Dedalus and Arianna

Political importance of EWCs

In this century of globalization, we are experiencing years of economic as well as political instability. In this context, the role played by the big economic players is becoming more and more vigorous: hugely sized enterprises or groups of enterprises, with interests on a continental if not planetary scale, carry out activities that spread over complex supply chains and at times very different industries.

Organizing the trade union coordination of workers beyond the borders of the various countries is a strategic priority of the international workers’ movement. We must further and enhance a culture of coordination and cooperation involving trade unions, but above all workers’ representatives, all the way to the local dimension, to their very place of work. Transnational coordination needs to take on a more operational dimension aimed at meeting the challenge and the need to connect trade union action in the different countries by means of a joint action, of implementing collective representation and safeguarding and connecting workers’ bargaining conditions and practices, even if they are located in different countries.

In view of this situation, which is strategically crucial for the trade union movement, EWCs are a fundamental tool. This is due not only to the effectiveness of the role they play, but also to the prerogatives attributed by regulations; it is due to the potential they represent for trade union action. In fact, they are the only organism in the world that sanctions the right to transnational representation of workers’ interests; they are organisms of representation set in the heart of multinational companies (in many ways the main players in global economy) and offer, albeit in a limited way, rights which can help workers in different countries and their trade unions to coordinate themselves and which make it possible to implement some activities at the companies’ cost (EWCs have paid international meetings, translation services, training, in some cases working tools and resources,…).