A Fairer Europe for Workers…Or Else? Some observations from the ETUC Congress 2019, Vienna, 21–24 May 2019

Under the banner A Fairer Europe for Workers, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) held its 14th congress in Vienna on 21–24 May 2019. The congress, attended by over 600 union delegates from across the EU, took place under the shadow of Brexit and imminent European Parliament elections and against the backdrop of a national political crisis in Austria. On the eve of the congress the Austrian government was plunged into crisis when a sting operation conducted by German media unveiled the true nature of extreme right-wing politics and its willingness to sell an integral pillar of a functioning democracy, namely freedom of the press, in return for financial and political favours. Trade unions are only too aware of the threat to democratic values that extreme right-wing populism brings. This threat can also be extended to an anti-social EU, which under an austerity agenda has curtailed the bargaining power of unions, a cornerstone of European democracies. Themes addressed at the congress included, in no particular order, the need for a new social contract to address the structural flaws in the EU’s monetary policy, climate change and a just transition, socio-economic inequalities and how to counter xenophobic right-wing Euroscepticism, digitalisation and the gig economy, and workplace democracy.