muckles:
Rjan:
muckles:
Maybe the Viking line could have achieved the same result another way, but I assume they had been through the other options, before going for this one as it was a risky move and expensive as it wasn’t already tested in law, so there was no legal precedence.
It was no more risky than any of the alternatives. And the point is, if they could have achieved the same result another way, then they would have achieved it that other way if they were blocked from doing it the way they actually did. .
But they didn’t have to use another way, they used fundamental EU rights and it worked.
And are you saying that under the present economic system its pointless workers taking industrial action as they will lose because the management will use some way or another to achieve thier goal?
Is this not the same economic system supported by the EU?
Do we just accept it because it the EU policy or do we not try and change it when it goes against what we believe to be fair and just?
We try and change it. My point is that in the context of international transport, the fundamental problem cannot be free movement of things, because movement of things (including ships, seafarers, money, and goods) across national borders is the very foundation of that kind of industry. The implication of one county trying to protect it’s international transport industry without the consent and cooperation of another, is that the other will retaliate in kind.
The so-called Cod Wars of the 1970s provide a good analogy, where without the presence of quotas or each nation having a fair share of the resource (in this case fishing rights rather than shipping routes), war simply results with each side determined to win for itself.
In the Viking line case, it is likely that without the EU, the Finnish bosses would have set up in Estonia anyway, and would simply have out-competed the Finnish shippers on the same routes. And if the Finnish government imposed capital controls, or embargoed the Estonian ships to prevent them docking, Estonia would do the same in return - or if Estonia couldn’t embargo the Finnish ships, they’d embargo something else to the detriment of Finland, or poach the on-land export industries which the Finnish shippers were serving by offering better prices to the foreign importers who currently buy from Finland and ship from Finland.
Rjan:
It’s like focussing on the fact that someone used a gun, when knowing about their particular character and determination, they would just as easily have used a knife to effect the same murder.
So we don’t bring in gun laws, because people can be killed in others ways?
When we find they can use knives, we don’t bring in laws on carrying knives?
We just accept the status quo, we don’t adjust our laws when we find they have loopholes?
The gun analogy is not entirely apt. Perhaps I should have said someone murdered another using a gun held in his right hand at point-blank range, when he could (without much extra difficulty or likelihood of failure) have shot from his left hand at point-blank range.
A boss whose right hand in the form of EU rules is bound behind his back, will use his left hand instead, which is perhaps not the hand he conventionally uses or with which he is most practiced, but it can and will (after a short period of time) easily become his conventional hand with which he is most practiced.
I don’t want to strain the analogy any further. My point is simply that the nature of international shipping gives the bosses a variety of means to hire the cheapest seafarers possible, and the only effective measure workers have against it is to have a common wage policy.
Rjan:
There are already other lower-wage countries that specialise in shipping elsewhere, such as Greece.
So we just give up the fight, because they can go some where cheaper?
But that’s the whole point of the fight! To ensure that there is nowhere cheaper to go. So if there is somewhere cheaper to go which they can go, they will do so. Most of the high-wage countries have a certain market share because the low-wage countries simply weren’t developed enough to have those industries in the past. The only way to stay ahead of the lowest international wage in international trade, is to keep doing what the other country economically cannot (for reasons that are inherent to their level of development - if you merely try to hobble a country that is economically equivalent, effectively declaring war, they’ll declare war in return).
Rjan:
muckles:
This isn’t about unilateral action taken by one country against another, the Finnish and Estonian unions worked together to stop it, if they hadn’t then the Viking line wouldn’t of had to go to court, they’d just have flagged their vessel out to Estonia.
So I suppose if Viking line was going under and a new line was started in Estonia, then in theory the Unions from both countries could have worked together to stop it or ensure that workers were employed under Finnish employment laws instead of Estonian, which would benefit both countries workers.
Agreed, but that requires some notion of solidarity amongst those workers, and allegiance to their interests as workers in a common industry, rather than citizens of separate competitor nations. If Finland and Estonia were not part of the EU, and were instead taking a very difficult and protectionist approach to trade with each other, it’s very unlikely that you’d have workers in one country demanding to be employed on the (superior) employment terms of another foreign competitor nation - instead, they’d likely be demanding the right to work, and the right to undercut, in a way that favours or improves their national industry’s share of the market.
Yes we need solidarity, but there are plenty of examples of workers from one country supporting their fellow workers in another country, including this one, and not just within the EU.
Take the example of Liverpool dockers who in 1996 went to the US to stop a ship being unloaded, they manned a picket line at every port it docked at and every time the US dock workers refused to cross that picket line or took supporting industrial actions. There was no benefit to the US workers; in fact they lost money, as the company were willing to offer bonuses to cross the picket line.
What about the Caterpillar workers in France, Belgium and South Africa, who took strike action to support Caterpillar workers on strike in Illinois, it’s unlikely they had anything to gain from their action and maybe more to lose.
What about the German Daimler workers council saying it wouldn’t accept production being moved from South Africa back to Germany because the South African workers were on strike, they had nothing to gain from their action.
In a globalised world we need globalised worker solidarity to control the multi nationals who are exploiting workers from the poorest African countries to the richest countries in Europe.
Agreed. However, you don’t gain worker solidarity by trying to protect the exclusive privilege of a section of the working class. None of the secondary actors in your examples, had any experience of having their interests wilfully assaulted or flouted by the primary actors. It would have been a completely different story if, say, the South African government had had a policy (effected through political manipulation of trading laws or market prices) of routinely poaching German industry - or if the Germans had their own national policy of favouring domestic industry unconditionally, in which stealing back the South African production during strike action would have been an easy win.
Rjan:
I presume (correct me…) that the Estonian union’s stake in that dispute, was that they already had members who were employed on Finnish ships.
Nope the Viking Line wanted to replace the Finnish crew with an Estonian one.
What part of worker solidarity can’t you accept?
Why do you feel you must justify the judgement of the ECJ without question?
Would you be so tenacious in your defence if this was a judgement by the British judicial system?
It is ok to support EU membership and still feel there needs to be reform and change within it.
I do support EU membership whilst feeling there needs to be reform. The point is I can’t conceive any robust basis for solidarity between Finnish and Estonian workers, unless it is the case (preconditionally) that each of those nations was not pursuing a nationalist agenda, and its workers were not conceiving their interests as being defined in national terms. That precondition is likely a result of EU freedom of movement, and the result of the absence of any national favour built into the EU rules.
If you wanted the ECJ judgment to have gone a different way, it can’t be based on saying it should have curtailed freedom of movement in favour of the Finnish, because that would ultimately undermine solidarity.
Probably what the rules need to encourage is consolidation of the EU shipping industry and a common wage policy. I’m not sure that this is against EU law at all - and if it is, it will only be against one of its peripheral pro-free-market rules, not against it’s four freedoms (which relate to movement). Those pro-free-market rules exist because they are favoured by all the national centre-right goverments of its members in the recent past - not because the EU is undemocratically imposing those rules on members.
Rjan:
muckles:
Rjan:
EU politics can be influenced and captured by the rich and powerful the same as national parliaments, but the higher-level political entities are much more resistant to certain strategies used by the rich.
Please give an example of another higher level political entity?
Other than the EU as a “higher” political entity, the USA, The USSR was another, although that was not a democracy. Nor are many of the Gulf countries democracies
And of course there are several non-state world organisations like the UN which have a more limited mandate (than a full state government has), and are designed to impose international law and regulate the conduct of individual nations,
So your examples of “higher” political entities seem mostly to be ones where workers rights aren’t high on the agenda, even if it was part of their original principles.
The UN, very useful for some International agreements provided they are in the best interests of its most powerful members, but not much help for a small under represented group of people if their needs don’t fit in with the most powerful.
Would the WTO or IMF come into the list?
I guess so, in the sense of being non-nation-state organisations. But there is nothing inherent about higher-level organisations being undemocratic or anti-worker - in the sense of being moreso than the average views of their members or democratic electorates. The EU is only anti-worker to the same average degree that it’s members are - and Britain is one of the worst for being anti-worker and obstructing measures which improve workers rights (such as their opposition to the social chapter).
Rjan:
muckles:
Rjan:
At the end of the day I agree - there’s no political system, especially no democratic system, that is inherently kind to workers, regardless of the political views those workers hold and the actions they take.
So are you saying there is an undemocratic system that is kinder to the worker?
No, I suppose not. I was just emphasising that, in a democracy much more so than a dictatorship, the political views of workers do have an influence, and much more immediately - so I agree that workers need to be politically engaged and active.
You might be surprised by the views of people if they are empowered, the extreme views we’re seeing across Europe normally only happen when people have been disengaged from the political process and are charmed by those that appear to listen to them.
But the point of being empowered is not being disengaged from the political process. Nobody has forced workers to disengage their minds from politics.
This is where many in the Labour party and on the left have lost their way, they say they support and represent the ordinary people, but they have become remote from them, they often haven’t come from their background, they don’t see the World through their eyes and often they don’t engage with them and when the ordinary people don’t back their ideas, they accuse them of being bigots and fascists.
I only agree to an extent. The Blairites represented the views of many workers, and the only people not being listened to were those same workers not listening to the warnings of other workers like me. The groundswell of support for Corbyn is not because people merely have someone to listen to them for the first time, but because reality is hitting home for workers and they actually, finally, have something political to say and the willingness to act.
It’s not unusual now to see even relatively meek, mild-mannered workers expressing fury about their working and living conditions - though of course it is not all favourable to the left wing, since many have aligned with the right-wing on Brexit (which will ultimately be against their interests in the same way that they supported Blairism against their own interests).
Rjan:
Whereas a benevolent dictatorship (however it arises, and only for the currency of its benevolence), workers can hold absurd views and be protected from their effects by their lack of power - as, say, children are protected by the rule of their parents. The only problem with that, is that dictators are no more inherently kind to workers, than workers are to themselves if they are disengaged and passive in a democracy.
Ah yes! The benevolent dictatorship scenario, Or the people are so dumb they need a father/mother figure to look after them.
In other words the people don’t hold my views, therefore I think they are stupid, therefore I should be in charge, but of course I’m a nice person so I’d look after them.
The reality is the dictator is only benevolent to those who support them, descent must be crushed.
Agreed. Again to be clear, I haven’t said anything in support of dictatorship - I was simply contrasting the fact that, in a dictatorship, the views of workers matter less to the effects they feel, precisely because they have no influence and are dictated to.
