FRANCE / UNITED STATES / UNITED KINGDOM / SPAIN... WHAT PROSPECTS FOR TRADE UNION ACTION AROUND THE WORLD IN 2023 ?

On Tuesday, January 10, Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne presented the outlines of the future pension reform, which notably provides for the legal retirement age at 64 years. Immediately, eight unions, standing against the project, announced a first day of mobilization on Thursday, January 19. And others in the following months

For the unions, the challenge goes beyond contesting the reform: it is also a question of regaining influence. At the end of 2022, the strikes of train controllers or even general practitioners were initiated by movements born on the Internet which bypassed them. In addition, the unionization rate has stagnated around 10% in France, one of the lowest levels in Europe, for almost 30 years.

What about trade union action elsewhere in the world? Is this shortness of breath found? Do the economic difficulties, on the contrary, give a new impetus to the trade unions? At the start of the year, the American, British, Indonesian and even Spanish experts from The Conversation offer you a global overview.

Canada: Strong unions get results

The Canadian labor movement is one of the strongest in the OECD, the club of developed countries, a strength linked to laws that protect against the phenomenon of “free riding”: workers cannot benefit from collective agreements without being unionized.

The unionization rate in Canada has been around 30% of workers since the beginning of the century, even if it is half as low in the private sector and is slowly declining there. However, the indicator remains high in public services (more than 75%) and growing.

This relative stability has allowed Canadian workers to be better prepared to face the impact of inflation on their paychecks. Unions made higher wage demands than in past decades, and went on strike more frequently (continuing a trend that began in 2021).

From January to November 2022, 156 strike movements took place (a movement is counted as soon as it involves at least ten people over a day) in all sectors. A total of 1.9 million working days were lost, the highest figure for 15 years.

A spring wave of construction strikes in Ontario, Canada's most populous province, symbolized the rise of activism. At the height of the surge, more than 40,000 workers, including carpenters, Placoplâtre installers and engineers, laid down their tools for higher wages. Attempted agreements launched by the authorities have sometimes been rejected by the strikers, prolonging the movement.

Doug Ford, Premier of Ontario has drawn the wrath of the unions. Andrew Scheer/FlickR, CC BY-SA

Another historical fact occurred later in the year. Ontario's right-wing government wanted to use a seldom-used constitutional clause to revoke the right to strike of 55,000 education support workers. The threat of unions, both public and private, to call a general strike in the province, pushed the government to backtrack.

During this time, blockages operated by employers (or lockouts) have practically disappeared. This tactic, by which the latter suspend activity until the workers accept the proposed conditions, was used only eight times from January to November last, whereas we observed about sixty a year ago. ten years.

Annual wage growth increased slightly to average 5% by the end of the year. This rate remains lower than that of inflation (6.8%), but the gap created in 2021 is narrowing.

It remains to be seen whether this union pressure can be sustained and weather rapidly rising interest rates, a likely recession in 2023 and continued government suppression of union rights in some provinces.

United Kingdom: an olive branch for the health service?

Phil Tomlinson, Professor of Industrial Strategy, University of Bath

The winter of anger continues in the United Kingdom: the country suffers its biggest wave of strikes for more than 30 years. Most take place in the public sector, where wage developments remain well below inflation and lag considerably behind private companies.

The bitterness is pronounced after a wave of austerity and the decline in real wages of the 2010s. The strikes – estimated to have cost £1.7bn (€1.92bn) to the UK economy in 2022 – are coordinated by different unions, adding further public inconvenience.

Nevertheless, the British government categorically refuses to give in. He hides behind the independent recommendations of public sector pay review bodies, even if he has not always followed them. He also claimed that public sector pay rises in line with inflation would cost every UK household £1,000 (€1,130) more a year, although that figure has been denied.

Her Majesty's Treasury, the government department in charge of setting economic policies, also echoes the Bank of England's concerns about the onset of a wage-price spiral. However, it seems unlikely: current inflation is largely due to supply shocks following the health crisis and the outbreak of war in Ukraine, and average wage growth remains well below inflation.

There are economic arguments for a generous deal, especially in the National Health Service (NHS): with more than 133,000 unfilled vacancies, better pay could help improve retention and staff recruitment.

Healthcare workers in the UK have repeatedly stopped work to demand pay increases, such as paramedics on December 21.

Of course, financing these measures in a recession involves difficult choices. A tax increase would be politically costly, as the tax burden has never been so high for 70 years. The use of government borrowing could worsen inflation if the Bank of England increases the money supply through quantitative easing.

Public opinion appears to be broadly supportive of the strikers, particularly those in the NHS. However, if the government caves in one area, it sets a precedent for others, with potentially greater economic consequences.

Regarding the NHS, he could instead bring forward the negotiations of the public sector pay review body to 2023, in order to allow an improvement in the agreement, possibly accompanied by a hardship bonus. Elsewhere, he will likely hold his ground hoping that the unions will lose their resolve.

Australia and New Zealand: strikes remain rare despite inflation

Jim Stanford, Economist and Director of the Center for Future Work, Australia Institute

Strikes in Australia have become very rare in recent decades due to restrictive laws passed since the 1990s. Despite historically low unemployment and wages lagging far behind [inflation]. These laws still make it possible to short-circuit most union actions.

In 2022, the unionization rate has fallen to 12.5% ​​of employees, a historically low level. In 1990, it was still over 50% of workers. Union members can only legally strike after negotiations, ballots and specific action plans have been made public, thereby fully revealing the union's strategy to the employer. Even when there are strikes, they tend to be short.

A total of 182 labor disputes took place in the year ending in September. (Statistics do not distinguish between strikes and employer lockouts, which have become common in Australia). This figure is similar to the years before the pandemic and represents only a fraction of the industrial stocks of the 1970s and 1980s.

The only visible surge in strike action in 2022 remains a series of one-day protests organized by teachers and healthcare workers in New South Wales, the country's most populous state. After enduring a decade of austere wage caps by the conservative state government, it was too much when inflation hit.

Most other workers remained passive, even as Australia experienced some of the slowest wage growth of any major industrial country. Nominal wages have grown on average only 2% per year over the 10 years to 2021. This rate fell to 3.1% at the end of 2022, but this is still half the inflation rate of 7.3%.

The newly elected Labor government in Australia passed a series of significant labor law reforms at the end of 2022, aimed at strengthening collective bargaining and wage growth. This could herald a gradual improvement in the bargaining power of workers in the years to come.

The outlook for industrial relations in New Zealand is, on the other hand, somewhat more hospitable to workers and their unions. The unionization rate increased in 2021, reaching 17% of employees (compared to 14% in 2020). The ordinary average hourly wage has grown by an impressive 7.4% over the last 12 months, thanks to a 6% increase in the minimum wage decided by the Labor government.

Industrial actions remain rare – perhaps in part because workers are managing to raise wages in other ways. No official strike data is available for 2022, but in 2021 only 20 strikes took place, down sharply from an average of 140 per year in the previous three years.

Indonesia: anger over labor law reforms

Nabiyla Risfa Izzati, lecturer in labor law, Universitas Gadjah Mada

A few weeks ago, the government replaced its controversial "Omnibus Law" with new emergency regulations, in response to the Indonesian Constitutional Court's ruling that ruled it unconstitutional in 2021.

Adopted at the end of 2020, the omnibus law embodied President Joko Widodo's ambition to attract foreign investors by reducing red tape, but at the expense of employee rights. It made it easier to dismiss without notice.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo had to abandon his Omnibus law, at least officially. Picryl, CC BY-SA

Legal severance pay has also been lowered and the maximum duration of temporary contracts has been extended, while ignoring worker protection. In 2022, the new formula for calculating the minimum wage also resulted in the lowest annual increase on record. The law has drawn widespread criticism from workers, activists and civil society organizations.

The new emergency regulations are arguably even more problematic. The majority of its provisions merely copy the omnibus law. Several changes and additional provisions are actually confusing and duplicative of previous regulations, while leaving many loopholes that could be exploited in the future.

Yet despite complaints from workers and unions that the new rules were passed suddenly and without consultation, there is no talk of a strike. The mode of action remains unpopular because they can only be organized with the authorization of the company concerned. If workers organize unofficial strikes, employers have the right to get rid of them.

Public protests are an obvious alternative, although pandemic rules limiting mobility and mass gatherings have made them difficult. Even so, thousands if not millions of workers organized movements in their respective cities during the second half of 2022.

The workers demanded that the Omnibus law be revoked and that the government not use the formulas for calculating the minimum wage stipulated in the law. The protests intensified when the government raised fuel prices in September, which pushed up already high inflation due to rising food prices.

Political authorities have since issued a separate rule to determine the 2023 minimum wage. So the demands have been successful in some way, but workers and employers alike remain furious that minimum wage rules have changed again as part of emergency regulations.

It is clear that the demonstrators did not obtain the suppression of the other rules resulting from the omnibus law. Some workers protested on social media. It may not prompt the government to change the law, but a few viral tweets have prompted several companies to change their abusive practices.

The controversy is set to continue into 2023 and into the 2024 election year, especially amid possible mass layoffs amid the global recession.

US: Workers' protest shows signs of life

Marick Masters, Professor of Business and Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Wayne State University

More American workers have been organizing and joining the picket line in 2022 to demand better wages and improved working conditions. This has aroused a certain optimism among union leaders and defenders of workers' rights, believing that they are witnessing a turning point in the balance of power in the world of work.

Teachers, journalists and baristas are among the tens of thousands of workers who have gone on strike. It took a vote of Congress to stop 115,000 railroad workers from walking out as well. In total, there were at least 20 major work stoppages each involving more than 1,000 workers in 2022, compared to 16 in 2021, in addition to hundreds of smaller ones.

Workers at Starbucks, Amazon, Apple and dozens of other companies also filed more than 2,000 demands to form unions during the year – a record since 2015. Workers won 76% of the 1,363 elections that took place.

Historically, however, these numbers remain tepid. The number of major work stoppages has been plummeting for decades: it stood at almost 200 in 1980. In 2021, the unionization rate, 10.3%, was not far from the lowest on record . In the 1950s, more than one in three workers was a union member.

The environment is still very unfavorable to unions, with timid labor law and very few employers showing any real receptivity to the idea of ​​having a unionized workforce. Unions find themselves limited in their ability to change public policy. Labor law reform through legislation remains vague, and the results of the 2022 midterm elections are unlikely to help matters.

Nevertheless, public support for unions is at its highest level since 1965, with 71% of citizens saying they approve of union action, according to an August Gallup poll. And the workers themselves are showing more and more interest in joining them. In 2017, 48% of workers polled said they would vote in union elections, up from 32% in 1995, the last time the question was asked.

Future successes may hinge on the unions' ability to capitalize on their growing popularity and ride the wave of recent victories in establishing union representation at Starbucks and Amazon, as well as the success of the "Fight for $15,” which since 2012 has helped pass $15 minimum wage laws in a dozen states and Washington DC. The chances of achieving this are perhaps great: there are in any case opportunities to germinate.

Spain: uneven aid measures could cause problems

Rubén Garrido-Yserte, Director of the Instituto Universitario de Análisis Económico y Social, Universidad de Alcalá

Global inflation is causing the global economy to slow and interest rates to rise to levels not seen since before 2008. Interest rates will continue to rise in 2023, particularly affecting economies as indebted as India. Spain.

It will undermine both the disposable income of families and the profitability of businesses (especially small ones), while making it more expensive to pay down public debt. At the same time, we should see a sustained increase in the cost of the household basket in the medium term.

So far, government actions have partially mitigated this loss of purchasing power. Spain has capped electricity prices, subsidized fuel and made public transport free for city dwellers and commuters.

Agreements have been made with banks to refinance the mortgages of the most vulnerable families. In addition, public sector pensions and salaries have been increased and there are plans to raise the minimum wage.

However, many of these measures must necessarily be temporary. The danger is that they end up being seen as rights that should not be given up. They also distort the economy and create equity issues by excluding or insufficiently supporting certain groups. Private wages will not increase enough to cover inflation, for example.

The action has been such that there has been very little industrial action in response to the cost of living crisis. The danger is that they create a scenario where today's calm may be the harbinger of a social storm tomorrow.