4th Congress of the European Metalworkers' Federation (EMF) 9–10 June 2011 in Duisburg,Germany

The creation of a new European Trade Union Federation for EMF, EMCEF and ETUF-TCL

First talks about the creation of a new European industrial trade union federation were already held in 2008 based on a declaration of intent at the EMF’s 2007 Congress in Lisbon. However, the first concrete step was taken after the extraordinary meeting of the EMF Executive Committee in April 2010. There, the decision was made to establish a joint working group together with representatives from the other two European federations, including three sub-groups focused on the issues of ‘Organization’, ‘Finances' and ‘Statutes'. The joint working group concluded its work in February 2011 having elaborated the draft statutes for the new organization. In March 2011, the members of the EMF Executive Committee agreed that they are in favour of proceeding with the creation of the new organization and decided to present the proposal to the 2011 Congress in order to take the formal political decision on the practical realization of the new federation by June 2012.

The debate at the Congress confirmed the affiliates' support by highlighting the benefits of the new organization. These mainly referred to the expectation that the new organization would be better prepared to face the political and economic challenges which increasingly transcend the dividing lines of traditional sectors. These challenges include, for example, the undermining of free collective bargaining, the advance of precarious jobs, wage pressures, transnational restructuring of companies coupled with the relocation of production, and the representation of specific groups of employees such as young workers, women and white-collar workers. Thus, the key rationale for the amalgamation of the three federations is the expectation that the new organization – by its sheer size and by yielding synergies in combining the specific competences of the three participating federations – would have more political clout vis-à-vis political institutions and the employers at both national and European level in order to influence decisions in the interest of the workers in the European manufacturing industry.

However, the history of international trade union federations both at global and European level shows that this is only part of the explanation for merger decisions. Further main driving forces are often financial pressures and resource problems – these were, however, not officially mentioned at the EMF Congress. Mergers are often first and foremost strategic choices intended to ensure the continued existence of the participating organizations. This applies in particular to the smaller of the organizations involved in mergers. Thus, the creation of the new organization can also be seen as a response to the fundamental change in the membership structures of all three federations since the mid-1990s which resulted from the rapidly rising number of new affiliates from the central and eastern European countries. The already limited resources of the three federations were put under additional strain by this process because the expansion of the organizations' geographical scope in eastern Europe generated a range of new activities aimed at integrating and supporting the often small and poorly-resourced trade unions from the CEE countries. This alone would have represented an enormous challenge to the resources, but the situation has been exacerbated by the simultaneous substantial membership losses in some of the traditionally large and well-resourced affiliates in western Europe.

At a more practical level, the amalgamation of EMF, EMCEF and ETUF-TCL seems to be the logical next step following the current practice of close cooperation in key policy areas such as the coordination of collective bargaining policy, the setting up of a joint database on industrial policy and the development of similar strategies in the field of company policy and in particular European Works Councils. The amalgamation of the three federations, furthermore, mirrors developments at national level where, for example in Germany, Austria and Sweden, formerly independent textile unions dissolved themselves and merged with metalworking trade unions and where, for example in the UK, the large general unions represent workers in all three sectors. For these organizations, the creation of one large European industrial trade union federation will result in substantial financial savings because instead of paying affiliation fees to two or even three European federations, in future they will only need to support one organization.

While the three organizations already reached agreement on the general principles of the new organization, the main issue that needs to be resolved in the year to come is the development of an efficient working structure in which each of the three organizations sees its specific interests sufficiently addressed and represented. On the one hand, the organization of cross-sectoral activities seems to be fairly unproblematic; building upon the existing structures of the three organizations, the draft statutes drawn up by the joint working group of the three federations currently foresee the creation of four policy committees for the following policy areas: collective bargaining, company policy, industrial policy and social dialogue. On the other hand, however, a crucial issue for the creation of a common identity for the new organization will be the question how the new organization deals with the increased sectoral heterogeneity in organizing its sector-specific activities. In the motion adopted by the Congress, this difficult question was delegated to the joint working group of the three federations; it is charged with developing a draft solution to this problem for submission to the decision-making bodies of the three federations.

The EMF Work Programme 2011–2015

Another key theme of the Congress was the decision on the future activities of the EMF as described in its Work Programme 2011–2015. The discussion at the Congress illustrated the continuity in the EMF’s advocacy of a political and social regulation of the European integration process, which should not be left to the market alone. In order to achieve this objective, the EMF has traditionally pursued a dual strategy based on the following elements: first, active lobbying of European institutions, and in particular the European Commission and the European Parliament, combined with participation in the institutionalized machinery for consultation and decision making at European level; and second, direct dialogue and negotiations with the employer-side, both at sectoral and company level. These elements continue to play a key role in the EMF’s future activities in the four key policy areas: company policy, collective bargaining, industrial policy and social dialogue.

In the field of company policy, a key objective of the EMF is to coordinate its national affiliates in order to develop a common European approach to minimize cross-border competition and the resultant downward pressure in working conditions that has become even more intense during the recent financial and economic crisis. Against this background, a main element in the EMF’s company policy approach for the next Congress period is the strengthening of the role of EWCs as a tool to influence company decisions by improving the EMF’s support for EWCs. The concrete measures foreseen in the Work Programme include, first, the strengthening of the role of the EMF coordinators as the key link between EWCs, national affiliates and the EMF and second, the increased use of trade union coordination meetings in order to strengthen the trade union identity of EWCs. Another main element of the EMF’s company policy approach is the promotion of European company agreements negotiated with central management on the basis of the EMF’s internal mandating procedure.

The key challenge for the EMF in the field of collective bargaining policy is to prevent a competitive ‘race to the bottom’ within Europe leading to lower wages and working conditions, more precarious jobs and a further decentralization of collective bargaining structures. In order to achieve this objective, the EMF confirms in its Work Programme that its collective bargaining strategy remains focused on the coordination of national collective bargaining policies and the further development and promotion of a European collective bargaining and social policy agenda geared towards an active wage policy. In implementing this approach, the EMF can rely on an extensive set of tools which it has developed since the mid-1990s and which comprise the following elements: (1) the wage coordination rule as a means of maintaining and increasing purchasing power and a balanced participation in productivity increases; (2) the formulation of common demands, which are to be applied in national negotiations simultaneously across Europe; (3) the Eucob@n collective bargaining network of national correspondents in order to ensure an ongoing exchange of information on all collective bargaining issues; and (4) regional collective bargaining networks as part of the overall coordination approach. The new EMF Work Programme confirms the organization’s strong commitment further to improve these tools and the implementation of its coordination rule and to pay particular attention to the issues of working time, employment and job security and the interests of migrant workers who are most often subject to precarious employment arrangements.

The aim of the EMF in the area of industrial policy is to strengthen the competitiveness of Europe’s metalworking industry through fostering growth and employment together with the socially responsible modernization and restructuring of the industry. In the light of the European Commission’s most recent 10-year strategy for economic and employment policy – the so-called ‘Europe 2020 strategy’ – this involves careful monitoring and engagement with European policies in order to ensure that the interests of the European metalworkers are sufficiently taken into account. However, an essential prerequisite to influence European initiatives in the field of industrial policy is the development of the EMF’s own analytical capacity for the formulation of common demands and alternatives. Another key area mentioned in the Work Programme is the improvement of the EMF tools for industrial policy coordination by ensuring the active participation of EMF affiliates in the development and dissemination of common initiatives and positions.

Compared to other European industry federations, the EMF is somewhat lagging behind in the field of social dialogue. The EMF is currently involved in three Sectoral Social Dialogue Committees (SSDCs): for shipbuilding (since 2003); for steel (since 2006); and, since January 2010, for the metal, engineering and technology-based industries with CEEMET, the European employers' federation for the metalworking industry, which after almost 20 years of blocking any formalized sectoral social dialogue with the EMF finally agreed to establish an SSDC. Against this background, the EMF aims to keep the momentum going by developing the social dialogue with CEEMET and by seeking to establish SSDCs in other branches of the metal sector. The EMF considers the establishment of SSDCs as an important tool to implement EMF polices. This includes the use of SSDCs as a forum jointly to lobby for industrial policy initiatives vis-à-vis EU institutions, to attempt to discuss with the employers collective bargaining initiatives such as the EMF’s common demands on preventing precarious work and on lifelong learning, as well as to reinforce the EMF principles of socially responsible restructuring in the field of company policy.

All in all, this last ordinary congress of the EMF illustrated that in terms of policies, the EMF is well prepared for the challenges ahead. However, the key challenge in the short term will be to manage successfully the creation of the new European industrial federation without absorbing too much of the already scarce resources. Let us hope for a smooth start that enables the new organization to maintain the EMF’s role as a trend-setter among the European trade union federations through the development of new and innovative approaches in key policy areas such as in particular the European coordination of collective bargaining and company policy.