From 29 to 30 September 2022 took place in Vilnius / Lithuania the EZA kick-off seminar, organised in cooperation with LPS „Solidarumas“ (Lietuvos Profesinė Sąjunga „Solidarumas“) and LDF Education Center (VsI Lithuanian Labor Federation Education Center), funded by the European Union.
Lithuania – close to Ukraine and Russia on the EU’s eastern border – proved to be the right place to address this year’s topic “Solidarity and social peace in troubled times”.
The EU – and not only the EU – is facing multiple crises: still struggling with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, trying painfully to shape a green and just transition of its economies to limit the repercussions of climate change, dealing with labour shortages as a consequence of demographic developments and fighting the impact of Russia’s war against Ukraine, namely soaring inflation and energy prices.
The need for a well-functioning social dialogue is obvious. The social partners will have to play a key role in the current context of a tremendous loss of purchasing power in order to protect workers from the risk of poverty and to ensure social peace across Europe, while also opposing and taking the wind out of the sails of populistic moments that are trying to sow division in European societies. As one of the speakers rightly pointed out, what is needed is a policy mix based on price control and wage increases, building on a strong social dialogue.
This will not be easy, given that collective agreements have very low coverage in many countries, as our Lithuanian friends reminded us. Coverage is far from the 80% target set by the recently adopted EU minimum wage directive. Nevertheless, the directive is a great success for those fighting for a more social Europe, and an important step into the right direction.
After years in which social dialogue was under attack in many EU member countries, the participants welcomed the European Commission’s new initiative on social dialogue flagged up by Jörg Tagger, head of unit at DG Employment. Tagger pointed out that more social partners’ agreements are needed on the European level.
The EU Recommendation on Social Dialogue that has been announced for January 2023 is a recognition of the positive role unions can and must play in these current troubled times and is an outcome of the action plan on social dialogue. At the same time, several sceptical voices underlined that the success of the new initiative will depend on how effective it will be in practice.
The debates in Vilnius also made it clear that innovation is needed to get through the current crises and to manage the transition to a more digital and sustainable economy. Furthermore, unions and workers’ organisations are called upon to question their mindset again and again, and to move forward courageously. To this end, training for representatives of unions and workers’ organisations is needed in view of the social dialogue 4.0, as part of the solution for all the challenges that we face. This is something EZA can provide as an educational centre with its longstanding experience.
Vilnius is only 550 km away from Lviv. Oleksandr Dzhulyk and Yuriy Kurylo of Vost ‘Volya’ from Ukraine gave a devastating reminder of the situation in Ukraine and described how the work of their trade unions has changed in war time. Several speakers underlined the importance of integrating Ukrainian refugees in the EU labour market as a prime instrument for social integration. At the same time, the influx of vulnerable worker groups into the labour market is generating an observable risk of social dumping and deregulation, which must be addressed. The efforts of many EZA member associations in supporting both Ukrainian refugees and local workers go in this direction. And yet it has been rightly pointed out that the help we offer refugees cannot be directed exclusively towards those fleeing Ukraine. There are many other refugees from other countries who deserve the same support.