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Preparation and Support Workshop 3B
28.–30.11.2005
The
third stage of the TRACE preparation process took place in Sesimbra,
Portugal, at the end of November 2005. 27 education officers responsible
for developing 10 Key Action projects organised by national confederations
attended the workshop. The participants, who came from CGTP-IN, SAK,
CC.OO, ISF-CGIL, TCO, LO-Skolen, CISL, OGB, CFDT and the TUC, worked
together over the course of three days.
The workshop was organised
in five sessions. Two sessions, the first and the last, were focused on
preparing the Evaluation, Dissemination, Mainstreaming and Sustainability
components of the project. Of the remaining sessions, two were on
political inputs and one on a presentation and review of the topic sheets,
produced by the TRACE central team, on the theme of restructuring.
Two
experts supported the work of the TRACE central team. Tony Ferigo, a
former member of the International Metalworkers’ Federation secretariat,
led a session on globalisation, working conditions and trade union action,
in collaboration with Patrizia Giudici of the TRACE team. Jacky Barry, the
languages adviser of ETUI-REHS Education, presented some translation
software which was followed by an evaluation on the usefulness of this
tool in the trade union environment.
In the first part of the first
activity, the partners were asked to prepare a brief report on successes,
difficulties and other evaluation issues within the individual Key
Actions. Various issues and problems including:
• The need for
contact with trade unionists from each organisation who were not directly
involved in the TRACE project but would contribute to the contents and
analysis of the Key Action topic.
• The development of networking
between representatives and officers to exchange information and good
practice and the need to help the reps involved become pro-active rather
than reactive.
• The limited time available for project involvement.
•
Language and communication problems between different union cultures.
Above all, the partners felt that the language barrier was a problem in
developing informal contacts among participants, which were considered
important for developing knowledge and understanding of each other’s work.
In
the second part of the session, partners produced a plan for their
dissemination activity. Plans included:
• Meetings about the TRACE
project and about the Key Action topics with sectoral union heads and with
experts in order to evaluate the work undertaken so far and future plans.
•
Editing book and guide on the project themes.
• Articles published in
union newspapers.
• Presentation of TRACE in union meetings and summer
schools.
• Production of tools for online courses which would also be
available to trade unionists not involved in the TRACE project.
•
Publishing TRACE materials on the web sites of the participating
organisations.
In the afternoon of the first day, Tony Ferigo
focused his intervention on globalisation and its consequences for the
trade union movement and the social situation. First, he articulated the
main elements of the globalisation process which have an impact on working
conditions:
• New technologies, principally in the areas of
communication, materials and transport.
• Changes in production
procedures and chains (lean production, networks and horizontal
integration have become widespread).
• Changes in the organisation of
companies.
This phase was characterised by the process of
outsourcing, since companies were keen to obtain:
• More flexibility
•
Increased productivity and downsizing
• Spatial re-organisation of
product cycle and enterprise functions. Today it is possible to distribute
production across different plants spread over a large geographical area.
•
New technology: products and processes.
In this context, alliances
and partnerships between companies have become essential, at the same time
providing greater opportunities. Joint ventures, restructuring and
delocalisation projects and mergers are the main elements of this process.
Employers consider downsizing and the externalisation of services as tools
for company reorganisation.
The transfer of activity from one
country to another is having an impact on workers’ conditions, both in
terms of redundancies and of companies’ demands to accept lower working
conditions, both of which often materialise very quickly.
Mr.
Ferigo analysed the production transfer situation not only in terms of
labour costs. These were indeed a major factor but not the only one.
Companies transferred their production and relocated plants for a variety
of reasons, including:
• The search for new markets
•
Legal opportunities
• State aid incentives
• Availability of
specialised labour within a particular region
• Availability of
materials and energy sources.
Against this backdrop the union
movement had to face many different problems, including:
•
Competition between different plants
• Political pressure on the state
by multinational enterprises
• Social dumping
• Differences
between national industrial relations practices within the same group.
Reorganisation
processes (merging, outsourcing, etc.) often produced a variety of
different contracts in the same company. Thus there were often different
unions working in the same field, creating the risk of competition and
division between workers’ representatives.
The question was:
what could the unions do? Mr. Ferigo proposed various items for
consideration, incuding possible strategies that might be adopted by the
union movement. These included:
• Establishing more concrete
relationships with trade unionists from the new EU countries, whilst,
•
Building awareness that different interests were now present and that
unions had to find ways of avoiding potential conflicts between workers,
as a platform for new union strategies.
Mr. Ferigo strongly
asserted the need for the union movement to develop its activities in
those fields. He presented a set of useful tasks for the union movement:
•
To produce international framework agreements and to conduct bargaining
activity at international level. Currently bargaining systems were only in
place at national level.
• To develop knowledge and skills in the
evaluation of company strategy.
• To establish alliances with civil
society. This was undervalued and worth pursuing in view of the potential
for solidarity action; the unions needed to be able to build relationships
beyond the world of work and to take initiatives that would support the
dissemination of trade union practices and rights.
Patrizia Giudici
and Tony Ferigo led a follow-up activity after this presentation. The Key
Action partners were asked to work in groups to discuss the topics in the
light of their own experience at company level and to compare different
trade union strategies for tackling restructuring processes.
The
working groups raised a lot of issues which in general focused on the need
to develop action and strategy building:
• The fall in union
membership needed to be the main element on which the unions focus, both
recuperating lost members and producing a strategy to recruit particular
categories of worker.
• Bargaining must also be organised at the
European and international levels.
• Unions needed to build new skills
to understand the new labour market.
• Training must be prioritised in
the event of redundancies,
• Union demands needed to focus on the
development of technology and state investment in tools for tackling this
new phase of globalisation.
• It was vital that the unions defended
social systems strongly and opposed insecurity, since this was a key
factor in how economic systems faced up to globalisation.
Mr.
Ferigo concluded his intervention by underlining how:
• The question of
globalisation needed to be part of union education.
• The culture of
globalisation needed to be introduced more strongly into trade unions and
to become part of the daily work of national unions.
• International
issues must no longer remain questions for union experts or international
relations departments, but be addressed at all levels of union structures.
•
Globalisation was now at the centre of trade union life.
The
second session on political and economic themes focused on case studies.
Mr. Ferigo prepared for that session documents on four recent cases of
restructuring involving Bosch, Siemens, Irish Ferries and UniCredito. The
participants worked in four groups on different tasks. The participants
working on the first three case studies had to form an opinion about the
company situation, the management’s policy and the unions’ behaviour. Then
the participants were asked to compare the case with similar situations in
their own countries and to produce feedback to the plenary on ideas for
potential union action at local, national and international level. The
fourth group, which worked on the UniCredito case, were asked to evaluate
how far the union proposals for facing that situation were realistic. The
UniCredito case focused on the analysis of the unions’ board involved in
the crisis and that of the European Federation.
The Bosch Case
In
July 2004, workers at the Bosch plant in Vénisseux (France) ratified an
agreement reached between management and the local branches of CFDT and
CGC. CGT did not sign the agreement. The deal aimed to safeguard jobs at
the plant in return for concessions on pay and working time. The plant at
Vénissieux employed 800 workers and produced a traditional diesel
injection apparatus mainly for the after sales market (i.e. there was no
direct relation with car manufacturers) or for new car models to be sold
in markets not subject to EU gas emission rules. As a consequence, the
product made in Vénissieux was considered “mature” and at the end of its
technological life; nowadays in Western Europe it has been replaced in new
cars by a high pressure fuel injection system.
Tony Ferigo feedback:
•
The unions should try to anticipate the problem, using information
received on the state of the company.
• The unions need to know the
state of the company in order to be able to anticipate problems.
• The
EWC was involved and had raised the problem of the outdated nature of the
company.
• Among the important factors in the agreement were the
demands for investment and the quality of that investment.
• The union
must be careful to use specific solutions for dealing with specific
problems, since each case was different. The employers’ organisation,
MEDEF, tried to generalise the solution but the union was able to reject
that approach.
The participants who worked on that case raised the
following reflections based on their direct experience:
• Given the
state of the company, the union should have started by putting pressure on
the company and beginning a process of communication with the workers,
giving them time to organise themselves, anticipate problems and face the
issues at an individual level, too.
• The demand for investment in the
plant was correct but should have been accompanied by a request for
vocational training for the workers. This should have led to a discussion
with the workers to convince them of this need. It was noted that workers
often needed persuading that they needed more training. At the same time,
it was stressed that the company should pay for this investment of
workers’ time and energy in the context of efforts linked to the plant’s
reorganisation.
Some similar situations in other countries were
mentioned:
• The case of Michelin in Spain where workers were fired
owing to a shortage of work and subsequently replaced by low-wage contract
workers
• A case in Austria where lower working conditions were imposed
in order to maintain the workplace but this did not prevent delocalisation
soon afterwards;
• The case of Ford in the UK, where the unions’ timely
demand for vocational training enabled the workers quickly to acquire new
jobs.
Mr. Ferigo gave the following feedback on the participants’
case study reports:
• The unions needed to try to anticipate
crises, partly by using consultancy services, in order to have a clearer
picture of the state of business. Indeed, acquiring detailed knowledge of
the state of companies was becoming increasingly important to union
strategy.
• The unions needed to be cautious about applying what could
be specific solutions as potential general remedies to crises. In this
specific case, the national employers’ organisation, MEDEF, had tried to
generalise the impact of an agreement but the union correctly rejected
that approach.
The UniCredito Case
UniCredito (an Italian
financial group) and HypoVereinsbank (a German-based financial enterprise)
announced their intention to merge in order to establish a leading banking
group (the fourth largest in the Euro area) in Western and Central Europe.
The new group would have about 28 million customers and 7,000 counters in
19 countries.
The goals of the merger were:
• “The building of the
first European bank” (statement by UniCredito director)
•
Expansion in central and eastern Europe.
The deal would affect the
employment situation for many employees. Management had already announced
that it planned to cut more than 7% of the workforce: 2% in Italy (800
people), 9% in Poland, 7% in Germany and Austria. In total: 9,700 jobs.
The planned deal between UniCredito and HypoVereinsbank brought about a
new dimension of cross-border mergers in Europe. Together, the two would
create a leading bank in Italy, Germany and Austria as well as in Central
and Eastern Europe. The deal would change the employment situation for
many employees and, as already announced, management had plans to cut more
than 7% of the workforce, with the largest cuts in Central and Eastern
Europe, where unions and workers’ rights were weaker.
In this
particular case study the participants were invited to evaluate the
specific union strategy.
Their conclusions were that:
• The
position of not accepting redundancies and demanding investment was a
rhetorical tactical request by the union.
• It would have been useful
to acquire further expert insight into the intentions of the company.
•
It was important to get information about the business plan.
• It was
important to get information about the collective agreement applied in
each country.
Mr. Ferigo underlined that it should be noted that
the UNI position was tactical, but also that the national unions had
agreed to transfer the responsibility for the bargaining process to the
company EWC.
The Siemens case
In June 2004, IG Metall
reached an agreement with the Siemens electronics group to increase weekly
working hours at two mobile phone plants from 35 to 40 hours per week with
no extra pay for the workers involved. The agreement was an attempt to
prevent jobs being “exported” from Germany to Central and Eastern Europe.
Siemens had 105 plants in Germany with a workforce of about 167,000
people. In March 2004, Siemens announced its intention, if IG Metall did
not make concessions to reduce costs, to relocate at least 2000 jobs from
two plants in North Rhine-Westphalia (plants in Bocholt and Lindtfort) to
Hungary. According to Siemens management, the costs in Hungary were 30%
lower than in Germany, mainly owing to significantly lower wages. Siemens
emphasised the fact that mobile phones had little added value and the cost
of labour was, therefore, the main problem. In June, the transfer plan was
cancelled as a result of the conclusion of a “supplementary agreement”
between the management and IG Metall. The agreement applied to the 4000
employees at the two mobile phones plants in Westphalia.
The group
raised the following observations on the case:
• The competition in
this sector was extremely tough
• Siemens needed the cost reduction
•
The EWC probably couldn’t do much to change the situation
•
International cooperation between unions needed to have been more
developed, with contacts established with the Hungarian union, though this
case also showed very well that interests of different national unions
could easily conflict
• The kind of agreement signed was dangerous
since it would probably not save any jobs.
Mr. Ferigo underlined
how this agreement was seen as very dangerous, because it was the first
case which included the possibility of a dispensation in the national
agreement. It could be very difficult to manage this dispensation. This
should not simply be a decision for the Betriebsrat (the German workers
representatives’ committee). One solution might be to allow this type of
agreement to be signed only with the agreement of national trade union
representatives.
The Irish Ferries Case
This case was
chosen as an example of restructuring in the public sector. There was
intense competition, especially from low cost airlines, so the only way
for transport companies was to go down the low cost and outsourcing road
(“this is part of competitive reality”). A statement from the company in
September 2005 said it could not continue its operations at the current
high costs in the face of increased competition from rival shipping
operators. The situation had deteriorated with a 9% drop in the Irish Sea
car passengers’ market and the rise of fuel costs. In addition, Brittany
Ferries, which received support from the French government, had started
some unfair competition. The ferry company outsourced some transport
services to France to low wage companies, such as MV Normandy, registered
in the Bahamas. This was formerly an Irish registered ship. 150 Irish
workers were affected by the decision.
Irish Ferries was actively
seeking to recruit seafaring workers in the Baltic to replace Irish
Ferries workers. A Latvian worker works more than 80 hours/week and earns
just 1 Euro/hour. This is just above the Latvian minimum wage of 0.71
Euro/hour but far below the Irish minimum wage of 7.65 Euros/hour. The
Irish unions were claiming this was a case of “social dumping” and
denounced the risk of a “race to the bottom” in terms of workers’
condition and rights. The unions agreed “to find measures to cut excessive
costs in terms and conditions of employment in return for securing the
future of all routes”.
The group participants gave examples
of similar situations in their countries. Mr. Ferigo pointed out that this
case showed clearly that this kind of problem could only be solved at a
European level through legislation that covered this transnational
dimension.
Jacky Barry, in collaboration with Ulisses Garrido,
then led a session on the use of translation tools. This session was the
third stage of the strand on Transnational Communication, organised by the
TRACE team in the Preparation and Support Workshops. The aims of this
session wer:
• To identify the existing language skills of
participants
• To identify the translation needs of project partners
•
To begin to build a multilingual glossary
• To assess the effectiveness
of a range of machine translation (MT) tools.
Ms. Barry structured
the activity in three parts:
• Presentation of needs and reasons
justifying the use of machine translation.
• Experimenting with
translation tools in the TRACE languages.
• Discussion of the
usefulness of the tool.
The feedback by participants underlined
that this could be a useful tool for basic communication between people
speaking different languages. However, it was not considered an adequate
tool for translating complex documents, but could rather be used to gain
understanding of the core meaning of a document. However, the tool could
achieve interesting results if the user had enough skills and was aware of
the limits of this kind of language support.
Ulisses Garrido
led the sixth session of the workshop, presenting the draft version of a
series of Topic Sheets, prepared by the TRACE team, on various aspects of
restructuring, and collecting feedback on the sheets from participants.
Participants raised the following considerations:
Critical
comments
• The Topic Sheets needed to be adapted according to the
educational context and learners’ profiles. Especially in trade unions,
the skill level of learners had to be considered (some people would not
read such long documents)
• Rather than being seen as pedagogical tools
in their own right, they could be used as a basis for producing new and
more specific training tools.
• There was need for flexibility in the
text (more paragraphs, subtitles, links to keywords and a glossary)
•
At European level there was a need for a common approach, so these topic
sheets could be useful for transnational meetings; however at national
level a flexible approach was more useful.
Positive comments
•
They were useful in quickly providing a basic level of knowledge on a
specific topic.
• They were understandable, but such long texts might
not be usable in a seminar (2 pages was felt to be the maximum size for a
working document).
• They could be useful preparatory material before a
seminar or during a distance learning period.
Suggestion
•
It would be useful to put a summary at the head of each Topic Sheet,
permitting the user to focus on the information needed.
The
last session of the workshop was on Project Evaluation. Steve Walker led
this session in collaboration with the team from Leeds Metropolitan
University, one of the partners in the TRACE project. The aims were:
•
To identify what had worked well in the TRACE preparation phase;
• To
identify how support might be improved in future projects.
The
participants were asked to give some initial feedback on what was going
well, what problems had arisen, what could be done better, and what was
not working. The activity consisted in reflecting on the TRACE preparation
phase and training activities (including preparation, administrative and
technical workshops, and mentor support). The participants were asked to
provide the following feedback:
• Three aspects of the training and
mentoring support which had contributed positively to the development of
their Key Action;
• Three aspects which had been less effective in
supporting development of their Key Action
• Up to three suggestions on
how the preparation phase support might have been improved.
The
seminar also included a “movie” session and a team-building social event.
On the first evening the TRACE team showed the participants the movie,
“Roger and me”, by Michael Moore. The film describes the consequences of
the restructuring at General Motors. On the second evening a typical
Portuguese dinner was organised for the group, which allowed the
participants to socialise in a friendly and pleasant environment.
Updated
18 February 2006 DS
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Download the TRACE Project Report
The TRACE Project Report provides an overview of the whole project with a particular emphasis on the Key Actions led by partner organisations.
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