Ljubljana, 5/04/2008
To be checked against delivery
President, Dusan, friends.
Europe’s workers need a pay rise.
Europe’s workers deserve a pay rise.
And Europe’s workers are going to fight for a rise.
That is our message to Europe’s leaders today.
We cannot any longer tolerate declining purchasing power and real wages that do not match productivity growth.
We cannot any longer stand by and watch the rich getting richer and poor getting poorer.
We cannot accept our share of the national income falling while the share of profits soars.
We must not accept the gender pay gap, that long standing difference between what women earn and men earn.
Over 50 years ago, the Treaty of Rome committed Europe to equal pay. 50 years later, we are still waiting.
And we cannot accept that public sector workers should be picked out for pay moderation. They need, they deserve a fair deal not unfair discrimination.
Calls for moderation from the European Central Bank and others should be directed at the boardroom, not the shop or office floor.
And decent minimum wages are not an optional feature of a civilised society. They are a necessary pillar for all European societies. We want them, and we want them now.
You all know the situation in your own country. You know whether the deal you are getting is a fair one. We know that in too many countries it is not fair, that it is not enough, and that it must be improved.
We want to avoid recession and we understand the peril we face. But in any downturn, we demand equality of sacrifice, not all the burdens falling on the public sector worker, on women, on the precariously employed, on the low paid.
The wealthy, comfortable sections of society must contribute, fully and fairly, and the banks and financial markets must stop behaving like addicted gamblers in a casino. In fact, casinos seem better run than banks at the moment.
We don’t need lectures that the economic situation is getting more difficult. Casino capitalism of the sort we have seen in Wall Street, London and Paris risks bringing the world’s economy to its knees.
So, today, shoulder to shoulder across Europe, trade unions say to the Council of Finance Ministers, to the European monetary authorities, and to the Governments and employers of all our states,
we say….
- get your own house in order, get financial markets in order
we say….
- we want our rightful share of a nation’s prosperity
we say….
- no more income inequality but more pay justice
The fight is going on in many countries now and the ETUC stands with you, demanding with you,
“Europe’s workers need a pay rise”.