Congress of the Trade Union Confederation of Workers' Commissions (CC.OO)

Madrid, 18/12/2008

Speech by John Monks, General Secretary of the Trade Union Confederation (ETUC)

Ola, Buenos Dias. I come to bring the respect and greetings of the whole of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) to one of our most important affiliates, the Trade Union Confederation of Workers’ Commissions CC.OO.

It is common place to say that we meet in challenging times. You read that phrase used every day in management reports to shareholders in our major banks. It really means – we are in a hell of a mess.

I know that internal matters are in the mind of many of you at this congress but let’s be frank, Europe, Spain included, and the wider world are in a hell of a mess.

The recession is rolling towards us, smashing into construction, into the banks, into the car companies and now into other parts of the economy. 2009 looks like it is going to be a very rough year for jobs and pay. Precarious work is collapsing and regular work is becoming very precarious.

This recession should shape all trade union work and energy in the period ahead.

Our analysis must be sound and sharp. The crisis has been caused by the speculators and by the spivs but even more so by the careless actions of the banks and financial institutions, all motivated by greed. A boom based on borrowing and debt has bust. The ETUC is concentrating on two things.

First, we have to get through the recession as quickly as possible. So we are supporting the EU Recovery Plan and the actions of those Governments, like Spain, which are boosting public spending. This is a new chance for public sector. After years of commentators telling us incessantly that the State sectors should shrink, that the solutions should be all market based, that we should all privatise, de-regulate, flexibilise and all go in the direction of the United States, even the Detroit car giants are looking to the State for help, joining the queue which heads all the way down Wall Street and around the City of London and other financial centres.

But we should not just provide handouts. We should insist that with public money comes public influence; that we should insist on no say, no pay as our guiding principle.

We should also take the chance to go for a ‘new clean deal’ or a ‘new green deal’ to accelerate efforts to produce a sustainable economy and cut carbon emissions.

The second objective is just as fundamental. We need to make fundamental changes in the ways our economies work. We cannot live beyond our means.

We cannot let financial capitalism bring the world economy to its knees. Our call must be “never again”. We must control the speculators. We must stop executive greed. We must stop tax havens and off-balance sheet trading. We must support full employment and workers’ rights. We must regulate and go back to the systems of the American New Deal and post-war reconstruction in Western Europe. We must strengthen the workers’ voice in the boardroom and speak powerfully for the real economy, and against casino capitalism.

This is our task in our generation. It is being made harder by recent decisions of the European Court of Justice in the cases – Viking, Laval, Rüffert and Luxembourg. These are toxic decisions curbing worker freedom. The free movement principle of the EU has triumphed over workers’ fundamental rights. This is intolerable.

So we have a huge campaign underway to restore our rights, to assert the supremacy of collective bargaining and the right to strike and to establish equality for migrant, posted workers in Europe. An I give you advance notice. I am hoping for a demonstration in a Spanish city as part of a wider programme of demonstrations in key European cities next May.

Our campaign this week in Strasbourg on working time in support of the amendments of Alejandro Cercas was a great success. We must win again and again. Social Europe can be advanced. We won on European Works Councils, on temporary workers, and now on working time.

We went on the offensive at our ETUC Congress in Seville in 2007 in which you all played a leading part. Now, despite the pressures against us, we must re-dedicate ourselves to keep on the offensive against casino capitalism and for worker and trade union rights. These are exciting times. They can be our times.

On the offensive with ETUC. A la offensiva!