Workers’ safety is part of EU competitiveness story, says IndustriAll chief

Europe must create high-road debate around competitiveness and improve workers’ conditions rather than just discussing cutting costs, says Judith Kirton-Darling, General Secretary at trade union IndustriAll Europe.

Kirton-Darling spoke with Euractiv on the sidelines of the Green Deal Leather conference organised by the European leather trade association, Cotance.

AG: How have the conditions of European leather and tanning workers improved in recent years?

JK-D: As a result of the Green Deal Leather project, we’ve collected data on health and safety in the industry, and what we can see is that there’s a 16% reduction in incidents between 2019 and 2021. So that’s quite an impressive number.

And also, if you look at what kind of risks or what kind of incidents have happened, for the people involved, they’re obviously not minor. But we’re not talking about fatalities. We’re talking about minor injuries in the workplace. And that’s really important information, to be able to identify and develop a risk assessment in the sector.

It’s also really important for the resilience and sustainability of industry that you look at the age profile in the sector. And we can see that more or less 20% of the working population will retire or reach retirement age in the next 10 years.

So, improving safety is also about allowing people to stay active at work for longer, so there’s a resilience argument and an interest for the employer in ensuring high safety in the workplace.

AG: And how would you assess how Europe is doing when it comes to workplace safety for leather and other textile industry workers compared with other regions in the world?

JK-D: On a global comparison, we’re obviously a safer region to work in than in the other regions in the world. But we shouldn’t be complacent about that. If you take an overall view, we have actually a deteriorating situation of safety in Europe, particularly in some sectors and it’s tightly tied to working conditions.

So, in sectors where precariousness is increasing, where you have long sub-contracting chains, you have worsening working conditions.

The construction sector will be a really good example of that. So, we shouldn’t see our global position as a kind of laurel leaf that we can sit on. Because, as soon as you lose attention to it, the vigilance, the situation can reverse very quickly. You’re talking about people’s lives and their health. It is extremely serious. One fatality for us is too much to accept.

AG: From a policy perspective, what can be done better to address work-related incidents and to ensure better safety conditions for workers? Can Europe play a stronger role in this?

JK-D: Let’s be very clear: for the majority of EU member states, European legislation is critical for setting the framework for health and safety across the board. So, we share the common demands with trade unions for strengthening the health and safety framework.

I think what’s really essential is that the role of trade unions in the workplace is fully recognized, supported and encouraged.

There is a tendency now in Europe to have a conversation about competitiveness. Part of that competitiveness conversation for some people is about cutting costs by cutting red tape, and the danger for us is that within that red tape, there are actually some of the core elements which underpin our health and safety legislation.

So, I think Europe has a really vital role in defending what is in the European treaty, which is the improvement of working conditions.

AG: Talking about competitiveness, what can be done to better protect jobs in industries such as leather or other textiles where there is a risk of relocation but at the same time continue to improve working conditions?

JK-D: We’re delighted that industrial policy is back at the top of the political agenda, after decades of being off the agenda. We were founding signatories and we’ve been very closely involved in the Antwerp declaration.

We need the framework of the Green Deal to push us in the right direction in terms of climate, but we need to ensure that we have an industrial strategy underpinning the Green Deal. And for us, there’s a strong social dimension.

So, these aren’t opposing forces: for example, an investment in safety is actually an investment for the long term. It’s not a cost. If you see it as an investment in your workforce, an investment in the resilience of your industry, then that’s part of the competitiveness story.

On the environmental side, one of the key bottlenecks the European leather industry is facing is that lots of the inherent carbon content comes from the chemicals used in the process. You need the transformation of the chemicals industry, new feedstocks and new green chemicals to feed into sectors like leather and tanning so that they are able then to reduce their costs.

This is where having a joined-up approach in Europe around industrial strategy is really critically important for relatively smaller sectors like leather and tanning.

We want a high-road debate about competitiveness. We don’t want a debate which is just about cost-cutting. And we’re never going to compete on price with some Asian countries. So, if we aim for that, then when we’re on a path to deindustrialization, we may as well just hang up our boxing gloves.

AG: How would you assess whether the ongoing EU policy mandate has taken into account workplace safety and workers’ conditions? Has the topic been featured enough?

JK-D: I think this European Parliament and European Commission have made important steps forward and we can see it around about psychosocial health and safety.

We obviously have things that we would have liked to have happened in the last five years. We would have liked to receive proposals on musculoskeletal disorders and on mental health at work or psychosocial health, but the debate is there and what we’re pushing for is that that’s part of the next priority.

If you take a country like Belgium, we currently have – and I think it’s a rather shocking statistic – more people off work incapacitated than unemployed. And that shows the importance of good workplace health and safety.

Part of that is mental health. There’s a real concern that there’s a mental health pandemic in Europe. There is quite a lot of evidence to support that. Now, in the next five years, we need to see concrete action. And we’d like to see a directive on mental health work as part of that concrete action.

Related to the Green Deal, our health and safety legislation must also reflect the growing challenges of climate change on the workforce.

We have increasing numbers of workers who have fatalities as a result of heat. We have a situation where in the summer months now, very high heat is becoming a really big issue in different parts of Europe – and leather in particular, where this sector dominates Italy, Spain, and so on.

[By Anna Gumbau I Edited by Brian Maguire | Euractiv’s Advocacy Lab ]

Read more with Euractiv

European leather sector sees workers’ safety gains, carbon footprint reduction

Accidents in Europe’s leather sector have decreased in recent years, while new methodologies to assess its lifecycle carbon footprint is helping the industry in its green transition.