Translated and based on interview by Rani Bech for Fagligt.eu
– It?s not enough to conclude collective agreements, take cases to the Labour Court, or try to organise workers in Denmark, if we want to avoid social dumping.
Trying to fix things after the event will not stop social dumping. Instead, we need to dig deeper to find and address the causes of the problem. This is how we want to deal with social dumping in aviation and transport says Vice President, Anders Mark Jensen, from the Flight Personnel Union (FPU) in Denmark.
A break with the negative connotations associated with unions
In Romania, union membership still has negative connotations due to the unions? role under Ceausescu?s dictatorship. Romania is also the home country of many of the workers recruited to the Baltic Sea States who come and challenge our working conditions and wages in Scandinavia. We need to turn this development around.
This is why the FPU has hired a local activist to start a new trade union in Romania. This sounds straightforward, but it?s not as simple as it sounds. Six months? hard groundwork preceded this move.
– The trade union movement in Romania is a symbol of the system that has been left behind. We need to keep in mind the negative role that it played in the past. – If we don?t succeed in changing their perception of unions, we will never persuade them to organise, says FPU?s Vice President, Anders Mark Jensen.
– We cannot organise Romanians in Scandinavia if they are not already aware of the advantages of trade union membership and the values the unions represent. It has to be a culture they bring with them from their home country. We can?t just tell them what to do when they come to our country.
We support them – They support us
The FPU has two aims with the new union in Romania.
– One is that we would like to help build a union in Romania which is not part of the old system there. It has to be a modern trade union for young people who just want decent working conditions. The other aim is that the people we support and help in Romania will also, eventually, support us in Scandinavia – making it a win-win.
– This requires that there are people in Romania who say that social dumping isn?t fair. It?s not fair on us and it is not fair on them either. All they want is a job in aviation or transportation, says Anders Mark Jensen.
– They dream of the same things we do. They want a good working life too. I think that we often believe that Romanians and Eastern Europeans partake in social dumping with their eyes open when in fact they don?t. They feel just as much discomfort, guilt and disgust when faced with social dumping as we do. It?s not great for them to come to Denmark and earn half of what their colleagues earn.
Seeing social dumping from another perspective than the Danish one is something that Anders Mark Jensen wish the trade union movement had thought of much sooner.
– We haven?t seen things from this perspective before. We started at the wrong end. And now we have to start over at the right end. We are active there now, and another LO-affiliated union, the United Federation of Danish Workers, is here too. But we should have started doing this 10 years ago. It?s a long term project, but it is necessary, says Anders Mark Jensen.
A positive approach appeals to young people
The task of starting a new trade union in another country is, according to the Vice President, also a good occasion to take another look at our own domestic trade unions.
– How do we take a successful union model and inspire others to carry it forward in a new, positive way. The trade union movement started as a protest movement, and we have therefore had a tendency to talk a lot about the problems and not so much about the solutions and the opportunities when organising.
– Any young person wants to be a member of a community that signals hope, enthusiasm and potential. No one wants to be a member of an old club that focuses on the negative. And, fortunately, this is changing in Denmark. The union branch for commercial and clerical workers (HK) in Copenhagen has been successful in getting new members through enthusiasm and positivity, he says and adds:
If Romania moves forward, Europe will follow
– We have become better at celebrating each other?s victories. That became very clear during the Ryanair-case. If we had lost that court-case, many others would also have been affected. That also goes for Europe. We all saw this with Ryanair this Summer. Of course, it helps to have a common enemy and a common goal, but we also see solidarity in industries affected by non-standard forms of employment and false self-employed.
– Our only option is solidarity and organising. We are well on the way in Europe, and now we hope to see that the values underlying organising will move Romania forward. And if Romania moves forward, Europe will follow.