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Jens Peter Bostrup Vice President, Food Workers’ Union NNF, Denmark

Jens Peter Bostrup Vice President, Food Workers’ Union NNF, Denmark Wage-dumping in the European Meat Industry Possible Trade Union Strategies.

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Jens Peter Bostrup Vice President, Food Workers’ Union NNF, Denmark

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  1. Jens Peter Bostrup Vice President, Food Workers’ Union NNF, Denmark Wage-dumping in the European Meat Industry Possible Trade Union Strategies • Elaborated from a project report by Tina Møller Kristensen, May 2010, for the Nordic Union of Food Workers’ Unions (NU Food) Tina Møller Kristensen, maj 2010

  2. Meat Industry Development • Many are employed on special terms: Labour agency workers, contract workers, migrant workers. • Low wages for these groups press the wages of the ordinary employed. • Distortion of competition.

  3. Meat Industry – EmploymentPrecarious Workers

  4. Wages in the Meat Industry • Variation of hourly wage in Europe: Bottom 2€ - Top 25€. • Top wages: Norway, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and Netherlands. • Bottom wages: Poland, Germany, Belgium, United Kingdom and France. • Slaughterhouse workers’ wages compared to industry workers: Variation from country to country.

  5. Pressure on the Trade Unions and members • Pressure on the ”Nordic model” is strengthened by the employers’ unimpeded access to outsourcing and shopping for cheap labour in a still more liberal European market. • Slaughterhouse workers and their trade unions in all Nordic countries have been confronted by their employer with massive demands on decrease in wages and increase of flexibility. • Race towards the bottom for wages and working conditions.

  6. Trade Union Possibilities • Which strategy should the Nordic trade unions choose? • What is needed – on the part of trade unions – in order to turn the present defensive national positions to a trade union and political offensive across borders? • Could resignation, if any, be changed to offensive action?

  7. Recommendations Focus on the actions • Cross-border allocation of resources • Focus on workers being exploited in the race towards the bottom: • Primarily labour hired through labour agencies and subcontractors • as well as “false self-employed”, but also women, young people, • long-term unemployed labour and migrant workers.

  8. Recommendations Levels of Action Collective Bargaining Coordinated negotiations and international solidarity Political Regulation of the Labour Markets Common minimum standards: Wages, working hours, and employment contracts?

  9. Recommendations 1. Collective Bargaining • Common basis for analyzing and common ways of reporting results. • Common demands: Wages, working hours, flexibility. • 2. Coordinated negotiations and international solidarity • (Experiences from IMF, International Metal Federation, and the transport area).

  10. Recommendations 3. Political Regulation of the Labour Markets • Equal rights and welfare for all workers as well as ”fair contracts”. • 4. Common minimum standards: Wages, working hours, and employment contracts? • Minimum wages: 60% of national median wages implemented by law or agreements. • Eliminate all possibilities of ”opt out”, especially the possibility of entering into agreements below the level of the common minimum standards. • Implementation and enforcement of rights.

  11. Thank you for your attention

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