Contribution to the International Communist Seminar
"Imperialism, Fascisation and Fascism"
With the development of the EU, corporatism is now reaching a new stage, where the tripartite discussions on the EU-level are playing an increasingly important role, and will play the leading role in the development of the class dictatorships in EU-dominated Europe.
The general tendency in the EU-dominated area today is to undermine bougeois democratic rights, including union rights, and strengthening corporatism. As we know from history,there is no contradiction between corporatism and fascism. On the contrary, it was Moussolini's Italy that "purified" corporatism.
A little history:
1986: Decision on the internal market
1989: EU’s Social Charter
1991: EU’s programme on social action.
1993 The Maastricht Treaty's social protocol that includes the Agreement on social- and labour market policy. The Maastricht Treaty opens up for directives concerning the labour market being decided with a two thirds majority in the Commission.
1997 The Amsterdam Treaty. All countries now recognize the Social Protocol which is integrated into the Treaty.
The corporative system is formalised in the EU Treaty's Articles 136(earlier 117) to 145 (earlier 123). The articles were introduced into the EU-treaty in 1997.
The EU-commission organises 5 committees including members of the EFTU (The European Federation of Trade Unions. One of the trade union internationals in Europe), UNICE(The employers organisation at the European level for the private sector) and CEEP (The employers organisation at the European level in the public sector) based on subjects: social security for migrating labour; the European social fund; occupational education; security, health and hygiene at the workplace; equal opportunity for women and men.
The commission has also decided to develop a new framework for the "social dialogue" at the sector level. The aim is to have functioning sectoral dialogue committees for all sectors. Organisations that are allowed to participate in these sector committees must meet certain requirements: they must be acknowledged social partners at the national level, they must have powers to negotiate collective agreements, and they must be representative for all member states as far as possible and have structures that ensure effective participation in the consultative process.
The Committee for Social Dialogue is according to the EU Commission the most active committee at the general level. Here the members are: EFTU, UNICE and CEEP.
The way the "social dialogue" works, is that the EFTU and UNICE (and/or CEEP) have talks and agree upon a minimum agreement. This agreement is then converted to a directive by the EU-commission. The directives stand above national law. Minimum agreements that have been converted into directives are f ex.: Agreement on part time work, and agreement on parental leave.
The agreements are reached through talks where the use of force - strike or lock out - are excluded. The talks are based on the assumption of common interest in strengthening the competitiveness of the EU. In the general article concerning the Social Dialogue, competitiveness is stated explicitly as a goal (Article 136, second chapter). These corporative talks will not only be on the general level, but also on the sector level. We can therefore expect directives based on talks for the individual sectors in the years to come.
As we know, the corporative system of "social pacts" has become widespread in the EU-dominated countries the last 20 years. A common denominator is that "wage moderation" is connected to the strengthening of competitiveness, which again is meant to lead to a decrease in unemployment. Of course the only part of the "social contract" that is fulfilled is the part about "wage moderation".
There are some implications connected to the regression of bourgeois democracy with this development at EU-level:
a) Collective agreements are made by the top without any mobilisation, discussion or referendums among the union members.
b) By increasing the role of the EU in the development of the laws in the individual countries in the EU-dominated Europe, the role of the national democratic institutions are undermined. There is a difference between a law being developed in f.ex.. Norway, going through the public discussions and through the Norwegian Parliament, and having a law decided by organs outside the control of any Norwegian institutions. The undermining of the national bourgeois democratic systems and institutions is a central aim of the monopoly bourgeoisie in Europe. The social dialogue on the EU-level is an instrument for this aim.
A trend in Norway, that we expect is general for the whole of the EU, is that the national parliaments are willingly undermining their power.
Laws for protecting welfare and workers' security that formerly were detailed, and in some ways functioned to better the general social-, working- and living conditions are being changed into minimum laws, where conditions above the biological minimum are left to be decided by negotiations between unions and employers (where there are unions, that is).
Secondly the EU produces laws that are binding for the national parliaments.
Thirdly there is the general trend that "There are too many laws and regulations" The content of this campaign is to do away with laws that protect the interests of common people.
More and more, the parliament leaves the real content of laws to be decided by standing committees where the national TUC and the biggest employer's organisation have control.
With the development of the EU, and the integration of the EU-economies it is central that we develop our international cooperation. Not only must the communist parties develop their cooperation. But we must also work to develop the international cooperation between the unions, first and foremost on the grassroots level. This cooperation must be directed against the development of the anti-social "social dialogue". We must base are international trade union work on strengthening the "class struggle"-line in the union movement. In this work we have many friends outside our own ranks.