For over a month, we have been arranging an interview with Luc Triangle, the General Secretary of the largest European federation of industrial unions IndustriAll. He first postponed due to a trip to Ukraine, where he advocates that not all workers, especially from strategic industries, should be mobilized into the army, and then he spent more time in Turkey, where he came to support both the industry and workers who have lost not only their jobs but also numerous family members and often live in tents at the sites of destroyed plants where they once worked. In recent weeks, he has been very active in France regarding union protests against raising the retirement age.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg of activities that the largest European industrial union is currently engaged in. All of Europe is facing countless challenges; some industries have not even recovered from the consequences of the pandemic and disrupted supply chains when we were hit by the energy crisis and then a real war on European territory.
How is European industry coping with these challenges?
– European industry had challenges even before the war that required deep reflection. One of the biggest such challenges was and still is the Green Deal, i.e., the green transition and transformation of the economy and industry towards complete decarbonization by 2050. Although we, as a social partner, supported the green agenda, we are aware that this transformation of the industry will hit workers the hardest.
Namely, due to the changes that this policy mandates, up to 25 million jobs will change or be completely eliminated, and that, you will agree, is not a small number. Our position is that workers must not be collateral victims in this industrial transformation, and until a year ago, before the war, the majority of our activities were focused on protecting workers.
Which industries will be most affected by the new environmental protection rules?
– It is harder to list which industries will not be affected. The automotive and chemical industries will change drastically, all mines will close, the oil and gas production and processing industry will also be affected, and jobs in the production of plastics, glass, cement, and ceramics are at risk. All companies in these sectors will have to transform into industries that do not harm the environment, into environmentally friendly plants, and they will have to have carbon-neutral business processes. This transformation would look completely different if we left it to the administration and bureaucrats in Brussels. We had to get involved to protect those 25 million workers.
At the same time, we supported the green transition because we understand that it is the only way for the EU to maintain competitiveness in a global economy that demands green and clean industry, but at the same time, we insisted that a way be found for workers not to pay the price of the green transformation. For some, the price will be to further educate themselves, upgrade their skills to continue working on new technologies, but for the majority of people, jobs will be completely eliminated, and the question is where they will continue to work and how they will live. This will, for example, happen to hundreds and hundreds of workers in coal mines in Bulgaria, northern Greece, or Romania.
And then, due to the war in Ukraine, energy prices skyrocketed, which has only affected business results, as well as operations in the European industry, especially in its energy-intensive part. The chemical industry, glass production, cement factories, and many other energy-intensive industries had to halt production because, under such conditions, it is cheaper for them not to produce and do nothing than to pay high energy prices. That is why gas consumption in Europe has decreased.
