ETUC General Secretary Esther Lynch's speech - 13th CCOO Congress, Madrid (Spain)

 Shaping Europe from the Ground Up: Workers, Rights, and Democracy

Speech by Esther Lynch
delivered at 13th CCOO Congress, Madrid (Spain) - 19 June 2025

[To check against delivery]

Dear colleagues,

I bring you warm solidarity greetings from the 45 million workers and their trade unions represented by the European Trade Union Confederation.

I begin by thanking Unai and the CCOO leadership for your support for the ETUC. 

Your commitment at the European level fuels our movement, you consistently raise your voices for justice, economic justice, social justice, and I am grateful for your support for European Trade Unionism.

Because we meet at a time of deep uncertainty - but also of powerful solidarity.

The title for your Congress is well chosen - Answers, new challenges, same struggle.

Across Europe, I witness workers uniting their struggles.

United in our understanding that a collective agreement is the best route to a quality job and that collective action transforms not just workplaces, but entire societies.

Colleagues, our recent  ETUC Mid-Term Conference in Belgrade determined action on three pillars for action:

First, Pillar 1: Building the Trade Union Movement — the foundation of our power

Second Pillar  2: Resisting Deregulation and the Far Right — defending what we’ve built

Third Pillar 3: Delivering a project of hope - Quality Jobs — winning the future we demand

Let me explain a little about the three pillars:

Pillar 1: Building the Trade Union Movement:

We must strengthen our European trade union movement like never before.

That means putting trade unions, organising  and collective bargaining at the front and center of our European agenda.

For ETUC it means creating real support for our affiliates in their trade union renewal activities.

At our Mid-Term Conference, we launched the Trade Union Renewal Centre and set out our actions under the Social Dialogue Pact concluded recently. 

We demand meaningful social dialogue, not empty consultations. Not tokenism. Not corporate theatre. Real dialogue where trade unions are heard and their prerogatives are respected.  

And we are pushing for concrete tools to support organising — such as workplace access rights, both digital and physical — and social conditionalities to ensure public funds only support companies that offer quality jobs and have a collective agreement.

This is about building our power — worker power. Because without strong, growing unions, we will not be able to build a future that delivers for people. 

Trade unions don't just recruit members – we ignite a movement and energise the spirit of solidarity that has always been our greatest asset.

Whether on the shop floor, in an office, or in the field, every member plays a vital role in advancing our rights. Every worker strengthens our movement and our power to create change.

Every worker matters.

The second Pillar of our struggle is resistance—principled, organised, and unapologetic.

Every attempt to roll back workers' rights, every deregulation scheme that puts profits above collective agreements, every assault on the social Europe we have built together — it will meet the full force of our united movement.

Because every right we've won from working time, to equality to workplace health and safety  represents generations of struggle. So we are not  just defending what we have; we protect the foundation upon which future victories will be built. When forces, from the USA or more home grown, seek to roll back our achievements, we stand as an unbreakable wall of resistance. 

And alongside these attacks against rights and protections comes a darker force: the rise of the far right.

The far right creates fear, division, and hate : blaming migrants, lgbtiq+ and even trade unions for problems created by unjust economies. 

Europe must not be bullied out of its standards, rights and values.

And as a movement we must respond with unity, with courage, and with determination. 

Thats why our third pillar -  to win a Project of Hope is our boldest pillar.

We don't just react to change and we do not defend the status quo.

We are shaping a new European vision, built on  quality union  jobs in every sector and every region.

Securing investment in infrastructures, public services and public goods.

But no blank cheques 

Ensuring social conditionalities so that  every euro of public money comes with guarantees for quality jobs and collective bargaining.

A genuine just transition – not a slogan - with strong worker protections in AI, automation, green transition, restructuring processes.

And ambitious legislation

• to ensure the right to training and anticipation and management of change
• protection from psychosocial risks,
• to guarantee human in control in AI along with revaluation for the true value for human labour and a fair share of the profits created by workers
• to end exploitation and abuses including by intermediaries and in subcontracting chains

This is the agenda Europe needs and workers want.

Three pillars

We unite. We resist. We build.

Quality jobs that replace every precarious contract

Strong public services, affordable homes, childcare, transport  and an end to the crushing machinery of austerity

Fair wages and real rights that cannot be ignored or denied

A trade union in every workplace and every worker in their union

This is not a dream—this is our blueprint for victory.

In conclusion colleagues,

I thank CCOO again, you have shown real leadership — at the negotiating table and on the streets.

Mobilisation is how we shift power — how we make our demands visible and impossible to ignore.

The Belgrade Declaration we adopted says it clearly: “Trade union leaders stand united to win a fair  deal for workers, to build solidarity, and to resist any attack on working people and their rights.”

Let’s carry that message forward, here in Madrid and across Europe.

United, we  build, resist, and deliver.

Shoulder by shoulder. Inch by inch. Until we succeed.

Thank you.