Europe’s choice: renew its social model… or yield to populism

The Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT) was founded in Spain in 1888. Two years later, three Spanish cities – Madrid, Barcelona and Bilbao – celebrated May Day for the first time.

During its 128-year history, the UGT has endured the imprisonment of its members, Congresses in exile during the dictatorship and terrorist attacks. Its recently elected general secretary, Josep María Álvarez, speaks to Equal Times about the impact of the crisis, the campaign to discredit trade unions and its future challenges.

In 2015, Spain had the highest rate of unemployment among the over-55s in the OECD. Whilst the average for this age group was 5.2 per cent, the rate in Spain was four times that, at 20 per cent.

With regards to youth unemployment, Spain still has some of the highest rates in the industrialised world in 2016, with 760,000 young people out of work.

Faced with such alarming figures, Álvarez, the new general secretary of Spain’s oldest trade union, the UGT, has set himself the goal of becoming “the voice of the people, especially the most disadvantaged workers, such as the unemployed over 55s, and the young, so that they can find work quickly – by recovering the combination of partial retirement at age 60 and replacement contracts, for instance – and promoting an emergency employment plan and a strategic plan for industry”.

After eight years of crisis, the advent of the “15M” movement, the emergence of Podemos and the coming to power of candidates from citizen platforms in cities like Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia, the UGT is asserting the role of trade unions as a force of modernisation.

“I have to acknowledge that the trade union movement in general, not only in our country, is going through a difficult period, a period of profound change that is also affecting society. But we cannot fail to acknowledge the contribution made by trade unions to the establishment and the development of labour relations systems and social protection, such as unemployment benefits, pensions or health care. And we continue to fulfil this role, drawing attention to injustices, safeguarding rights, mobilising society and fighting to defend jobs, to defend workers’ interests and to improve social and working conditions,” says the trade union leader.

 
Union bashing

His predecessor, Cándido Méndez, the union’s public face for over two decades, repeatedly denounced the unrelenting campaign to discredit trade unionism in Spain, in which the terms “anachronistic”, “dysfunctional”, “unrepresentative” and “subsidised” were often used.

“What we have seen is a clearly orchestrated ploy to attack the trade unions in this country, and that has nothing to do with the unions’ democratic and day-to-day workings. There has been “a lot of noise” but, fortunately, it has not been like this inside the workplace. The work of trade union organisations is recognised there, because there is interaction with people, with the union representative, who the workers turn to when there is a problem,” remarks Álvarez.

They have, however, been hit by a number of corruption cases, which the new general secretary plans to tackle by bringing “greater transparency to the organisation, especially when agreements are reached with public authorities” and by giving the union “greater visibility”.

Aside from the media campaign against it, low membership rates – among the lowest in developed countries, at 15.9 per cent as compared with 86 per cent in Iceland or 67 per cent in Sweden, must pose a problem for Spanish trade unions.

“Membership is not compulsory here, yet the benefits derived from trade union actions are universal. It is what the Eurofound agency terms ‘trade union parasitism’, when workers do not contribute but benefit from the advantages brought by trade unions. Nor do we participate in certain procedures or in services offered by the authorities, such as processing unemployment benefits, as is the case in European countries such as Belgium, Denmark, Finland and Sweden [although recent reforms have weakened their role, with the resulting impact on their membership figures]. The union nonetheless considers it essential to recognise the role it plays in collective bargaining and social dialogue: it is not fair that these processes, from which society as a whole benefits, should be financed by the members, through their union dues,” criticises Álvarez.

 
Low membership rate

A number of studies maintain that one of the main reasons for Spain’s workers not joining a union is their “view of how much it would impact the effectiveness of trade union action”.

“According to a 2013 survey conducted by the sociological research centre Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (CIS), 16.3 per cent (a slightly higher figure than ten years ago) of those surveyed belonged or had belonged to a trade union. No organisation or collective reaches 10 per cent of active participation in our country. Trade union membership is the second widest form of participation, well above political parties, employers’ associations or professional associations. And over 52 per cent of those who have joined a trade union decided to do so because it defends their interests,” argues the UGT leader.

The economic impact of the crisis has also left a dint in the unions. Between 2011 and 2015, the UGT lost almost 280,000 members.

This fall “is directly linked to the economic crisis: unemployment grows, companies disappear and people stop being members because they put other things before trade union membership. Most of the voluntarily withdrawals, according to our research, correspond to ‘economic adjustments’. Notwithstanding, the figures show that workers continue to join trade unions. The problem is the turnover in the membership,” points out Álvarez.

The UGT leader defends the presence and the role of trade unions in the protest movements of recent years. When asked why Spanish trade unions have not channelled, or even led, the mobilisation in the country [a mobilisation led by social movements], he counters by recalling that “the first ones to protest against the cuts were the unions – think back, simply, to the three general strikes we organised between 2010 and 2012, under the PSOE and the PP governments. And we actively took part in the subsequent mobilisations against the repercussions of these policies, alongside the social movements, including through the Social Summit in which we took part, together with almost a hundred civil society organisations”.

“Now, we are not political parties, and our way of doing things has always been to negotiate until all channels of negotiation have been exhausted. In this respect, this twofold strategy has proved useful in stopping certain blows and preventing, despite legislation favouring employers, even greater job destruction,” he defends.

On the rise of the extreme right in Europe and the EU’s management of the refugee crisis, the UGT underlines that “it is a serious problem and a serious threat for the European Union”. He is, however, certain that this rise “has been fuelled by national governments and the EU authorities themselves, with their austerity policies and their shameful performance in dealing with the humanitarian crisis of the refugees”.

“The social and economic poverty they have plunged us into fuels easy discourse, fuels populism. We, the unions, through the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), are calling for a renewal of the European Social Model, which contributes to Europe’s competitiveness, social protection and democratic values,” says the UGT leader.

The future challenge to be met by Josep María Álvarez at the head of the oldest union in Spain, and one of the oldest in the industrialised world, is “to work to defend the most disadvantaged workers, at the same time as working constantly towards the democratic development of our society”.

 

This article has been translated from Spanish.