In many cases, unions in Europe have helped nonunionized workers whose jobs are precarious, according to new Cornell research.

In “Dualism or Solidarity? Conditions for Union Success in Regulating Precarious Work,” published in December in the European Journal of Industrial Relations, the researchers surveyed academic articles to see how often they would find evidence of unions helping nonunionized workers or helping only their own members, and which conditions were associated with each outcome.

The paper was co-authored by Laura Carver, M.S. 20, and Virginia Doellgast, associate professor of international and comparative labor in the ILR School.

Unions respond to growing worker insecurity in different ways, Carver said.

In some cases, unions work with management to protect their own members while allowing management to cut pay or otherwise increase insecurity for nonunionized workers, she said. This is called dualism, because it creates a dual labor market where unionized insiders are still paid relatively well and have some job security, and nonunionized outsiders are subjected to increasing insecurity.

Unions also can act in solidarity with nonunion workers by proactively extending union protections and increasing security for precarious workers. Examples of union support include the Unite union support of the “Justice for Cleaners” protests in the United Kingdom and support by the French union CGT for the “sans papiers” movement for undocumented immigrant workers in France.

A third union response is described as “failed solidarity” by Carver and Doellgast.

“Unions’ attempts at inclusivity are not always successful – in other words, attempts to stand in solidarity with nonunion workers sometimes do not actually reduce their experiences of precarity,” Carver said.

After surveying 56 case study-based articles published between 2008 and 2019, they found that: 

• In 46% of cases, solidarity was practiced when unions improved working conditions for the peripheral workforce. This includes cases in which the union simultaneously improved conditions for the core workforce, as well as those in which the conditions for the core workforce remained stable or even declined.
• In 26% of cases, the unions practiced dualism by maintaining or improving working conditions for the core, unionized workforce, with either no attempt to address precarity for peripheral workers or increased precarity for these workers.
• In 12% of the cases, solidarity failed – there was no reduction in precarity in spite of union attempts to regulate or improve conditions for peripheral workers.
• In 16% of cases, there were no clear outcomes of dualism, solidarity or failed solidarity.

“The fact that successful solidarity was the most common outcome is notable,” Carver said. “This suggests there is cause for optimism, or that increased precarity is not the inevitable outcome.”

Several factors were associated with each outcome.

“We didn’t find a single set of factors that are associated with successful union solidarity with nonunion workers, because different unions have different tools at their disposal,” she said. “We found that in countries or markets where unions have historically been strong, unions can leverage their existing power resources to extend protections to nonmembers.” When unions lack these resources, they are more likely to mobilize workers and community groups in combative actions such as protests.

In cases showing evidence of labor market dualism, Carver said, “we often saw different unions or labor representatives competing with each other, rather than working together to advance worker interests.” Dualism also occurred more often when unions were at a negotiating disadvantage due to economic conditions, and sought to address that disadvantage by cooperating with labor.

When looking at failed solidarity cases, the authors noticed that they often involved migrant workers. “One primary reason for this is that migrant workers are often at an extreme structural disadvantage – if they came to a country via their employer, that employer may have a lot of leverage over the worker,” Carver said.

Another reason is if migrant workers aren’t given enough voice within a union, this potentially keeps them from seeing a union as representing their interests. Building trust with underrepresented communities is an opportunity area for unions looking to push back against growing worker precarity.

“Unions can and should demonstrate their commitment to understanding and representing the concerns of marginalized workers, including migrant workers and racial minorities that face distinctive barriers to secure employment,” Carver said. 

Mary Catt is the ILR School’s communications director.

The European Union is ratcheting up pressure on Zimbabwe over the lack of substantial reforms that has allowed for the humanitarian, economic, and social situation in the country to deteriorate, with persistent violations of human rights and limitations on democratic space.

Barely three weeks after the United Kingdom imposed targeted sanctions on four top Zimbabwe security officials for human rights abuses, the EU on Friday renewed its arms embargo and targeted asset freeze against Zimbabwe Defence Industries, a state-owned military company.

The EU said the restrictive measures were in light of the continued need to investigate the role of security force actors in human rights abuses as well as concern about “a proliferation of arrests and prosecutions of journalists, opposition actors and individuals expressing dissenting views, and the use by high-level officials of speech that could be interpreted as incitement to violence.” It explained that these measures would not affect the Zimbabwean economy, foreign direct investment, or trade, but that their purpose instead is “to encourage a demonstrable, genuine and long-term commitment by the Zimbabwean authorities to respect and uphold human rights and the rule of law.”

The EU urged Zimbabwe’s authorities to ensure that perpetrators of human rights violations and abuses are brought to justice and the recommendations of the Motlanthe Commission of Inquiry are implemented. The commission found that six people died and 35 were injured as a result of actions by the state security forces. It also recommended ensuring perpetrators are held accountable and setting up a special committee to compensate those killed and injured and those who lost property.

Over the past year, Human Rights Watch has documented how Zimbabwe’s authorities used harassment and arbitrary arrests and detention to crack down on critics of the government, journalists, anti-corruption activists, and opposition leaders. In July 2020, authorities arrested, detained, and tortured more than 60 people who participated in the protests.

In the face of mounting pressure from the EU and other international actors, President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government should move swiftly to end rights violations, uphold the rule of law, and bring those responsible for abuses to justice. Such actions, coupled with substantial legislative and electoral reforms, could lead to better lives for Zimbabweans and an improved relationship with the EU and the wider global community.

Nuclear power plants in the EU produced about 26% of the total electricity generated in the Union in 2019, according to data from the specialized Eurostat survey.

Thirteen Member States, including Bulgaria, operated a total of 106 reactors, which generated 765,337 GW/h of electricity.

The largest producer of nuclear energy in the EU is France with a total volume of 399,011 GW/h, which is 52.1% of the total amount of nuclear energy produced within the Union.

Germany takes the second place with 75,071 GW/h, or 9.8% of the EU‘s total atomic mix, followed by Sweden (66,130 GW/h) and Spain (58,349 GW/h). These four countries together produce more than three-thirds of the total amount of nuclear energy in the EU.

Bulgaria ranks 8th with 16,555 GW/h, which accounts for 2.2% of the total volume of nuclear energy produced.

Our country is also overtaken by Belgium, which ranks 5th (43,523 MW/h), Czech Republic (30246 MW/h) and Finland (23,870 MW/h).

Behind us are Hungary, in 9th place (16,288 MW/h), Slovakia (15,282 MW/h), Romania (11,280 MW/h), Slovenia (5,821 MW/h) and the Netherlands (3,909 MW/h).

Since 2006, when gross production of 914,08 MW/h was recorded, electricity generated by NPPs has decreased by 16.3%, mainly due to the phased shutdown of nuclear reactors in Germany. The largest volume of 928,435 MW/h was produced in 2004, since Eurostat started recording these data in 1990.

Eleven EU Member States do not have a NPP: Denmark, Estonia, Ireland, Croatia, Italy, Cyprus, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland and Portugal.

Many European countries are struggling to perform all their planned checks on businesses because of resource issues, according to a report.

The analysis covers national and EU Commission controls during 2017 and 2018 on food and feed law, animal health and welfare, plant health and protection products, organic farming and quality schemes. Findings are from before the Official Controls Regulation (OCR) came into force in December 2019.

Official controls are done by authorities in EU countries to verify business compliance with legislation. Member states are responsible for running risk-based official controls, which are planned in their multi-annual national control plans (MANCP). Most countries reported that staffing levels, financial and equipment resources were key issues impacting the plans.

Relaxed attitudes to food safety backfire
Information from Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Finland, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain and Sweden shows budget cuts resulted in reduced staff levels, sometimes declining further from previous years, and insufficient financial and material resources.

Finland, Germany, Greece, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Spain admitted they could not perform all tasks planned in their MANCPs. Malta, Spain and Sweden mentioned difficulties in recruiting qualified staff, a problem that food businesses also faced. In the Czech Republic, France and Netherlands, staff numbers were increased to deal with specific issues such as food fraud and preparation for Brexit.

Improved data analysis, training, use of IT tools and desk-based controls helped improve efficiency of official controls. As did use of whole genome sequencing for analysis of Listeria outbreaks and creation of control networks in specialized sectors such as food additives and flavorings.

There cannot be any complacency toward food safety and all planned control activities need to be implemented, said the EU Commission.

“Relaxed attitudes to food safety always backfire and when they do, it may not only threaten public health but also affect the trust of our citizens as well as our trading partners in the EU food system as a whole,” according to the Commission.

Non-compliances and enforcement
Most non-compliance issues reported by national authorities concerned failures in good hygiene practices, maintenance of infrastructure and operators either failing to perform or register the results of their own checks.

Risks associated with non-compliance situations found during official controls related to loss of traceability and food safety hazards such as allergens, food poisoning and chemical contamination.

Most countries indicated that business operators still lack an understanding of legal requirements. Factors such as a high rotation of workers, difficulties in finding qualified staff and insufficient training contribute to poor implementation of some rules by companies, according to the report. Lower profit margins were also mentioned as an underlying cause of non-compliances. Netherlands said that publishing results of official controls led to a higher level of compliance by food businesses.

Enforcement included verbal and written warnings, seizure and destruction of goods, temporary removal or restriction of approval, fines and referral to court. Finland and Luxemburg restricted operators’ access to financial support. Enforcement in the distribution, sale, labeling and use of pesticides and the labeling of food products for the consumer also remained significant challenges.

Food fraud and online sales as challenges
The fipronil in eggs incident is covered in the reports of Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands and Poland.

Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malta, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Slovenia and the United Kingdom mentioned food fraud and internet sales as posing challenges. Austria, Croatia, Finland, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta and Portugal noted cooperation with other authorities on food fraud had improved in recent years.

DG Sante’s controls on member states found they have the systems in place to ensure implementation of EU requirements but in some countries there are deficiencies in execution of official controls and there was still room for improvement.

Only Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia submitted their 2017 and 2018 reports on time. Some countries were very late with the Commission getting the last report covering 2017 in April 2019 and in June 2020, it had still not received one report for 2018.

All member states said they define the frequency of official controls through risk-based assessments but none described the methodology used. Third-party assessment bodies certify EU food and feed businesses under different private quality assurance schemes. Some nations use information from these programs in their risk assessments. None of the annual reports had information on the effectiveness of official control systems.

(To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)

The European Commission is taking Germany to the European Court of Justice for violating nature and conservation laws.

The EU has long warned Germany that its efforts to protect nature under the Flora-Fauna-Habitats Directive were not adequate. On Thursday, it decided to take the country to court for not respecting its conservation obligations.

The Habitats Directive requires countries to designate special protection areas to conserve rare, threatened or native flora and fauna. More than 1,000 animal and plant species, as well as 200 types of habitat, are protected by the law.

In these special protection areas, each EU member state must establish conservation measures to maintain or restore habitats and species.

The Commission says that Germany has failed to meet some requirements, particularly when creating protected areas in the country. According to recent reporting, Germany has not designated a significant number of locations as special protection areas, the Commission says.

“Therefore, the Commission is taking Germany to the Court of Justice of the European Union.”

More than 4,500 conservation areas, known as Sites of Community Importance, were found not to have “detailed and quantified conservation objectives”.

“The European Green Deal and the European Biodiversity Strategy both stress how crucial it is for the EU to halt biodiversity loss by protecting and restoring biodiversity,” the Commission adds.

“The time limit for completing the necessary steps for all sites in Germany expired more than 10 years ago in some cases.”

Germany’s ‘only native whale’ species at risk

NABU, one of the largest and oldest environmental organisations in the country, believes that while more protected areas are needed, not enough is being done in those that already exist.

The organisation says that it is “absurd” that conservation measures have not yet been defined and implemented – seven years after Germany was first warned about the infringement.

The group points out that the consequences of inaction are already having an effect on the country’s wildlife. In January, scientists found that populations of harbour porpoises were declining in the German North Sea.

In the Sylt Outer Reef, an area protected under the Habitat Directive, the population of this species has fallen by an average of nearly 4 per cent every year, over the last 20 years.

“Germany’s only native whale is not effectively protected from the effects of fishing, shipping or offshore wind farms, either in protected areas or in important migratory corridors,” says NABU marine protection expert, Kim Detloff.

Environmental groups, including NABU and Greenpeace Germany, hope that the legal action will finally force the country to take adequate action to protect nature.

“For years, Germany has failed miserably to protect nature and biodiversity, both on land and at sea. Short-term economic profits and the industrial exploitation of natural resources were systematically placed above the concerns of nature and species protection,” says Greenpeace Marine biologist, Thilo Maack.

“The German government must finally meet its European obligations in order to avoid fines running into the millions.”

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