The Employment Agreement, which will be approved at the Cologne EU Summit, will only
succeed if the social partners are closely involved in the project. This Employment
Agreement will represent the starting shot in a development process in which economic,
monetary and employment policies will be linked with one another. The above statements
were made in Brussels on 20th May, by the troika which consisted of the Austrian, German
and Finnish trade union leadership, when they met to discuss the challenges which the
trade union movement must face in the new millennium.The
trade union leaders of the three countries holding the previous, the current and the next
EU Presidency will all have had dealings with the Employment Agreement. The Agreement was
first launched during the Vienna Summit, decisions on it will be made in Cologne and,
prior to its implementation, is due to be completed at the Helsinki Summit.
Dieter Schulte, the Chairman of DGB, the Central
Organisation of German Trade Unions, was pleased to comment that at long last the EU had
begun to see employment as an issue which is a part of the total economic policy.
According to Herr Schulte the Employment Agreement will only succeed if the social
partners will participate.
- We cannot expect miracles from this Agreement, he
continued, but it is a starting point towards a coordinated economic policy.
According to Fritz Verzetnitsch, who is the Chairman both
of ÖGB, the Central Organisation of Austrian Trade Unions and of the ETUC, the European
Trade Union Confederation, economic policy measures have now been exhausted within the EU
and therefore the only avenue left open is the simultaneous application of financial,
employment, labour market and training policy measures, if a higher rate of employment is
the objective. Herr Verzetnitsch criticised the EU for not aiming for a higher rate of
employment alongside the national economic targets which were set in connection with the
transition to the adoption of the Euro.
The General Secretary of the ETUC, Emilio Gabaglio, said
that the price which has been paid for the stability policy, which is a requisite of the
EMU, has been very high. Therefore the Employment Agreement must carry the same weight as
the Stability Pact. Emilio Gabaglio said that money is not the only issue within the EU,
and that it should be remembered that the European Union is also a social and a political
entity. The trade union movement is now facing a situation where it must further develop
its own models of operation in order to be able to exert influence in the deepening of the
social integration within the EU.
In the 9th Congress of the ETUC, which
will be held in Helsinki in late June and early July, the ETUC will discuss the
Europeanisation of the labour market system. The implementation of this ETUC objective
will mean that some of the power vested in the trade union movement will be transferred
from the national to the European level.
Safety in Change
Whilst sketching out the challenges which will be presented
to the trade union movement in the new millennium, the Finnish trade union leadership also
saw new opportunities opening up for the trade unions, but it was added that this will
require the ability to change and to adapt to the international economic integration which
has already begun to take place. The Finns and the other Europeans, with their respective
trade union movements, will not be able to avoid this process, whether they like it or
not, said the Vice Chairman of the SAK Administrative Council, Pekka Ahmavaara.
According to Pekka Ahmavaara, national trade unions
everywhere will have to adapt separately to new circumstances which may be regulated by a
global and internationally active trade union movement.
Unique Meeting
The political leaders of the three successive EU Presidency
countries have customarily held meetings between themselves, but for the trade union
leaders this troika meeting was the first of its kind. The present troika consists of
countries which have more or less similar labour market systems and income policies which
have delivered reasonable benefits to the workers. The thinking within the trade union
movement in Austria, Germany and Finland is very similar, in that all three countries
believe that problems with labour market issues should be initially dealt with on a
national level, followed by an examination at the level of the EU.
After Finland, the next country to hold the Presidency will
be Portugal, a country in which the labour market model, and the terms and conditions of
the employees, are considerably less well advanced than those in northern Europe.
Therefore the next trade union troika might find it much more difficult to find a common
denominator. |
