TALKS - 29 - Unions in the world and EU - video Dailymotion

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Transcript

00:14and so hello everybody here is micro from new left and today i have the most precious guest

00:21i've ever had so far i mean records are made to be broken so i hope that another records

00:27we follow but as importance in the world of unionization is in europe christy hoffman

00:35might be one of the most if not the most important person to talk about unionization in europe

00:42christy can you please introduce yourself who you are what you do well i am the general secretary

00:50of uni global union which brings together unions from around the world in the service industries

00:56um um we have 10 sectors at uni 10 sectors of different unions representing workers from

01:03150 countries so um that's my organization and of course we spend a lot of time um at uni focusing

01:12on the growth and power of unions because we see that as the key strategy to drive the improvement

01:19of lives of working people cool so just just for context for people who don't know so uni as far

01:26as i know correct me if i'm wrong has roughly 20 million members worldwide and roughly five

01:32millions in european union if i'm not mistaken we we represent that many people yes okay cool

01:38so again speaking the biggest union in european uh union uh by the size yeah not the biggest in the

01:46world as far as i know now there are two i think that are bigger membership wise globally but in

01:52europe

01:52and this is part of the discussion we will gonna have is why is europe so maybe we can even

01:58start with

01:59this with this question so why exactly europe is the biggest for uni and why is the stronghold

02:06of uni at least seen from the membership based perspective in european union um well look i i think europe

02:17has

02:18traditionally uh since the post-war period been the strongest in terms of and i don't want to use the

02:26word membership because i think if we're clear it's really coverage right how many workers are covered

02:32by collective bargaining and that is the key metric um that that i would use for example you know in

02:39france you might have only very small number of members relative to the size of the country but 96

02:45percent or 99 bargaining coverage and that's that's a relevant that's a very relevant point but when we

02:52think about why you uh europe is so strong in that regard i think in the post-war period they

02:59negotiated

03:00industrial relations systems that were very very good for unions um welcoming for unions in the sense

03:07that in some cases um social dialogue just became part of the fabric of the of the um relationships

03:15in europe um and a lot of these were um negotiated in a post-war environment where there was a

03:24very

03:24strong left um that you didn't really necessarily see in other countries um and there had already

03:31been a tradition of unions in many countries and so you europe has been in the leadership ever since

03:38in terms of having structures that favor sectoral bargaining in many countries that's a really important

03:45feature of having strong uh um unions as seen from the perspective of how important they are in the

03:54country in terms of driving standards setting standards um so i think when you look at the

04:00ghent model you've got countries where uh union membership was also linked to um engaging with

04:07social benefits so for example unemployment insurance and so on so all of these other

04:13uh features of unions across europe and especially sectoral bargaining that you see

04:18in the southern european countries like france italy and portugal these are all um features of the

04:26structure of industrial relations that make it more likely that unions can thrive and succeed

04:32this leads to another question i wanted to ask because purely from historical perspective americans

04:40were even more radical and more leftist than europeans everywhere i mean when you look at the

04:45fdr times of 96 or 94 percent uh uh taxation of the rich and and everything what was going on

04:55there

04:55and at the end of the day even the first may is actually from chicago so you know like america

05:00was

05:01really the stronghold of the left i would say so how come that uh well you know that the evolution

05:07of unionization after the second world war after fdr and after there were there was period of like

05:1340 years of 70 percent taxation actually what is happening or what was happening after the war that

05:19the americans were expanding and and and bringing this progressive crazy to for today's years yeah

05:26progressive taxation to germany or japan like those were the times with the biggest taxation in japan

05:33germany of the rich so americans were like leading the charge on on the lefties i think you can say

05:40that's true when it comes to taxation um but this is exactly the question why is the unionization

05:46not so but that is not true when it comes to having a stronger left i mean the america the

05:51u.s

05:51did not have a strong left in the same way that you've had in europe i i would disagree with

05:57that

05:57point i think on taxation that's an area in which uh you know we had we've had a strong

06:03progressive movement in some ways about you know equal um equalizing uh wealth and so on and yeah

06:11that was a moment in american history but when you look at the conditions for of labor law when you

06:17look

06:17at the role of unions that has never been as strong in the u.s as it has been in

06:23in the in the europe and

06:24for sure you don't have the practice of sectoral bargaining you have a practice of enterprise bargaining

06:30which inherently makes unions less powerful when it comes to driving conditions across the sector

06:36now when you think about um um strength of unions certainly in some regions in the u.s in some

06:44markets

06:44unions are very strong but you it's a very big country um and as measured by continent so you know

06:52like we are bigger so you know just something happened there that it went a different direction

06:57that europe did so what was it if you know you know like when when did it break well i

07:02mean always

07:03since the very beginning of having a labor law in the united states it was focused on enterprise it was

07:08very difficult to achieve a union you had to have a majority it was set up from a very uh

07:14limited

07:14perspective um that you know it was enterprise specific and and you know required a majority and

07:21required a series of steps that made it more difficult for workers to have a union in the united states

07:26and especially to engage in collective bargaining that was always the case pre-war uh you know i mean

07:33and and and and post and it never really changed away from that model um and therefore you have pockets

07:40in the u.s where workers are able to achieve a union and many areas where it's just simply not

07:46i think that is driven by um there's some very good written work on on linking some of that to

07:53the

07:53history of slavery um to the history slavery in the united states where you'll see the slave states

07:59were actually the very very lowest when it comes to union um union recognition to you know uh the divisiveness

08:08of racism which has been a big part of the anti-union culture in the united states for many years

08:15and then you know certainly the capitalist class in the united states in the late 70s decided they

08:22wanted to make unions extinct meaning that they would accept the fact that there are currently unions

08:28in about 10 of the workplaces of the u.s but beyond that they would make it impossible to to

08:35um create

08:36new unions and so you know density has continued to decline in the u.s because even though the total

08:42number of union members is not declining in any serious way but the density relative to the economy

08:50is is continuing to decline now to six percent in the private sector so um you know it's partly because

08:57it's i don't know how much you know about you know creating a union in the united states right now

09:02is virtually impossible unless the employer as far as i know there has to be this 50 percent vote and

09:08there is a lot of scaremongering in states so if you yeah i mean there is union job schedule laws

09:14and

09:15all this boo boo boo and then people just believe yeah i mean it's it's it's uh you know we

09:23started in

09:23the late 70s um with what's called uh union avoidance uh the the employers would call it that we call

09:31it

09:31um union busting industry it's about a 401 million dollar industry um in the united states where

09:39professionals are called in to engage in all kinds of psychological and even you know other tactics

09:45to create fear across workers who are going are heading towards a vote you have to have proof that

09:52a majority of the workers in the worksite want a union but until if you're having a vote you normally

09:59sorry to jump in because this is interesting to know it's 50 of those who voted or it's 50 of

10:06all

10:06the workers it's 50 of those who vote if you're having a vote and if you're not and is there

10:12some

10:13kind of thresholds because you know like two-thirds can decide not to vote and then you know that's one

10:18third yeah decides for the other two thirds so first of all there is a one rule for people in

10:26transportation so if you're in airlines and trains and so on it's 50 of everybody who's

10:33covered by the collective let's say thousand people work in that company at least 500 have to vote

10:39no i'm let me finish in the transportation if there's no it's 50 of everybody and it's a mail ballot

10:47so if and if so if 30 return the ballot you the union loses if it has to be that

10:55you have the

10:55votes affirmatively there's no requirement about how many have to vote but it's just you have to have

11:00the votes of more than 50 of the of the eligible voters in transportation in a normal private sector

11:10election it's 50 plus one of those who vote now if you have a contentious election where the employer

11:18is really really um you know putting a lot of pressure on the workers the employers will encourage

11:25everyone to vote very much and sometimes they even video to see who voted and who didn't um because they

11:31want as many no votes as possible and of course the union so it's very rare in an in a

11:38contested election

11:40to have a small turnout it is very rare to have a small turnout usually workers go and vote they're

11:47given time off work to vote they um you know and it's a physical vote you go and um now

11:54we had mail

11:54ballots during the uh during the pandemic but usually people are given time off to vote so that and it's

12:0150 of those who vote so if 100 people vote you need 51 yes votes um but that part is

12:09not the

12:10tricky part the the part that's difficult is the months leading up to an election are very very uh

12:19you know can be torturous for the workers they're threatened they have mandatory meetings with the

12:24employer they have you know uh even in an amazon election posters in the bathroom if you sat down on

12:32the toilet you would just look at a big poster saying vote no so this is a very and is

12:39very difficult for unions to succeed in these elections unless it's a very small unit of

12:45people so when you see starbucks elections you might have 20 voters those are very easy to keep

12:52people together and keep people you know uh to understand what's going on with the employer but

12:58a larger unit is harder um and so you know unions don't like to go for elections unless they have

13:08really big support or unless the employer has agreed we will not engage in union busting which is the

13:14key uh obstacle um this is totally different than in europe no as far as i know we know in

13:21european

13:22union is this this well i don't know how to put it strict or cumbersome to create a union for

13:29my

13:30country in slovakia just three people need to come together and that's it yeah and victory is on the

13:36yeah i think the thing about europe is however you don't have these strict rules that's absolutely

13:43true and in some cases a union is automatically recognized if you look in italy and france a union

13:50is automatically recognized but they but then you have to compete for which union not whether there

13:56is a union but which union it represents you in bargaining and and or you know what councils and so

14:03on but then when you look in ireland and germany for example in those countries there is no rule

14:09about they don't have to recognize the union if they don't want to we have amazon in germany

14:15right now who refuses to engage in collective bargaining and there's no rule that they must

14:20engage in collective bargaining and same in ireland there's no rule that any uh company must engage in

14:27bargaining so that's the complete absence versus in the u.s it's very strong but i think in

14:33germany it's sort of expected that a union that a company will bargain with a union that has

14:39a presence at its worksite it's sort of expected that they will but they're not required some don't

14:46some some some take it blase yeah yeah some don't and you know um the other point i would make

14:54is that

14:54especially with amazon as an american company they are importing some of the tactics they use in the

15:01u.s they're moved they're using now in the uk they bring in a much many of the similar anti

15:07-union

15:08um you know bringing in consultants requiring workers to go to mandate all of that they've used recently

15:15in the uk so they're they're exporting that that model um and not so much to other countries because

15:24there's no other countries in europe that i know of that require an election you know it's it's not hard

15:30as you say croatia poland you need only a handful of unions to create a union i mean a handful

15:35of

15:36workers what they do is they fire the union for months so that actually happened in amazon in

15:41slovakia just few weeks back someone created a union there and poof that fella is in the wind

15:48so yeah i mean and that they do bad things i'm not saying they don't i think an amazon is

15:54one of the

15:54leading violators of even prac you know the way things are normally done amazon they don't care

16:01they're just gonna they don't want a union anywhere in the world unless they're really required by law

16:06to have one this is something that happened to me as well i was working for american it company and

16:11as a union's foreman i was laid off actually four of us were laid off so i know with firsthand

16:16how it

16:16is they just as rules go and laws and everything they they feel above the laws and and they rather

16:23lose the lawsuit but but they know it's gonna take you know years probably so in the meantime everyone

16:30will be scared and well it looks like yeah they know what you are doing and they are rather losing

16:37the money on the lawsuit and then uh having a union in that company uh this is something i wanted

16:43to

16:43discuss with you as well because okay you were praising europe or we were praising europe but

16:49to be honest in last 30 years let's say the unionization wasn't exactly rocking yeah and more

16:57or less all countries are declining some really heavily uh mainly post-communistic countries that's

17:04a bloodbath yeah when i'm from slovakia so let's let's bring the slovak numbers to the forefront

17:10we started with 60 65 penetration and now we are at 8.6 yeah so bloodbath it's like 50 percent

17:21is lost

17:22and the same goes for hungary for poland so you name it it's just it's it disintegrated mainly in

17:30post-communistic countries but basically all across the world i mean i was speaking with folks with uh

17:36in finland and in sweden and even there they lost like 15 points or 30 points or you know like

17:43just

17:43look the data and so the question is why what do you think are the main drivers let's say the

17:53three

17:53main drivers that are causing this disillusionment with unionization or i don't know what it is but just

18:02everywhere it's everywhere it's not exactly you know butterflies and roses nowadays in europe

18:08the only exception is iceland iceland is rocking 92 percentage points but it's like 400 000 people so

18:17it's like small town i mean i live in vienna 2.5 million people so iceland would be just one

18:22area of

18:23of our city so maybe that doesn't count really well look i i think there's different reasons and and

18:32and especially i think the post-communist countries uh you know for them it's been like a really big

18:40transition transition from the communist socialist model where unions are really seen as almost you know

18:49part of the fabric right and maybe very close to the government and and had a lot of structural

18:56advantages and so the older style unions they have a lot of coverage but it's more like it's just

19:05what's expected that everybody will join the union and then when that dissolved and you being union

19:11members became more voluntary and less supported by government and less supported by the employers

19:17you bring in these american employers they don't nobody wants these employers do not want a union

19:23so the employer pressure and this permeates all of the international institutions whether it's world bank

19:30or imf they build in these metrics which is which disfavors unions you know you know when you look at

19:38the world bank metrics you know all of these metrics were like you're measured by how much flexibility

19:43you have in your labor market or how much how easy it is to fire people all of these things

19:48are

19:49advantageous for a non-union environment all that pressure that kept from the sort of capitalist model

19:56and i don't think that many of these unions were prepared for that or even have the independence from

20:02the government you know the sort of this transition from old style to modern like we have to fight

20:09capitalists you know it's not been easy for a lot of the countries that you're talking about and i

20:15don't know a lot about slovakia specifically but we know from our you know contact with unions across

20:20that region that it's a big transition from the unions to go to a different model um and and really

20:27where you have to make workers feel like this this being part of a union is going to help me

20:35make my life

20:36better and it's going to help you know build a better uh standards at work it's not just something

20:42that i have to do because this is what everyone does you know and i i think it's it's that

20:49that's

20:49been one issue but then in more general terms for one thing unions always had more strength in

20:58manufacturing areas and of course manufacturing has declined across europe as it has in the united states

21:05and losing those jobs has meant you losing some okay why was manufacturing so strong i mean what

21:12what is the you know secret sauce behind it all that these kind of people want to unionize because

21:18well at the end of the day collective bargaining is collective bargaining i mean you know when you

21:23come together the chances are higher that you get more i mean the origin of the labor movement

21:28is an industry industry it's in the garment industry it's in steel and auto that's the origin

21:33and then sometimes in some places in some industries it has expanded into services

21:40but i mean i don't i think that if you just look back at history where do we start from

21:46the earliest

21:46unions we're in you know manchester england around the time of the industrial revolution so why is it's

21:53because that's where workers were coming out of agriculture into cities into places where they all work

21:58together in the same place where they had some power um you know and services have only relatively

22:05recently in the history of labor been um you know owned by big companies i mean in the past you

22:11might

22:11have some you know small little stores but not really big you know stores like walmart and amazon that

22:18you know or other comparable ones in europe i think that you know so they they came later they never

22:25achieved the density that you had in manufacturing um in turn you could have entire industries in

22:32germany for example the auto industry is completely union now maybe not every parts manufacturing but you

22:39know there's always little exceptions but i think that that's just the history of of trade unionism in the

22:45world um and you know we see that in bangladesh where are the unions are the the laws for unions

22:53in bangladesh and india were written only for manufacturing they're called the factories law

22:58you know and those are the workers that have rights to organize not the service industry we don't

23:03have to fight okay so it's like totally excluded like when you are a teacher or whatever you have

23:08no right to engage in national bargaining i mean you could still create join a union but you have

23:13no real collective bargaining model for you as a service worker is only the factories act they've

23:19only just changed the factories act to be something else this year only a few months ago that i mean

23:25but

23:26so i think that's just a reality and losing manufacturing jobs has meant the loss of some union uh power

23:34across us for sure and definitely and also across europe i think another point is that when you have

23:42more right-wing governments such as you know um you know over back and forth in sweden and denmark you've

23:50had governments that are not social democratic they have taken away what the ghent model the model of

23:57you know linking union membership to um subsidized unemployment benefits and so people wanted to join a union in order

24:05to

24:06access social benefits but once you decouple that and you take that away there's less of a an incentive to

24:14join a union and i think losing

24:17those incentives is is you know cause the um causes swedish coverage rate to go down a little bit i

24:26don't think it went down

24:2715 points because of that i think not something 14 something they went down for sure but that was

24:32but then if you look at denmark when they lost their um social benefit linkage it went down by more

24:39than

24:39i think sweden has worked not sweden had which withstand the push the finland finnish guys are the

24:47about 50 but but still they lost 30 points almost so yeah i mean but you have to remember what

24:53the origin the link

24:55the the the origin of that loss was when they changed the model and they took away the link

25:00to social benefits and um in in sweden they were really intentional about minimizing that and they

25:08started doing campaigns on tv everywhere like why you need a union why unions are good why you know this

25:17union's good that you they were very very intentional about it and that's what it takes you can't just assume

25:22everybody's going to join a union you have to really work at it because the pressure from the other side

25:28is is strong that why do you need a union you could still have all these benefits from you know

25:35statutory

25:37you know you already have vacation by statute you already have sick pay you already have all these

25:42benefits by law and keep in mind in the united states none of that is by law you don't have

25:48vacation you

25:49don't have sick pay you don't have nothing is required under law it's everything comes from the union contract

25:56and that's another reason why the pressure from u.s employers is so anti-union because they know if they

26:05have a union that they're going to have to negotiate over all of those issues and especially in health

26:12insurance whereas non-union you don't have any voice and and so on the one hand you know it means

26:21unions

26:21have a big advantage right but on the other hand it means that bosses have such a big incentive to

26:27fight

26:28they have a huge incentive to fight because they do not want their workers to have entitlements what i'm

26:35always saying to people if unions were really so useless as they claim why the hell would they fight them

26:42you know like they shoot themselves in the foot by mere logic like when something is pointless

26:48fuck it yeah it's like breathing of air like obviously we are doing it so you know there is

26:54no the discussion whether we will breathe or not so they are it's relatively easy to debunk these narratives

27:00because you wouldn't do the you know busting in the first place if if it were really useless

27:07it's easy to debunk that unions are worthless because they clearly are not it's but depends on

27:13the country obviously there's a big incentive uh in some countries like the u.s there's huge difference

27:20between union and non-union including just cause dismissal we do not have in the u.s laws against unfair

27:26dismissal so you know that's also like totally so they can fire whoever they want and just we have

27:33laws we have law yeah i mean the law is that you cannot fire people for protected class protected

27:41classes of people meaning you can't fire someone because they are a woman or because they are a

27:47racial minority those are illegal or because they are too old if you're over 45 you can't be fired because

27:54you're over 45 but for any other reason they just don't like you they come with other excuses as

28:00creativity goes they can create so it's very very easy to fire people in the u.s you just say

28:07send them

28:07an email go home starting today no notice is required nothing so they know workers know that having a union

28:15in the u.s is a huge benefit but what they're concerned about is the employers are like well we'll

28:21just close

28:22down we'll leave we'll you know you know why would you want to support a union because your career will

28:28be damaged by doing that i mean they imply that it's bad for the person because um you know they

28:35don't want their company to be the only one that has a union so that's that's one element of it

28:41but also

28:42that someone who supports a union but then the vote fails will be punished forever you know although

28:48always know that you're not a good person you're um but i i think this that is um in europe

28:57you know

28:58a reason why there's a decline is because you know the employers have the argument that why do you need

29:06to join the union and pay fees to a union when you have all these benefits without a union um

29:12and

29:14and the other difference between europe and the u.s is in in europe it's voluntary you can choose

29:21every year if you want to stay in the union or not but in the u.s once you vote

29:27for a union almost

29:28everyone has to pay fees in the country so you have by the way it's one percentage point so it's

29:33the usual

29:34in up in america um it's not that is common to have one percent but it really differs depending on

29:46the you know maybe it's completely different rule i don't live there i don't know so that's why i'm

29:52asking i mean you would say a two it could be a little more than one percent um traditionally like

30:01traditionally where i used to be a union member we had the rule that whatever your hourly pay was

30:09you had to give two hours a month to the union so and that would be two hours out of

30:16160 so it's a

30:17little bit more than one percent but that really did every union can make their own model so you know

30:24and then for part-timers you know it you can you can also change the model depending on how many

30:32hours question i wanted to ask to bring it a little bit more home is the 70 40 roughly 70

30:3930 model that

30:40we are running as far as i know in all post-communistic countries in european union so i think there

30:46are 11

30:46countries that are from post-communistic part of europe in european union and as far as i know all of

30:52them are using this model and the question i wanted to ask you is after all this decline that we

30:59were

30:59discussing the last few minutes uh whether this model kind of didn't show that its usefulness is

31:06long overdue that uh it should be kind of sacrificed on the altar of growth 10 20 i don't know

31:15how many

31:15years ago that you my opinion yeah you do something it works keep on doing it cool yeah

31:22when you do something and it isn't working and you are shrinking shrinking shrinking shrinking

31:26shrinking then in my opinion it's only logical to reconsider whether you know the strategy as such

31:33is working and when i compared the scandinavian model for example with the post-communistic countries

31:39then you know the differences are screaming into our faces like 40 or 50 60 percent even in iceland

31:47even 90 compared with less than 10 in most communistic countries so and the decline was terrible yeah so

31:56question you know what do you think shouldn't we finally reconsider and rebuild the unions in post-communistic

32:03countries so that they can mirror the approach that was established for centuries basically that the

32:11association gets all the money there is not the 70 30 model the on the company level the money isn't

32:17staying that's the 70 because when i'm talking to guys in slovakia primarily they are so ingrained in

32:25this model that they are kind of proud that they have hundred thousand euros in them bank account they

32:30don't do with that because what can you do on a company level with that kind of money they organize

32:35some fests and and jolly making and let's drink beer but as unionization goes you know build barbecue

32:44parties or organize barbecue parties isn't exactly where the big fights are happening uh a few friends of

32:52mine i don't really just let me interrupt you and say i don't really understand this what you're

32:56talking about when you say 70 30 um i can explain it quickly how it's done in post-communistic

33:03countries is that when you become member of a union there is an association uh in as an example slovakia

33:09we have 26 associations yeah but we have five thousand roughly five thousand local unions in multiple

33:16companies five thousand companies and the rule is that the money that you are raising let's say you have

33:22100 members yeah let's say that you raise thousand euros a month and it's 10 euros membership fee monthly

33:29then this thousand euro is divided only 300 goes to the association and 700 euro states on the on the

33:37company level so the unionization isn't that done as invest that where everything goes to verdi or union

33:44or gpa or you name it yeah yeah but it's divided 70 30 so the association has only one third

33:52of the

33:52money that if you normally have in a western model and on the company level and the money stays they

33:59don't know what to do with it so they organize they have parties yeah parties no like cool oh my

34:05brother

34:05he works in a bank so he pays 120 euros in a year at the end of the year he

34:11gets chocolate so i'm telling

34:12him man 120 euros chocolate it's like you can buy it for 20 euros somewhere and save yourself the money

34:19so it's just as the model goes it's not exactly working in my opinion no that's why i'm asking

34:28no i agree i have seen the model too in in some countries i didn't know it was called 70

34:3330 but i know

34:34that a lot of the money it's a help i call it justice division and that the money isn't going

34:40a lot of the money stays locally and they have a lot of parties and they

34:45a lot of beer yeah a lot i mean i know this from poland right mostly in poland uh our

34:52polish

34:52unions keep a lot of the money at the local level and yeah i mean it just what is it

34:58that you are aiming

34:59for if you're aiming to create a union that's prepared to to fight for better conditions they

35:06need the money i mean they need the money they want to do all kinds if you want to have

35:10a real um

35:11challenge to the corporations that are going to be on the other side of the table when you're bargaining

35:18you need to have resources you need to be able to do resource you know public relations communications

35:24of research uh you know having staff that are skilled to bring everyone in the country together

35:30because you know most of these companies are not just polishers lucky and or but and even if they are

35:38just polish they're operating all across the country not in only one town you know so you need to have

35:44resources at the national level i mean i i don't know um you know i i do know that some

35:50of our what we

35:51consider to be very under resourced unions but at the local level they do have a lot of money for

35:58entertainment no just to put it into perspective slovakia is totally shitty 8.6 percentage points

36:05but when you do the math even that terrible 8.6 percentage point number actually raises roughly 20

36:12millions a year and if the 20 millions were centralized in let's say five union associations oh that would be

36:19different discussion yeah how many people you can employ for 25 million euros a year not exactly two or

36:27three guys yeah so that's that's that's what i'm kind of alluding to that this is maybe and maybe not

36:35maybe long overdue to kind of rebuild it from the get-go and and admit that this was maybe good

36:45idea back

36:45then when it started 20 or 30 years ago but today is that when it started is only 30 years

36:53ago no 30 35

36:54depends on the country you know not every country did uh do the change because not everyone will move

37:00from capital from communist model to capital is exactly at the same date and as an example slovakia

37:06did split in 1993 from czech republic so everything had to be negotiated again so for us it's like 33

37:13years

37:13roughly you know from what i heard why they did it that way is that there was not trust as

37:18you were

37:19saying a few minutes back to the old union structure because they were yeah kind of intertwined with

37:24communists so back then i can understand the logic but after 30 plus years of yeah doing it this way

37:31and it's not working then maybe you know it's a change yeah no i could see why i i didn't

37:38understand

37:39that's what you were now but now we know but i but i know but also i'm familiar with the

37:45the um you

37:47know with the practice of that and okay and the last and hopeful question what region in the world you

37:54see that is kind of getting the momentum and and well it might not be europe now maybe it's south

38:01america

38:01i have no clue you are the unique global you have it in your head so when you're looking at

38:07it globally

38:08what is can i i'm not going to say one region because i honestly feel that um there's big um

38:16pockets

38:17of hope in all of the countries all regions of the world but one thing is all regions of the

38:23world

38:23unions are under attack it is like this the capitalist class is just like we are not we're we're really

38:30going

38:31to try to push unions out of the future so that we want a future which where unions are not

38:37around

38:37and not slowing us down and not you know demanding more i do think there's a big part of um

38:44capitalism

38:45that is united around that common goal um on the other hand i think there's so many pockets of hope

38:51um

38:52where workers are you know coming together to say well you know our future is only going to be a

39:00good one if we come together and fight back and and build stronger unions and you know some people

39:07on the left maybe they consider themselves on the left but um would say well we need alternatives to

39:15unions any alternative that you have i don't care what you call it it's unless you're engaging in

39:21collective bargaining with employers and you know organizing a collective voice for workers that's

39:27a union in my book and there's no alternative to that so we might as well you know give up

39:33on that

39:33idea that oh unions are old-fashioned they're not old-fashioned they just maybe need new leadership

39:39in some cases or or you know maybe some of our practices can be a bit you know old-fashioned

39:45from

39:45time to time but i really feel like there's so many hopeful strands of trade unionism you know all around

39:54the world and um you know even in the us where of course workers have been under attack for a

40:00long

40:00time and they and that remains the case when you see who is leading some of the fight back against

40:07trump and deportation it's the unions it's the unions that are out on the streets it's the unions that

40:13are with civil society not alone but those voices and communities in minneapolis many of them were coming

40:21from the local unions who were taking the lead in that in that fight back and that's very very hopeful

40:27about the role of unions going forward but in asia you know unions have been pretty uh and low in

40:37terms

40:37of their density except in japan but in the rest of asia you know it's very very low but we

40:44see a lot of

40:45young people coming together we see um you know big sparks of hope in a lot of um areas and

40:53you know

40:53i would single out asia because it is the fastest growing region in the world and um and you know

41:03the

41:03economic um strength of of asia is only continuing to grow so it's a very important region for uni but

41:12europe is also the the foundation of our modern labor movement um and and so keeping a european union

41:20strong is is really important for uni and we have a big program around that in our european um region

41:28because you know without europe we you know some a key pillar of support for global unionism remains

41:37and will continue to remain europe and we hope that it grows everywhere in the world but but europe's

41:43very very important um europe is the keystone i would say no like yeah yeah i mean um you know

41:50it's been

41:52in this post-war environment incredibly strong and um you know it's it's it's about i would say about

42:00half of our membership of our paid membership comes from europe and that remains um you know really

42:06important so we don't give up on europe in any respect and we think that increasing number of

42:13european unions are coming to terms with the fact that you know keeping maintaining growth maintaining

42:24membership and growing membership are really important and we have to look at maybe new areas

42:30companies of the economy that have not been around so much in the past and you know beyond manufacturing

42:36that's obviously um you know manufacturing is not uni's area of coverage but we know that you know

42:44service industries you know also need to be thinking about their union growth and and their union power

42:52so um europe is very important but the but um the rest of the world as well i think unions

43:01in in latin america

43:03have been very strong especially in argentina and brazil um and they're under attack they have extreme

43:11right-wing government right now in argentina his single most important goal is to wipe out the influence of

43:17unions he's made that really clear um and of course in brazil you've got lula a very friendly government

43:25right now but prior to that bolsonaro who did his best to wipe out unions they didn't achieve they

43:31weren't able to wipe out unions and they won't do it in argentina either but but it is you know

43:37when

43:37you're under defense when you're playing defense for a long time you know it you do you do lose some

43:43some of your power there's no question about it in terms of and some of your membership um in both

43:49argentina and brazil so so yeah i you know probably this is the state of the world we are in

43:57so you know

43:58this is the generational fight we are fighting i don't want to even call it fight this is value-based

44:03kind of mode of living yeah whether we come together and and build something better

44:09or whether we let the right-wingers to destroy it from within and they they are obviously trying so

44:16anyway so christy thank you very much uh for your time this was really nice discussion i enjoyed it

44:24myself very much and well till next time hopefully yeah okay thanks for inviting me bye bye

TALKS - 29 - Unions in the world and EU

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