EMF Manifesto

European industrial workers are facing the challenge of a life-time. Now is the time for European politicians to stand up and actively pledge their commitment to fight for the creation and maintenance of good quality jobs in European manufacturing.A long period of industrial restructuring has today been further intensified by the reckless and immoral behaviour of the banking sector. It is manufacturing workers who will bear the hardest brunt of foolish decisions made on Wall Street and in Europe’s financial district.
Restructuring has been taking place in virtual social vacuum at EU level. While social Europe has been stalled, we have witnessed the liberalisation of labour markets, the greater introduction both precarious employment and economic flexibility, and changes in our welfare states which promote greater wealth inequality - especially in relation to unemployment policies and pensions. Wages and labour costs have been targeted undermining purchasing power and consumer demand. Only a strong and effective social Europe can revive citizens’ enthusiasm for the European ideal. Social Europe cannot exist without strong national trade unions, with strong employers’ organisations as counterparts, and fully developed collective bargaining rights.

Policy-makers should focus on the real economy. The current crisis stemming from the financial markets not the real economy, in the context of climate change, demands a fundamental change in Europe’s social and economic policy framework. Under the threat of recession and growing unemployment, we urgently need coordinated and sustainable social, economic and industrial policies to ensure public confidence in the economy and stimulate economic demand, protecting jobs in the real economy.

It is not too late to act and there are opportunities for industrial workers in these challenges. These must be grasped. Economic and industrial policy should be directed towards developing a new model of growth based on innovation, eco-efficiency, sustainable technologies, carbon-lean production and the internalisation of ecological costs. This manifesto sets out the EMF’s five key demands for the European Parliament elections.