2017 the year of pay rise for European workers

European trade unions have agreed to make 2017 the year of pay rise for European workers

“It’s time for our recovery” said ETUC General Secretary Luca Visentini. “Profits and executive pay have long recovered from the crisis, but white and blue collar workers’ wages have still have not got back to pre-crisis levels. One in three workers is struggling to make ends meet.”

Corporate Europe has recovered from the crisis but while the top 1% reap almost all the economic gains, majority of workers haven’t seen a pay rise in years. On the 14th-15th of February 2017, the European Trade Union Confederation and its national member unions launched a new European-wide campaign for a pay rise “It’s time for OUR recovery – Europe needs a pay rise”, which emphasises the following decisions:

•  European and national trade union will press for a pay rise for European workers throughout 2017;
• A pay rise is fully justified to tackle rising inequality and in-work poverty, and to generate growth and recovery for all;
• Giving workers more money to spend would lift the whole economy far more effectively than current measures such as tax cuts and public spending cuts, and would give a boost to business as well as workers.

“We will be looking for pay rises wherever possible” said ETUC Confederal Secretary Esther Lynch. “The most effective means of achieving a pay rise is through collective bargaining between trade unions and employers, but we will also be looking at minimum wages where collective bargaining does not exist.”

“We will be making the case for pay rises to employers and to policy-makers.”

The ETUC argues that the EU and national Governments should encourage collectively bargained wage increases as a way to drive growth, and do more to promote negotiations between trade unions and employers.

The ETUC will work with European sectoral trade unions and national unions to examine wage discrepancies across Europe including wages falling behind productivity, companies that keep an excessively high share of profits instead of sharing it with workers through higher wages, companies that have an excessive gap between the pay of those at the top and the  lower paid workers, unfair wage differences in wages between sectors in different countries, and countries with particularly low minimum wages or unfair exemptions to the minimum wage.

Commenting on the campaign launch, Harald Wiedenhofer, EFFAT’s Secretary General said: ‘A EU pay rise campaign is what European workers need right now. Time has come to overcome the brutal consequences of the austerity policy. Policy makers and employers must realise that a pay rise would spur domestic demand, stimulate growth and foster investment’.

Nordic trade unions fighting for wage increases

All workers deserve a pay rise and some deserve a bigger pay rise to narrow the gap between the better paid and the low paid. The NU HRCT and its affiliates will continue their fight for higher wages and more secure employment. In the last couple of years’ hotel, restaurant, catering and tourisms worker’s unions in Sweden, Norway and Iceland have managed to achieve substantial wage increases for its members, which have not hurt growth in the industry. In upcoming collective bargaining rounds in Sweden and Denmark the focus will be on more stable jobs, higher minimum wages, education and better pension provisions.

It is clear that trade unions can play a vital role in rescuing Europe from its current mess and rise of nationalism across most of Europe – by winning pay rises, battling precarious work and inequality and defending free movement and social rights. What Europe really needs now is a healthy dose of that age old trade union value: SOLIDARITY