this business so far has
been insignificant. This
«bureaucratic internationalism» has led the
trade unions into a deadlock. The situation
creates high levels of frustration and feelings
of powerlessness inside the unions. Certainly,
many of their representantives regularly call
for joint actions at international trade union
meetings, but without either concrete content or
direction of these «actions». This militant
rhetoric rather seems to be a part of the role
of the trade union bureaucrats, which more often
than not has no basis in their activities at
home, where they continue to act in the spirit
of the historic class compromise – including
mild indulgence and adaptation to the current
development of the «triumphant capitalism». Social pacts Another
part of the adaptation is about giving full
support to the European integration – in the
hope that it should bring social clauses and
the upward harmonisation of working
conditions at least in the countries which are
lagging behind. However, as the trade union
movement realise which form this integration
takes, the support is gradually turning a bit
more critical. The industrial actions which have
taken place over the last few years, therefore
have been, directly or indirectly, increasingly
connected to the plans of building a European
union. Basically, this was the context in which
the French strikes in the autumn of 1995 took
place, and important struggles have also been
carried out in Belgium, Germany, Greece, Italy
and Spain. The
rather narrow perspective of the trade union
bureaucracy must be understood in particular
from their role in the era of the class
compromise, when its main function was to act as
a buffer between labour and capital. On the one
hand, they negotiated considerable improvements
in working conditions and welfare. On the other
hand, they administered and controlled
industrial peace at the workplaces. In other
words, their position depends on a situation
where trade union members lay their faith in the
hands of the bureaucrats. Independent, locally
based, trade union struggle will be a continuous
threat against this role. In
other words, adaptation or resistance depend on
the pressure from below in the trade union
movement. This is what has created increased
activity and resistance in parts of the European
trade union movement. To quote an old French
trade unionist who in March 1997 took part in
the joint European demonstration in Paris
against Renault’s plans to close its factory
in Belgium: «Trade unions have for years had
their bodies at the European level. They have
never worked well, because in their souls all
trade unions are in opposition to the EU. Now,
when trade unionists have started to co-operate
by calling each other or sending faxes to each
other, somebody finally starts to take action.»
(The Guardian 12.3.97.) The alternative: Real
international solidarity The
proposal of the IG Metall would in many ways
have represented a change of trade union policy
in Europe. The aim was to fight for a bigger
part of the wealth to labour through a more
offensive wage struggle. Thus consumption would
increase and thereby also production and
employment, in other words a good old social
democratic perspective. It was a touch of
Keynesianism in it, where the distribution of
wealth between labour and capital again was
focused. It was based on a perspective quite
different from the «national pacts» between
labour and capital which are dominating in most
Western European countries today. The
development towards European wage agreements is
still a long way to go. Such agreements will
have to be based on common labour legislation at
the EU level. This is still far from reality in
today’s Europe. The right to negotiate and the
right to strike are still based on national
labour legislation. These are further based on
quite different traditions and developments,
something which makes it very difficult to
harmonize at the European level. No national
union will give away its right to negotiate to a
European trade union body, as long as the right
to take action has not been developed at the
European level. An EU-wide strike in favour of
common demands would today actually be in
defiance of national laws in most countries.
Here we find one of the biggest challenges to
the trade union movement in Europe today. The
lack of international agreements, however,
should not prevent the trade union movement from
strengthening trade union solidarity over the
borders – because that is more important than
ever. This is all about the direct political and
economic support which we give to workers who
decide to struggle against attacks from states
and capital forces. It is this kind of
solidarity – in the form of «I support you»
and «you support me» – based on the
understanding that we have common interest –
which is now important to develop and strengthen
internationally. This is the fundament, also
when it comes to the question of transnational
wage agreements. To rely on a «social dialogue»
without the right to take industrial action at
the EU level, is a dangerous way to go. Over
the last few years, we have seen tendencies
towards growing social confrontations in a
number of EU countries as well as at the EU
level. In many countries we have witnessed a
revitalisation of trade unions, after a long
period of demoralisation and weakening. Even
more encouraging, we have also seen joint trade
union campaigns and actions growing up, and the
cry for a «social Europe» has increased in
strength. There have been a number of huge demonstrations in Brussels, where thousands of trade unionists from many countries and industries have taken part. Through annual days of action, bus and truck drivers have blocked border crossings and taken other actions right across Europe for four consecutive years. In connection with EU summits in Amsterdam, Luxembourg and Cologne, huge rallies and marches have been organised, focusing on the prevailing mass unemployment in Europe. In this way we can witness that European trade unions and other social movements slowly are developing activities and strategies to confront the European version of the global offensive of capitalist forces. The development still is at an early stage. If the trade union movement is ever going to achieve a social Europe, however, it will have to choose this way forward - in opposition to the predominant, nationally based, consensus policy of the existing trade union bureaucracies. (Article in Kolya Abramsky (ed.): Diverse Voices of Resistance, London 2001.) (This article is also avaiable in German.) |
