Hi everyone, welcome back from your break. This is the last session of this conference. I'm Aidan Harper. I'm a researcher at the New Economics Foundation, which is based in the UK. My research focuses on the world of work with a specific focus on working time reduction. I also write the working time newsletter for the European Network for the fair sharing of working time. Please do sign up to the newsletter if you haven't already, and please do contact me if you have any stories of working time reduction from your country that you think should be shared in the newsletter. A reminder for this webinar, if you want to ask any questions at all to our panellists, please do click on the Q&A box, which you can find if you move your arrow to the bottom of the screen. You should be able to see a box there and type in any questions that will ask to the speakers at the end of all the presentations where we'll have a Q&A session. We've had some great discussions at the conference so far, discussing in detail the need for a Green New Deal and a reduction in working time. However, as someone once said, the philosophers have only interpreted the world, the point however is to change it. In this session, we have some brilliant speakers from all over the world in a range of campaigns and trade union organisations who are turning words to action and are organising for the changes we hope to achieve as a movement. I am pleased to introduce to you Esther Lynch, the Deputy General Secretary for the European Trade Union Confederation, Sean Sweeney from the Trade Union for Energy Democracy, Katarina Steele from Students for Future in Germany, and Rachel White from the Four-Day Week campaign in the UK. I think we'll begin with Rachel today. Rachel, I want to introduce yourself and begin your presentation. Hi everyone. As Aidan said, my name is Rachel. I'm a member of the Four-Day Week campaign, which is a campaign that's been running for about four years and I've been involved for three of those four years. I'm going to talk today a little bit about the campaign and kind of like how we run on a kind of day-to-day level, a little bit about the kind of context of moving towards a shorter working week in the UK and kind of where our campaign fits within that. And also just a bit of reflection on where we as a campaign have been effective and where we kind of haven't been so effective and kind of what we're going to be focusing on in the future. So yeah, I got involved in the campaign just from a kind of general interest in work and in workplaces and unions. I've always thought it's kind of crazy that we spend the majority of our working hours at work, but never sorry of our waking hours at work, but kind of don't think of it as something kind of political and kind of never really think about it critically or the majority of people don't. And so I kind of saw the Four-Day Week campaign and getting involved in that as a way to kind of start to interrogate some of the kind of ideas around changing the world of work. So the campaign has formed of roughly 10 people all up until this year volunteers, people who've kind of just got a general interest in kind of moving towards a shorter working week. Some people who've done a bit more kind of like have studied at the university or that kind of written papers on that university, so have a bit more kind of deeper knowledge about it too. We meet monthly and we have worked in the past or kind of have close working relationships with New Economics Foundation and also with autonomy, who are a think tank who mostly look at kind of shorter working week kind of yeah ideas around how we could move to a shorter working week. In conjunction with NEF and autonomy, we've done things like write reports and do research and kind of joint press releases. But kind of our role as a kind of smaller campaign that's had very little funding has meant that we are able to be a bit more political often or kind of take potentially slightly more radical positions. We're able to be a bit more kind of fun on our social media and kind of yeah be a bit more agile with how we respond to things. It's really a great campaign to be involved with. As we're small there's a lot of chance to shape how we want to do things and some really inventive ideas have come through from that. Yeah as I mentioned up until this year we were all volunteers but we've now been given a bit of funding and have an employee, a kind of campaign coordinator who's kind of which has been really great because we've been able to work at a much kind of quicker pace and respond to things much quicker which I think is really important at the moment because of all the changes that are kind of happening to both the economy and the world of work at the moment. So to touch a bit on kind of the UK context like many places the UK has a culture of really long working hours. We also have a very weak trade union culture used to be very strong until it was smashed to pieces in the 1980s. I would say that there's been a bit of kind of revitalization of unions over the last couple of years and unions have been doing like really interesting and much more radical things than kind of in the years previously but still the majority of you know of the workforce in the UK is not unionized so I wouldn't say that yeah there's still kind of challenges there. Quite a few unions in the UK have passed motions around moving to a short working week and a couple of them kind of have it in their negotiation with employers as to like to have the shorter working week as something that they are moving towards. So the communication workers union which is the unionized postal workers. Unite which is a kind of generalist union I think particularly bus drivers in Unite are quite strong in moving towards a shorter working week RMT which is the train workers union. So quite a few unions do have it as a demand but it's not I would say it's not super common. It's not a very common demand from union members right now kind of like widespread. The unions are looking very closely at kind of e-game et al for inspiration as to as to how to get that big union support for or kind of big union member support for moving to a shorter working week. As a campaign I would say our barriers have been twofold so I think though this did change over the last four years the kind of lack of political will to actually to move to a shorter working week and people thinking that it was kind of unrealistic or wouldn't be popular and secondly the kind of public lack of public understanding as to as to how a four-day week would work and kind of lack of just like knowledge of the idea itself and I think a kind of good example of how this played out is how the NHS is often used as an example of how the a four-day week couldn't work. So I'm sure many people will know that the NHS is public health system in the UK and it's very dear to people's hearts and I think it manages to pull a lot of of heartstrings and arguments in this in this country and the kind of common common refute to saying we should have a four-day week is that if if we have to employ more if the NHS moved to a four-day week they'd have to employ more doctors and nurses which cost billions for the country and it's completely unaffordable. Now of course there are lots of ways that we can come back to this you know obviously it doesn't take into account increased productivity, fewer sick days etc and kind of the kind of more holistic impact of moving to a shorter working week but it kind of shows how messaging can be really difficult because unsurprisingly it takes more than one sentence to explain how a four-day week would work for the entire UK economy and that doesn't really necessarily work in sound bites for the media. So you've got a so overcoming this kind of people's kind of initial reaction to you know what moving to a four-day week would mean because it has been a bit of a challenge for us always something that we've kind of tried to take on head on. So we've kind of tried to put the issue on the map consistently by talking about it through kind of tweets social media press releases we made a video which the aim of which was to kind of answer some of those common, sorry I'm seeing something about native speakers is that someone's telling me I need to slow down yes apologies. So yeah so we made a video something that could be easily shared on social media the idea of which was to be able to come back to or answer some of those those kind of trickier questions what would it mean for the NHS or what would it mean for people who don't work a five-day week now and answer those in a kind of quick and easy and shareable format so that to kind of increase public perception sorry in increase public knowledge of like of the idea and kind of show how it could work in practice. We also did longer form things such as a report in conjunction with autonomy and the new economics foundation which had just kind of really good research as to why the four-day week is a good thing but also showing how it could be achieved and through this work we've got the attention of public the public and of politicians and it's kind of through this that we were able to move the Labour Party's position on a four-day week so at the party conference the Labour Party conference last year the Labour Party made a commitment to move the UK to a four-day week and to put that in the Labour manifesto so the exact proposal was that the Labour government would reduce the working the average working week in the UK to 32 hours over the next 10 years so not an overnight change but something that would reduce hours as productivity increased. Sadly Labour didn't make it into government or isn't yeah didn't form government in the last election in fact they lost seats and so kind of they were in a weaker position than they were before but there has been renewed interest in the four-day week this year as a way to recover from the economic shocks of coronavirus. As a campaign we're regularly doing research that shows that businesses and the public support a move to a shorter working week and we also have MPs and we're working closely with MPs who are tabling debates on it in Parliament too to ramp up or keep the public sorry the parliamentary pressure on the issue. Also some of the measures that are being introduced by the Conservative government to kind of make sure that there isn't huge unemployment and lots of job losses are promoting a shorter working week for the same or slightly reduced pay. This mirrors closely what has been suggested by some think tanks in the past as a way to move countries to a four-day week or a shorter working week by government funding or kind of paying some wages for a period of time. And you know this is kind of a bit of an unexpected outcome of coronavirus and it's not necessarily the way that we would have wanted to move to a shorter working week but we're keeping a close eye on how these policies play out and seeing how they can help us make the argument that yeah a wide widespread shorter working week is possible and can help the economy recover. So I'm now just going to reflect a bit on the work that we've done. So I think the campaign has been really effective at getting this issue on the left agenda. It's kind of widely understood to be an achievable goal now by most I would say most people on the left and the Labour manifesto is potentially the best example of how we've shifted the debate on this. I think it's gone from something that seemed to be idealistic to something that many people think that we should be working towards. I think the campaign has potentially struggled to get wider interest from sorry to get interest from a wider range of MPs and business leaders. So you know in the last three years we you know that was mainly because of I think well I would say it's because of strategic decisions that we've made so we made the decision to focus a lot of time and energy into getting the Labour Party to support our proposals because yeah it seems like Jeremy Corbyn could potentially become Prime Minister and Labour also had more power in government. Obviously the landscape has changed now and I think we're well I don't think we're looking at other avenues that we can kind of put use to put pressure on government and also other ways that we can push this forward in this country so kind of namely through unions and through other organisations who have a lot of power and I would say another yeah this kind of plays into the fact that something that we haven't put a lot of energy into is this kind well we have put some energy into kind of getting widespread support for a four-day week but I think that hasn't yet translated into people actually demanding it themselves in their workplaces so people are very supportive of the idea of working less but it's not something that people are going into paying negotiations or negotiations with their employer and demanding en masse yet and I think that there's real scope for us to be over the next well especially over the next kind of few months years when the world of work is so uncertain and changing rapidly to get kind of people to be considering pushing for a shorter working week as part of their negotiations so yeah I think overall our kind of biggest win I guess was to has been to kind of shift public opinion and show that not only is a four-day week desirable but it's also possible an achievable aim and something that people can and should be demanding thanks thank you so much for that Rachel and if people have questions for Rachel in four-day week campaign there's the Q&A button at the bottom of the screen and we'll do all the questions at the very end once we've heard from all our speakers I'm now going to hand over to Sean who is from the trade unions for energy democracy Sean take it away oh you're on you're on mute that's the phrase of the year isn't it you're on mute hi everybody from New York and I've set my timer for 15 minutes so hopefully I'll be disciplined I'm going to talk a little bit about the work of trade unions for energy democracy up to UED and I'm going to share my screen right now because it's better looking than me let me see if I can find that I think this is it how's that yeah we can see that clearly how's that good yeah perfect well um it's just went to loads at the moment oh can you see it I can see it yeah if you can you click through one screen oh hang on um we've got so you you are sharing the screen but it's a grain so we can see that yeah we mean I'm sorry is that any better like your means to be brighter is that what's going on no we can see your screen now um that's actually fine we can see it and we can see the presentation okay uh so I'm not sure what the problem is I'm sorry no that's okay okay um if you're happy to be a place of thought how's that that's that works now for me okay great great all right I'll jump right in then um so trade unions for energy democracy uh it's a network uh started in 2012 after a Rio plus 20 climb um sort of sustainable development conference a lot of unions in around the world were disgruntled with the whole green growth model which some union supported so there was a bit of a division and um the critique was that the green growth model was really a privatization agenda against state companies state owned companies and forcing public entities to compete with renewable energy companies and so on and whereas unions wanted to support a decarbonization and a climate and ecological agenda they were being it came as a package the package being privatization and liberalization and some unions could live with that feeling that it was going to be a big jobs bonanza others could not so we were on the side of the could not and we convened a meeting in new york and started off global trade unions for energy democracy we've got 72 unions now and we also convened over the summer the global trade union assembly to respond to covid 19 and the economic impacts so what do we do um essentially we um we offer research and analysis that we produce in new york on key questions around um energy and climate change in particular we understood or we accepted that there was really a vacuum in the left uh there's a lot of slogans a lot of radical demands a lot of references to justice including energy justice and energy democracy but not too much by way of detail so we felt we needed to dig into this and that's why it's been a kind of sometimes a bit of a wonky experience with lots of technical detail but we felt that was missing in the left but we also convened and organized we focused mostly on unions this is not because we don't like other social movements it's just that labor movement internationally is a big institution and we're trying to organize within that space um to promote a pro-public agenda what we're called we called a programmatic shift towards very strong commitments not just to defending public services but expanding public services and to reclaim to the public what has been privatized particularly in the case of energy which is crucially important we have um many of the unions in tue have problems with this kind of social dialogue thinking it's very europe centered and doesn't speak to the rest of the world but also primarily because it excludes questions of ownership so social dialogue around working hours for example around um on various forms of equality have all been quite productive here in there but there's never a discussion about the failure of the neoliberal model particularly in terms of the context of climate change so this was a meeting we did in Paris at COP 21 with our friends Jeremy Corbyn near McLean now um this this is the kind of research paper we do these are quite in-depth papers they take a bit of work to get through them but if we're trying to equip a new generation really of trade unionists and left people with a sort of a both a historical analysis but also a technical appreciation appreciation of some of the technical challenges involved in in an energy transition this is our paper on just transition this was in 2012 which is inspired to ed which was in South Africa where the largest union africa the national union of metal workers um put forward the idea that renewables should be not be part of the privatization regime but should be publicly owned we see this is more recently a report i worked on with others including transnational institute and the unions there to talk about rather than defend the status quo which is public energy that burns a lot of coal is to show how a public utility can be transformed and we would achieve climate targets and social targets more effectively than if we privatize the system which is already to interrupt Sean um this this is not you at all this is um uh the the slides um haven't moved from from the first screen that you did um so this this is totally a technical thing and not not you at all okay would it be possible just to kind of um exit the full screen of the um of the presentation and then just scroll through with the slides that you had even if they're a bit smaller on the screen okay can you see that one i i can yeah i can see that fine it's just when it goes for some reason when it goes um when you do full screen it um something goes wrong but we can see all of this absolutely fine um i'm gonna i'm gonna pass it back over to you and apologies for interrupting no no not at all i'm sorry you can't see it um okay i'm gonna try to scroll through then this was the just transition paper this is the renewable energy in South Africa this is the most recent report we also had some influence on the Green New Deal discussion in the US with the Bernie Sanders plan um the first the only candidate really to put forward the idea of public ownership of renewable energy of new renewables um we work closely with Rebecca Lombelli of course as was mentioned earlier labor didn't get elected um it's a huge missed opportunity um we won't go into that now but clearly the policies around energy and public ownership were not to blame for that um the we there's here's the European Public Services Union EPSU produced a report that we had some say in which is the failure of energy liberalization and so this is part of the policy um infrastructure if you like it's beginning to develop around a public goods approach and reclaiming energy um you see here we work closely with Transnational Institute Reclaiming Public Services certain individual unions like public and commercial services are put out documents um analysis of the current situation now what is our critique of green growth why is that a problem um if you 10 years ago green growth that sounds pretty good you know we can get grow the economy create jobs and it'll be green what's the problem and the problem was first of all it's not happening and second it was uh as I mentioned earlier it was largely a privatization agenda um get the public entities out of the way let um innovative green tech takeover bad news and this one of the areas we have to focus on is countering the myth and here you see Al Gore saying you know the uh it's inevitable uh that the the low carbon transition is going to happen here's banky moon we've entered a new era the progression to low emission carbon climate resilient growth is inevitable here's our kim steiner the head of the um then united nations environment program inevitable you hear the word inevitable all the time and yet what we did in chew it back in 20 trail realized that it wasn't inevitable in fact if anything it wasn't even happening so here we see for example I'm not sure if you can if my little science here getting in the way um energy consumption which is huge hugely important it's not only increasing and continues to increase at an alarming rate it's dominated by fossil fuels so if we look at foster blue there that's all fossil based energy in terms of world consumption so we've had not only 20 years of this neoliberal model uh and all the promises of it being inevitable the transition but we end up with more fossil fuels coming into the system we've we've characterized it in chew it as an energy expansion not an energy transition so when you see charts that show renewable energy growing quite spectacularly in places uh it has to be seen in the context of overall global energy use and this is a hugely important piece of information because the renewables industry likes to tell you because they're privately owned and they're looking for more government support they like to tell you that you know they are cheaper now that subsidies are no longer necessary that they are going to take over the global energy system all they need now is a few more years of subsidies and support and this is the reality it's not happening because it relies on generation of private profit that's one of the big problems so oil use rising I'll skip over these in the interest of time you see there on the bottom right how much in the global energy system electricity how much is wind and solar it barely makes it on the map most renewable energy is large hydro systems which are basically maxed out on a global scale for the most part and most of it is um non-renewable so this is the kind of wake-up call we need here's another chart that shows world energy consumption and you can see the contribution of wind and solar down there very very tiny consequently emissions continue to rise of course they're going to go down this year because of covid but it's going down about eight percent according to some some estimates but according to the intergovernmental panel on climate change it would need to fall eight percent every year until 2050 in order to reach the Paris climate targets so we either have a string of pandemics to get us to net zero or we need a policy shift I prefer the latter and here's the head of the international energy agency saying my numbers are giving me some despair so here's the problem with green growth it's basically a hands-off approach saying what we need to do is incentivize a private investment and we need a stick which is the price on carbon very quickly the current price on carbon 20 years after carbon pricing was proposed as the main policy mechanism for the neoliberal approach to climate protection and energy transition we've got world where only 16 percent of greenhouse gas emissions are subject to a price and most of those that price is under ten dollars or ten euros sorry a ton that is absolutely useless in terms of shaping investment decisions so it also the price that when it's put on carbon it usually gets passed downstream to workers here's the yellow vest struggle in France after the diesel carbon price on diesel fuel was introduced a couple of years ago so what we have is the worst of both possible worlds we have workers paying for the carbon but the carbon ends up in the atmosphere anyway because no one is changing their behavior at all but the workers face the brunt of this this is true also with energy subsidies in the global south the IMF and the World Bank want to remove subsidies which is mostly consumer subsidies and then that hits workers and they end up protesting now if all this was leading to decarbonization we'd be okay but it's not and here's Bloomberg New Energy Finance the other NEF it's an open question who will provide the required funding now think for a moment what that means it's an open question who will prefer here we have 10 years to reduce emissions by 50 percent or so and we're way behind and it's an open question where the money's going to come so let's look at the carrots subsidies for renewable energy we sold Germany solar miracle and that's always been touted as the model for the energy transition Germany municipal control community energy and so on but who paid for the subsidies 40 billion euro goes on to electricity bills so we have yes renewable energy costs are falling but retail costs for electricity are rising there are lots of reasons for this and I would like you know I don't have time to go into the details but I'd recommend looking at this paper that came out earlier this year the rise and fall of community energy in Europe unlike many of the environmental groups who we love they have I think a disproportionate faith in community energy and energy citizenship as a way of challenging of promoting the energy transition and we show that this was totally dependent on subsidies and it was also my time is almost up totally dependent on subsidies and it was also very marginal in terms of the overall energy system so we need a comprehensive reclaiming to public ownership of energy systems in Europe and elsewhere in the world here's just a quick look at investment in the minute or so I have left here you see it going down you see it going down in China all because the same policies are being pursued here's a quote I'd like you to look at if you don't mind renewables generally do not offer opportunities that investors are looking for in terms of market capitalization dividends or liquidity in other words companies the cheaper renewable energies gets the less profitable becomes the more private investors look elsewhere they are not interested in low profit investment so this means where does the money come from it has to be public investment and that's the way most electricity came into the world most of the global side today would still be in the dark if it wasn't for public energy systems meanwhile workers in places like Fife in Scotland are not getting the work in offshore wind because it's going to countries like Indonesia or nothing against Indonesian workers but if you're looking for a social license for the energy transition then you've got to start producing the jobs locally where the energy is going to be generated so we're advocating very strongly and unapologetically for a public goods approach this needs to be it may sound like pie in the sky but if if it does sound more challenging given the political moment we're in we have to ask ourselves what does a business as usual look like with the neoliberal model it's going to be no energy transition more climate change less jobs and more social dislocation so the the sort of general principle is emissions generated anywhere in the world hurts everyone and emissions reduced or avoided helps everyone so this has to be the simple principle around technology sharing around public goods approach around investing in energy transition as a public service and that includes all energy technologies need to be considered we cannot just imagine a world full of wind and solar panels and and expect that to generate the electricity we need we need to focus on energy conservation management and democratic control so I'm sorry that was a bit rushed and I apologize for the technical challenges please check out unionsforenergydemocracy.org there are a bunch of working papers there if you're in a union and you're interested in having your union participate in tued that's pretty easy just let us know it has to be a formal decision and it we have to be able to put the logo of the union on our website and look out for the next tued events and I appreciate the opportunity to have the opportunity to share these thoughts with you today thank you great thank you so much for that Sean that was a great talk and no need to apologize for the technical error I think we can blame zoom as I blame a lot of things in my life I am now going to pass over to Katarina and yeah if you're ready to go Katarina hopefully no technical issues but we'll let you know if there are any but take it away thank you yeah I will try and I hope you can hear me good or hear me all right um I have wrote everything I wanted to say down because my English is well sometimes it slips um and I will start my timer right now so that I will keep in my stay in my time um yeah I'm Katarina I'm from Leipzig in Germany and I'm part of the Fridays for Future movement um I'm part of the Students for Future which are the students at the university who are coming together and joining the Fridays for Future movement and I became part of Fridays for Future early on because I think like so many young people I was yeah inspired by the young people going on the streets and marching and protesting and also I am part of the Union Verdi which maybe some of you might know and I am a member of Verdi because I started in my nursing school and became a member and stated member even though I am a student right now and study history at the university I started in the Fridays for Future movement because like so many others I felt like the climate crisis is so noticeable and um yeah becoming a bigger and bigger problem and I saw that so many scientists were shouting out that it's a big problem we have to start doing something and nobody was doing anything so um yeah and nobody came collectively together to change it so I saw the Fridays for Future movement and joined it and I think the crisis even though it is affecting people in not Europe but other countries um other continents even worse is starting to have the effects already in Germany yesterday on the what was it like 23rd of October it was 19 degrees in Germany so like I didn't even have to put a jacket on it was really crazy really hot outside and um yeah I got into the movement and uh today I'm actually here to talk about a project which we're doing uh which is the cooperation with uh the Union Verdi and we're talking about uh Fankerswender project which is translated roundabout in a transportation change or uh project for better public transport um and it's a project which we're working on for I think over a year right now um we've been uh working on this topic uh with Verdi um for yeah I think since last year in June or something uh even before corona and um yeah I will want to try to explain and show what makes this coalition between like the movement Fridays for Future and the Union so special and so important and so almost two years ago we started a Fridays for Future movement here in Germany and we started right away with the group of Fridays for Future um that's called Union Dialogue Group and we were right from the start talking to um all the DGB like the big Union um Unions in Germany also like the Ege Metall and the Ege Bize and yeah the unions which normally you wouldn't consider working with if you're a climate activist because it's the people produce the cars and dig the coal so um but we uh our group of activists who are uh from the beginning conscious of the power of unions and uh normally you would say okay Fridays for Future it's a lot of young people who are I don't know consumer criticism and a green party uh orientated people but there are some who are also like anti-capitalist and uh yeah interested in union organized organization and so we started to um contact the unions to find the project and maybe find some way to work together and um yeah so we started this uh talk and uh we saw in Verdi which the Verdi the Union which is um yeah represent representing also the uh bus drivers we saw the big fight coming which is right now this year the big uh contract negotiation for a German wide contract for all the bus drivers and tram drivers and everybody who works in public transport um it affects um this contract is something Verdi prepared for for years they like finalized all the contracts till the 13th of June and uh it affects 70 percent of the public transport in all of Germany and uh it's uh about uh 90 000 people who work in the public transport in those um yeah in those areas and yeah we talked to Verdi about it because we thought it's very interesting to get the fight uh for better public transport um get into this fight because um the fight is for future movements always saying like we have to get away from the uh cars we don't uh yeah we don't want everybody using a car and having car because the pollution that's like the third biggest pollution sector is the mobility and transport and we um we're always uh yeah declaring war on the car but we have no real option so that's why we were like okay we have to think about public transport but if you think about public transport you have to think also about the worker who's driving the buses because you can stream all you want and can say all you want like we need more buses but if there's nobody who wants to drive the buses well you don't have buses yet that it can drive themselves and uh it's also about the yeah working conditions of the people and uh yeah Friday's for future um calls itself a climate justice movement so it's also about justice for the bus drivers and the tram drivers and uh so that's why we why we uh got in the fight together with uh Verdi and we made a big plan and Verdi was uh very convinced and uh very enthusiastic also because the fight if you have like striking bus drivers is it's always the the headline of the papers always oh the children who are left on the streets can't get to work it's uh can't get to school it's so bad and um we as Friday for future are the ones who are saying well if this school children are saying well it's okay that our bus driver is striking because his working conditions are really really bad well that's uh well some positive um message and might be um yeah getting less trouble for the bus drivers and also the um Verdi said um it's really hard because the strikes are right now with corona and the covid 19 crisis uh getting even worse and everybody is um yeah trying to blame I don't know infections on public transport so it's really good to have someone who's having your back and as we are trying to fight for better working conditions and uh more public transport that uh works perfectly together just to give you one uh view of what the working conditions are in the public transport they're really really bad I live in Leipzig here and the people they earn like 12 euros an hour and they have like if you have um if your bus is delayed because someone was holding the door and you um have to get to turn around like you make your tour and then you stop normally you drive off uh 15 minutes later if you have a delay you won't get paid for it and your break shortens itself since it's a delay and the problem is that a lot of bus drivers they have like real bladder problems and have like a colon cancer rate is higher in those jobs and it's like significantly uh yeah a big problem because of the working conditions and they don't earn really much and so and they're not even all over the place they're like not on every stop there's a toilet for the bus drivers so especially for women bus drivers it's not very comfortable so that's all the information we got during talking to bus drivers which is um yeah very a very interesting point and a very interesting situation so um uh that's all about like the working conditions and um yeah we started in February to get together with like 80 people it was activists with bus drivers union members trying to make a great plan and then corona hit us and everything was like the whole plan of like okay we're going to make some very important days and we're gonna go out on the streets and organize everything and talk to the local theaters the schools everybody should join was all ruined and that's also like a very big struggle we have right now because the second wave is coming but we've restarted in about April or May and started with zooms like these we had like hundreds of activists coming together in a zoom conference and we had bus drivers speaking we had like the union members speaking with Students for Future and Fridays for Future speaking and it was really interesting to find out like the we have the same issue the same issue is that we want better conditions for everyone and we want the climate crisis to end or we had want to fight the climate crisis and uh yeah have better living conditions and have a future in this world and um the fight is always against up there like the politics because the Fridays for Future are on the streets for over two years now screaming and nothing's changing and if you look at the bus driving sectors it's like they're screaming for over 20 years now and um the I don't know as therapy politics is hitting them really hard and they're not getting even um yeah a bit better wages so um since September there are really strikes like real bus driver strikes they should have happened in June already but corona pushed it all back to the year and now we have in over 30 cities Fridays for Future and bus drivers uh going joining uh in a strike and I might just find the some pictures here I hope you can see this maybe someone can give me yeah we can see that's great you can see it so this is like um what we did uh we went into the local tram and made signs for the for the drivers and we put it in the back because the following train should see it and that's the driver um here we have uh some climate activists joining together with the bus drivers um yeah it's uh so many funny pictures and that's like corona times we have the union member and we have the Fridays for Future um activists they all with uh not covering their mouth and nose yeah I have some so many pictures of this and it's really really great to see and uh I just want to uh just point out in the last minute what I think is so special about this um because on the one side and this picture might just be perfect for it we have uh young climate active activists who are predominantly female and um mostly from a very privileged background um and they're yeah really it's the mostly the first time that there is that they are political activists and um yeah they come from a very diverse movement on on the other hand you have the bus drivers and the union members who are mostly in between 45 and 55 years old and um might just have fought a lot of fights but as we know uh not have won so many and have not have not been so successful and they're mostly men so uh young wild female and all the traditional male uh you wouldn't have guessed if they could come together which is uh I think very uh nice to see that it works and if you find out that you have the same enemy kind of um you uh can come together and have um yeah join the fights and uh yeah it's right now this photo looks really nice and I don't know I talk about it really lightly but it's a hell of a lot of work it's like calls and so many talks so many like getting behind the I don't know behind so many people and standing there and talking and talking I have been to strikes um it's like the last week we joined the strikes at three um a.m. in the morning and we uh yeah stand there with bus drivers in the pouring rain and it's still something sometimes a bus driver comes up to us and says what do you want here it's not your fight and you always have to explain why you're doing this and why you want to join the fight and why it's not just their fight it's our fight and in the end it's really interesting because I don't know I've had so many talks with bus drivers I don't know about I don't know 50 60 on the on the different strike days but it's always in the beginning there are really really skeptical and in the end they're like well it's true and they would never call themselves climate activists but they get why we are calling them this way because it's the job for the future it's like public transport is so important and we have to expand public transport and we want to have better uh working conditions for the for the people so yeah it's uh really nice to see all the pictures we have like so many uh people and the buses uh maybe I've here this is also very nice it was in Hamburg they surrounded the uh the mayor's office uh with so many people and uh had a collage of uh photos uh for for the mayor yeah this is at 3 am in the morning and it says like climate uh to keep the climate you have to support your striking people like the strikers um yeah and maybe I will uh well leave on the snow I'll stop here and uh yeah thank you so much for that Katarina uh yeah it's a great great note to to finish on and the pictures are wonderful um it's great to see people still taking action even during corona times um a final reminder that if you have questions for our speakers that there is a um a q and a uh option at the bottom of your screen where you can click and then type the questions for our any of our panelists um um I'll introduce uh our last panelist now uh is Esther Lynch um who's speaking from the european union um sorry uh this is definitely a general secretary of the european trade union confederation over to you Esther thanks very much as I seem to have gone all dark um whichever way I'm sitting in the in the okay that might be a bit more yeah that's good I think that was uh really inspirational presentation I want to thank you for it I've had a tough I've had a tough weekend what better way to end on a Friday but with a practical example of exactly what we're all trying to achieve which is to call out the exploitation of both workers and the planet and to make sure that people understand that there's a link between both and that our strategies need to to to be more joined up um I've been asked to come and talk about working time reduction um and uh I was I was trying to think about about how to start and it struck me that one of my guilty pleasures is an english tv series called Downton Abbey and that series um is set in the early 1900s um and there's a scene from 1912 which perfectly captures class privilege uh it's a big stately home they're having a dinner and the one of the guests at the dinner says I'm going to go to such and such a place for the weekend and the countess turns around entirely confounded and says what's the weekend and of course the aristocracy doesn't need a weekend to enjoy any free time because they were free to go whenever they wanted to go uh and to do what whatever they wanted to do with whenever they wanted to do it but it was exact opposite for everybody who worked there so there was no weekend for them because they weren't free they weren't there you know that there wasn't the idea that that people would be entitled to uh to uh an eight hour day um or to uh a five day week um or to holidays and all all of that was at the the discretion did the decision and you had to bow and scrape um and and by bowing and scraping you might get some time off and hardly likely to be paid to be paid all of them and the reason I mentioned that is to show that things can change and the moment when this changed was uh 1919 and it changed in 1919 uh by the international labour organization uh concluding in the wake of the first world war that injustice anywhere threatens peace and the first convention they concluded was on working hours and it was for an eight hour day and it was for a 48 hour week and it also was for holidays and that came in the wake as I said of the contribution and and it and it was understood that people had paid with their lives during the first world war and I think we have a similar moment with Covid in that there is there is some recognition even among those political parties to which I know nobody here and I myself do not support um but even among them there is there there is a recognition that something needs to be done to end the the the rampant injustice and to recognize that during Covid the most vulnerable workers the frontline of the frontline exactly the people that Katrina was talking about showed up and carried on working and did what was needed and that it isn't acceptable that all those people will be put to the end of some queue and only after everybody else is sorted out will we get around to thinking about their their needs so I think it's very clear on at least within the European trade union movement that part of the the future of work the fair future of work needs to be about hours and I apologise but I'm going to get a bit uh EU focus now because um in we have at EU level the European working time directive and that in 1993 set out a threshold of working time including overtime to be a maximum of 48 hours a week the average in the EU at the moment is 37 hours a week but of course there's big differences Greece 41 hours a week the Netherlands 30 hours a week but what you can do throughout the European union is trace a study but slow slowing reduction in the in the number of hours of of working time so there is a need now for a major clear demand um relating to the reduction of working time and we're beginning to see within the movement some examples of that um uh being debated we've seen uh the demands for for the four-day week we've also seen uh unions such as Iggy Mattel uh was also mentioned by Katrina putting onto onto the bargaining agenda and a reduction in working time in which some of the the time is remains paid the employer takes some of the and we say some of the savings and but the but the state also steps in and while a lot of these schemes were developed to to cope with COVID I think what they do is is is is they extract they do establish an example of solid heuristic and approaches and if we're to have a just transition not only in terms of climate but also in terms of digitalization there there has to be an opportunity for people to retrain and part of that can be reducing working time and during the other time that retraining is available for people but more importantly there also needs to be recognition that increases in productivity shouldn't be taken just by the the shareholders that those increases in productivity need to be shared fairly shared with the workforce and part of that can come in the form of reduced working time without reduced in-pay there's one other issue I'd like to to put onto onto the agenda and that's and that's the common day off and the it used to be the case that article five of the EU directive said that in principle the the the rest period would include a Sunday and at the time the court of justice decided that there was no proof that Sunday work was that the having Sunday off was more beneficial for health and safety reasons but since that that disastrous ruling of 1996 there evidence has been melting about the importance of having a common day off and it only stands to reason if you can have time with your family on a Sunday if you have time to volunteer if you have time for civic engagement to join the local football club to play sports so if you if you know that everybody has Sunday as the day to do that I'm not necessarily making the case for Sunday it's just that's that Sunday and is is used to be the common day off and I think that that that needs to be restored as part as part of our discussion about the need for our work the rhythm of working life to better support people's civic voluntary engagement family opportunities I say that as a mother I like to cook for my family on a Sunday I think it makes me feel better you know and I think I think there's that that that that that that to some extent the left because of the religious overtones has been afraid of being involved in this discussion and I'd encourage you to to to put it back on the table the idea and of of a common day off and I think then as I said there are already lots of examples of unions beginning to come forward and to try and and negotiate the change and and I think that that has to be that has to be recognized as the only way the only fair way forward is if it's is if these changes are negotiated and it needs to be those those those negotiations need to recognize that you can't have a one-size-fits-all approach to this that so many workers are struggling with not knowing how many hours work they're going to get this week and for them a reduction in working time will be a disaster it will be a disaster because they won't be able to afford the rent and they won't be able you know to to feed their families so so so so there does need to be some recognition that that not everybody has has a nine to five guaranteed permanent job and but but that for other people they really are already under so much pressure and struggling and struggling with an exploitative employer on their back so there needs to be there needs to be leadership and that leadership needs to come from from the sectors where we're stronger and we need to to have examples of of good agreements that establish how you fairly achieve this change and that's why I disagree a bit with what Sean said is that I think European social dialogue is is without doubt a good way forward for us at the ETUC because it will allow us to conclude a blueprint template approach to this one which would use this use this use the strength of where we're strong to help unions where they're weak so we could use the strength of our colleagues in the Nordic countries the strength of our colleagues in Germany and France and use that to help the unions in the east who are struggling with with with a very deliberate strategy based on low roads low pay competition between workers and wages and conditions so if we could help by having EU level strategies and blueprints that assist them and support them and indeed if we were to say to companies who who negotiate with the unions for example in Germany but then they turn up in Bratislava and say that there'd be no union in here but if we could begin to use where we're strong to get good bargaining power where we're weaker so that those workers too could have a fair transition that that indeed a reduced working week would not be something that would be frightening but would be something that that that workers were welcome I think that has to be part of our strategy and I think EU social dialogue is a way to do that it's not easy but it is a way to do it so I wouldn't write off EU social dialogue the other the other the other interesting thing and I think it's interesting that Verdi is so much on the pitch in in in Katrina's example is that governments are large employers they still are even though there's been awful privatisation they are still large employers and they could lead by example they could lead by example going back to two for example a two and a half day weekend and that that there are all sorts of ways in which governments could could say to unions come in we want to have discussions we want to reduce working time we want to identify a way in which that can be done fairly but also in a way that is aligned in the work in the rhythm of working life within society and we need to begin to have those discussions and for sure I'm looking around Europe and I see in a lot of of union congresses beginnings of the discussion to put together and a negotiating agenda for that and indeed governments can use their purchasing power so instead of using purchasing power as as example of the bus drivers is which is to go to the lowest tender and the lowest tender being on the basis of of exploitative conditions governments could also say well we were we're going to establish that our purchasing schemes all support companies that bargain with unions for a fair for a fair and just transition and a fair and just transition in terms of the workforce but also in terms of sustainable matters as well the final point then is is that consumer power actually is more effective I used to I used to be quite dismissive of the whole consumer branding and but I think now people are becoming a lot more those who can afford to are becoming a lot more discerning and I think having a recognizable trademark symbol for businesses that deal with the union that have in place a just transition and and that they're very clear look you know and the basis on which we're competing and isn't on low road exploitation and misery but the basis on which we're competing is on a fair and sustainable future including for our workforce I think that that might be something that could be of interest to discuss and exactly just to go back to where Katrina ended up as well so that we would have this linking up and and support between the two then then then then finally I think I think hovert is a moment of of of change but there's nothing that says what what direction that changes is going to flow in and and I think people are looking around for ideas now and so so I think a steady approach and to identify the opportunities the different ways in which reduced working time can be achieved through negotiated agreements combined with the benefits of for would say the economy and for the planet and the society for families for well-being for health and safety for you know for all those things I think it can only help and that was why I was anxious to be here today is to call for that joined up solid heuristic approach and I want to thank you for for giving me the time today thank you great thank you Aston that was a great note to end on we're we're now moving to our Q&A session so if you have any questions at all for our speakers please do put them in the Q&A boxes which is at the bottom of your screen I have a few questions already and I guess this is to all of our panelists often the arguments around both or sometimes the arguments around both the environment and working time reduction are put forward in in quite an abstract and and elitist way and take place in quite elite institutions far away from the people who will be most impacted by the changes discussed how do you ensure in the work that you do that that workers and those who are most impacted by the proposed changes are at the heart of the transition which you're seeking to achieve so anyone can jump in or I can pick a name Sean's on it don't have a go oh can't hear you Sean sorry man I I actually missed a bit of the question so rather than repeat the question perhaps someone will jump in and I'll try to plug in great sure hand over to you then sure okay um so yeah as I kind of um spoke about in my in my talk I think that for the four-day week campaign a lot of what we've done previously has focused on on um kind of political influencing um and I think that the kind of what we're moving towards now which is is going through unions um is um a way of making sure that yeah that that that this is a demand that comes from um from the workers themselves um I could maybe speak a bit about what I've done in my my own workplace um because I'm a union rep um in my workplace and we're kind of moving towards um demanding and our next or demanding having on the negotiating table um a short working hours for our um uh yeah as part of our kind of pay deal for the next for the coming year and um that is something that has taken I would say about a year to build consensus on in our workplace um so through things like um bringing up meetings and um using tools such as surveys to like gauge where people are at um creating a working group within our our membership of people who are kind of like willing to um push this idea forward and have conversations with with individual members to kind of like talk about how it could work in our organization um using external speakers to give some kind of clarity on how it could work um have been ways that we've kind of just shifted the debate um in terms of yeah shifted the debate so that it's now something that in fact actually um as reps we decided or not decided but we'd kind of taken off our agenda for a bit because of if we were kind of dealing with so much other stuff to do with coronavirus but actually it then became members who were saying actually do you know what we need a four-day week now because we're um because we're super stressed um from uh the kind of increasing workload that we've had due to coronavirus um so in a weird way that kind of demand came back kind of full circle and came from the members and now we're kind of pushing forward on that again um I think something that um I guess is a takeaway from that is that like that's one work this is one workplace I mean my workplace is big it has 800 people but that's still like a fraction of the workers in the UK and I do think that um whilst like um change coming down from government is is is one way to achieve things and it's it can happen quite swiftly um I think it's important to get buying from from workers but it does you know it takes a lot of time and effort and and organizing is like a long-term process that is you know tiring and like involves lots of people putting a lot of work into it so I think it's um it's it's not it's not quick and it's not easy but it's something that I think the if you sow the seeds then the rewards are kind of bigger um from from getting um uh from doing that kind of organizing and I kind of talked a little bit about how um you know we've kind of brought the idea to the public imagination but it's not necessarily you know people aren't kind of demanding it themselves and I think that yeah that would maybe have been somewhere where we've we've had a bit of a blind spot and an hour dressing because you know you can say you can have as many newspaper articles as you want about the benefits of four-day week but unless people actually think there's something that they could um do in their own lives then it's in my mind it's it's not going to happen um I hope that was a little bit of a it wasn't 100 answering the question but I hope it kind of got there it was great I mean you spoke from several different perspectives about how this process can be bottom up as as well as top down um are there any other speakers that want to step in otherwise there's other questions that we have um I have um uh I guess a yeah quite an interesting question actually from Ursula um who has asked do you think advocating for an increase in individually negotiated working time reductions um in addition to kind of collective trade union bargaining agreements would be a positive development as it would help to normalize the idea of working less like what happens often in in Holland um or is that something of a aggressive move as it excludes those on lower incomes with greater family responsibilities so to be clear this is a question about working time reduction from an individual point of view and having the right to individually reduce your hours albeit with a cut in pay which would obviously exclude those um who cannot afford it is that good bad or somewhere in between so Rachel and Esther I think this is this is for you maybe Esther it would be interesting to hear from your perspective on this well can you can you see me okay because I've I've just lost all okay so I can see you you're good I don't know what I've done um some emails came in and I made the mistake of trying to look at them yeah so um I think that that right already exists because under the part-time work directive um there's a right for workers to request uh part-time work hours and then the employer can only refuse where they have an objective reason um uh my own experience is that collective agreements often already provide for this so it's not that you have to do it outside the collective agreement you can do it within the frame of the collective agreement so for example the collective agreement will establish uh the way in which uh you can request this the protections uh for all people who request requesting reduced hours and then most importantly how people return to to the full-time work if that's what what they choose to do so in terms of individual we say circumstances that already exists it's not the type of game changer I think that we need to be uh looking at and the type of game changer I think we need to be looking at is how in the rhythm of work do we begin to on the one hand address the 24 are constantly on always connected um type of uh uh demands that employers make now no I know they make those demands in a very subtle way but they're made anyway um like how do we make sure that people have the right to disconnect how do we make sure that people have enough hours so that they're not frightened every week waiting for a text message to tell them whether they're going to have hours of work this week how do we address that and at the same time how do we then move the larger more permanent based employment uh to a reduced working time and that whether we do that on a on a on a one by one I don't know if you're interested in if you also want to get the benefits of uh the reduction in the number of people in public transport and the um number of hours of energy that an office uses I don't know that that you that you secure those benefits um if you're doing it on a one by one basis rather than if you're trying to do it um by larger sections um of the workforce taken the lead on it you probably there's probably a lot more people here uh who know the answer to that question better than I do in terms of the the gains uh that you get for for improving and or or or for it just strikes me instinctively that if if everybody finished work we say on a Friday afternoon and and the office closed you're going to get a better we say sustainability um uh achievement from that than if than if one person says I need to go home you know I want to negotiate a going home early every Friday you know so so there's just they're just two different things that's not to say that they're against each other but the only thing I have to say it's always the case that you should deal with with with any individual and with any changes that individuals can make you should incorporate a protective um environment around that within the collective agreement sorry that was just a waffly answer but that but that but that's mine you know it's really comprehensive thank you so much Esther um have um another question um this is more specifically for Sean but for Catarina as well um and it's reflecting on one of our speakers yesterday um Juliet sure who who made the point that I didn't know me or didn't I just no no no no we lost him uh okay I will ask the question um okay okay just trying to find it um sorry sorry for you manage uh yes uh the question was um yesterday Juliet sure made a very strong point at decoupling uh but the decoupling between GDP growth and carbon emission is just not happening and therefore we have to limit GDP GDP growth even it decrease in the in the global north your presentation sub-substantial said that further but she also pointed out that instead of talking morally about reducing reducing consumption we should talk more positively about what we have to offer in exchange for reducing energy consumption plenty of pleasure the cost of reducing of reducing extremely carbon intensive activity should the 3d or student fulfill to also pick up on this uh less energy consumption less production less work more leisure should I take a chance should I try to answer that yes please okay I'm not sure if my name is mentioned and I'm not sure it's I mean it's uh I think for the perspective of the question is what new what can we bring to the discussion that's different we've pointed out as many many others long before Juliet come out the decoupling using the idea of green growth as a sort of in the belief that energy efficiency what they call ecological modernization is going to eventually get to a point where there's a decoupling is is um very very flawed and misleading it's not going to happen and um even I'll just use an example of how misleading this can be the world resources institute I think the court WRI put out a study say in 23 countries that managed to decouple growth from emissions including the UK for example what they didn't say of course is that they've offshoreed most of their manufacturing to other countries so the emissions that were not being created in in say Europe are being created in India and China and elsewhere this is not meant as a criticism of India and China in that respect but it's a reality that global GDP growing doesn't matter with the production may shift around um so I think the the question is what do we bring to it and and energy you know the focus on sort of energy conservation I think is hugely important because the IPCC has acknowledged that 40 percent of the emissions reductions that they that are projected or hoped for in the case of the Paris commitments the well below two degrees has to come from energy efficiency and conservation so this somehow has to become a kind of a you know a leading policy discussion what the IPCC says and others say international energy agencies there's no viable market for energy conservation if electricity bills are say 50 euros a month or 100 euros a month and individuals are expected to pay for the insulation of their homes many of them don't own their own homes it's just basically if we're doing it on the basis of a market it's not going to people are not going to do it then there's the issue and I know I'm going on a bit long but there's the issue of industrial consumption when electricity is part of a cost of say running a factory those costs get passed on down to consumers it doesn't change the behavior so and the carbon prices I pointed out in my presentation has been completely ineffective really in terms of of reducing of advancing efficiency so Julia is right the question is what but where do how do we programmatically build on that commitment of the sort of degrowth discussion and we'd like to be involved in it but it's a bandwidth question for us you know we need to have the we don't have this the staff or the expertise really to play a constructive role but would certainly encourage others to do that last point I would make is you know the concept and this speaks to the questions of transport that was raised electrification of everything is another big challenge because we're talking about decarbonizing the power generation transport systems heating and cooling systems food and agriculture systems and the amount of energy needed to do that electricity to replace fossil fuels there's another massive challenge these are the kind of debates we should be having in the movement and not leave it to energy experts who are very good people many of them but they're sort of not going to be addressing some of these big social challenges that we need to confront so I think that's the debates we're going to be having but let's drill down on the details a bit more I think Julia's work is fantastic as she points to examples of how like platforms and different communities can do certain things I really admire what she's doing and I think we need more of that and think big picture sorry for the lengthy response. Thank you so much that Sean and I'm back sodslaw that my bloody hands get cut out as I was asking a question the follow on to that question which is also comes from Juliet was about the kind of the positive vision put forward by at the back end of what you've just said so if we have if we have to live in a world where we have to reduce consumption and ultimately reduce a lot of energy use what's the positive vision of that future and she says that we should have working time reduction like that's the exchange that the economy should give us rather than material goods kind of an ever expanding material pile we should be getting increased leisure time and that's the positive vision that you give to an environmental world where ultimately we have to think seriously about reducing ultimately the amount of energy that we're using it and material consumption could you respond to that a little bit because the person asked the question felt it was missing from your presentation. Yeah it's I think we've got to think about there's system level discussions that need to happen and it's interesting about 10 years ago there was an opinion poll of top chief executive officers of companies and they actually agreed most of them said we need to reduce energy we need to reduce consumption we need to reorganize society they were thinking more in terms of as a member of the human race but they also understood that individual companies are in and this is the this is the in the DNA of capitalism is about maximizing production maximizing sales knocking the other guy down as much as you can so how do we get out of that you know fatal suicidal logic of competition and this is where public goods has to come in it's where public ownership has to come in of key sectors we can and shouldn't have public ownership of everything but we have to control key sectors energy transportation finance food and agriculture in a way that we can say those things that need to happen to put us on a path to true sustainability they can happen because we are liberated from the logic of making money and profit we all know the productive capacity of the world is more than enough to satisfy human needs even the poorest in the world could easily if we had a more sharing distributive I would say socialist democratic socialist economy globally we could do that and people have many things more than enough in terms of their material goods in many parts of the world in other parts of the world there is starvation and poverty and precariousness so this is how we have this big discussion has to come up in really big narrative questions but let's not leave it there we have to do the work on how do we make it happen how does our vision of a better world how would it work in practice and that's I think the work everybody in this call is trying to do right now and we're talking about working hours so I'm thrilled to be part of the discussion thanks so much that Sean I've got a question more specifically for Catarina and the person said thank you for the beautiful examples of environmental activists supporting a labour dispute of strategic importance research has shown that working time reductions are ecologically beneficial and in a way Friday for future has been using a tool of the workers movement the strike and connecting it to ecological sustainability they've come up with the idea for a free day for future for a free Friday for all wouldn't this make it a perfect theory to build on connect up the two movements yeah I already tried also to answer it in the like writing down because I think it's a really interesting question and since right now COVID and corona is coming back right now in Germany the yeah people are getting even sicker and sicker and we're thinking about how to deal with this strike situation because I think they will not carry on any further so the strike will go down and the collective moment might just pass and might just end for this year um but we have to think about what to do next year and next year there's going to be a really big um yeah fight in the Ege Metall they have like they called M and E Metall and electric uh negotiation which is the biggest one they have pushed it from this year to next year and uh yeah it will affect I don't know how many workers but a lot and it's like the biggest strike strongest sector and the Ege Metall has like Rachel said the four hour um the four days four hour well four days a week work work week on their agenda and I think it's something that we as the movement since we're talking about mobility change and public transport will have to get into too but we can't go and say well then just let's build cars on the four days or not five days we'll have to pick I don't know a company that supports building buses and trains and try to get into a fight over there and show that we're not against metal working jobs we're just against the ones that build the SUVs we're just right next to the people who are fighting for for our job and um four week day job and uh yeah maybe in a in a place where there are trains and buses built but next year will also be like the big election year in Germany so we have like I don't know eight elections in the departments and like uh then the big bundes tags wall which is uh like the primary I don't know how to say that big election so Friday for future might just jump on that and uh yeah I don't know if they will pick up thanks Katarina um I have another question from Ursula um uh saying that they're interested in the idea that renewables um are less profitable um or give lower returns and fossil fuels uh they are asking can you please explain um a bit more of an explanation about why this is the case so I guess that's for for Sean and Katarina yeah Katarina do you want to go first okay um here's the here's the reason why I mean first of all the cost of I'm not arguing against renewable energy I'm just arguing about energy choices should not be based on strictly on cost alone but what we've done what renewable energy is more expensive than it should be for a few reasons one is the borrowing of money most most of the cost of renewable energy is not in there's no fuel costs you don't pay for wind and you don't pay for sun the money the cost comes in a number of forms primarily the borrowing of capital so if you borrow money at a high interest rate which is usually if you're a private company in a risky market the risk was created by the neoliberal privatization by the way so if it hadn't been public there wouldn't there would have been a much more painless decarbonization transition in the power sector based on public need and not on essentially on cost but you introduce risk and therefore interest rates are high so companies who have to borrow money in order to do renewable energy have to recover those costs through the cost of electricity so that is done through power purchase agreements usually with governments and this is now the new auction system that was introduced in Europe and all over the world in the last six or seven years so when when this what this means though is that the existing power systems nuclear coal and gas have already basically paid for their infrastructure so they can produce electricity at a lower cost per kilowatt hour and just as important that electricity is available 24 hours a day seven days a week 365 days a year so the only way so this electricity is cheaper than renewables even though the costs of renewables are coming down largely because of the fall in interest rates globally so that almost sounds a little bit wonky but the where we land on this is the question of whether you're competitive or not is entirely superficial or should be the question is what kind of energy does the world need in the decades ahead how do we get to decarbonization so when you hear renewables say oh well we're competitive they're actually not competitive but it doesn't matter because if they were publicly owned we would have less borrowing costs we would be able to plan the transition the centralized generators in coal gas and nuclear would not be forced into losing market share but would actually be part of a transition plan and this is where the the the torment of the market comes in and and you know I want to just close by responding to what Esther said I think social dialogue in Europe has produced many positive outcomes and all credit to the unions affiliated to the E2C and others around Europe who have who've pressed hard to defend workers' interests and promote a decarbonization agenda but we have to if we're going to do social dialogue we have to say to mainstream policy is accepted this is public knowledge now the decarbonization targets are not compatible with competitive electricity markets and that we need a different framework and this has got there's got to be far more pushback if we want to have a dialogue we can't just let it be and I'm not suggesting Esther is saying this a comfort zone where we bargain on the periphery of the economy and not on the core pillars of economic life which would include energy transport financial systems and so on so I think that is got to be part of it Europe the world has to face up to the fact that the we cannot address climate needs ecological needs and social needs if we let basically the neoliberal project continue indefinitely that's got to stop and we need to show how it can be changed and appeal to our members and the public on the need to make those kind of radical changes I'll stop there thank you Sean I have a question about four-day working week for 32 hour week and its relationship to Corbinism and obviously the Labour Party in the UK lost the last election a good nine months ago now or 10 months ago and a lot of the within the UK and with a lot of the world looking at the UK Labour were putting forward the clearest vision of the four-day working week the first two hour week this person is asking what has happened since then has that Labour election lost damage the cause of the working week and what has happened since then in terms of the position the four-day week both in the UK but also being trusted here from Ester across Europe so that's for you with our Rachel I'm presuming Rachel is going to answer because it's a question about the Labour Party in the UK and their strategy which I'm happy to pick up after but the rest of the questions to Rachel um yeah so I think uh so um I guess I think yeah um I would say I'm not 100% sure and I think it's quite difficult to think about this because because of how this year is panned out like we lost the election sorry Labour lost the election and then two months later we're in like a global pandemic crisis and I think sometimes it's like quite hard to see how the what the impacts of of um of losing that election is when it's also kind of shrouded in this um like strange time that we find ourselves in I would say that I don't think I don't think it damaged um the the idea of four-day week though I do think that um having um Labour commit to a four-day week really opens like it got the idea out there but it also opened up to like loads of criticism from our very right-wing press press and kind of pundits who wouldn't have necessarily talked about it before but they're then going to come on and say isn't this ridiculous like in the middle of a failing economy like Corbyn wants to you know let us all have a three-day weekend and the press in England is not necessarily that uh what I don't know refined let's say um so I think it allowed it um for like kind of more criticism to to come out but I don't think it kind of damaged the the idea um of a four-day week completely um as I kind of chatted about a bit in my in in what I said earlier I don't want to repeat myself too much but I think um in so in many ways like the crisis the kind of coronavirus crisis the economic crisis that we find ourselves in has just forced like it changed working overnight and has forced us to to kind of question how we work and what we're doing and the economics of of it all and I think that that has allowed it to come back the four-day week to enter back into the conversation in a much more positive light um I think that potentially if it hadn't you know it there was potential for it to just be taught as this kind of like radical left-wing Corbyn um idea and kind of tied to Corbyn but I think actually we've been able to kind of drag it back from that and kind of um think about it as a solution to to to um like contemporary or current problems um Esther might maybe have like a kind of more European wide view on on that so so um I think I've I think that the reason I started with the Downton Abbey example is I think that it's useful to demonstrate that change is possible because to some extent people have started to think that changes and that this is just the way things are and nothing's really going to change and and almost like that the current system that that we're all living and working under is logical reasonable and common sense and everybody who has a different point of view about the way the world should be and the way it would should look and what what hours of work we should all do and what our relationship with working time should be that you're painted exactly as Rachel said like some kind of a crazy radical like like like like out there and I don't think we should be surprised about that because all of the media that people consume in there from from when they get up to when they go to bed in no way challenges the existing system and promotes the idea of the individual as a as an entrepreneurial self that you're supposed to sell your labor even to your employer that you know that nobody owes you anything you have to stand up in your own two feet and like even if you if if you look at soap operas it's always about people being entrepreneurs you hardly ever see a positive representation for example of a trade union official hardly ever you hardly ever see a positive representation of of a working environment that we all that we all appreciate so much and we've come to appreciate just how much we appreciate it because of COVID and we can't turn up at work anymore and hang up with our mates so so so so so that's my long-winded answer of saying we shouldn't underestimate the challenge that we're facing and it needs to be broken up into into a set of realizable changes that people can see here's how I fit into this is here's how I can take action in my workplace in my union in my community and I fit into this and this is what I can do and this is and this is when I when I do this here's a positive change not only for me but also for the the the economy and society and I think that's the challenge that that that we're all facing is trying to find a credible narrative that explains the justice of our case because the because the the economics have been shown like like like like all of all of the researchers you have here have can absolutely stand up the facts so simply being right we're not winning and there's lots of good examples simply having good examples we're not winning so we need to we need to join forces we need to find the things on which we agree we need to find a way to encourage people to understand the belief that change is possible but most importantly how they fit into being an active agent in achieving that that change so I think that's why these these discussions are important because they're their opportunities to have a mosaic of solidarity and that what we're each what each and every one of us is doing is important in building up that that that mosaic of solidarity and it comes as no surprise to any of you that I believe that the trade union movement is the force that can actually do this sometimes there were like a tanker you know to get us to change course it's not easy and but you know but that's why you know we need we need all of you turning up and showing up at at union meetings and making sure that that that people understand just just how how how much of a change could be achieved by reducing working hours thank you and there's actually a neat follow-up to that question which I'll ask now which is in relation to the eight hours movement which was this international movement which cut across you know various unions and countries and today a lot of the particularly of the unions it's quite it's specific union focus so whether it's Igemetal or the CWU what from your point of view and I guess you're in a good position to answer this from your position is what scope is there for a wider cross union movement for working time reduction so at the ETUC congress that was held in Vienna last year we had included for the mandate for this secretariat to open up a discussion with our affiliates on exactly that question so so so so so not only is the possibility of of us coming to an outcome is that's what's anticipated so so so so we will need to report we'll say two and a half three years from now to the next congress to say well here's here's how we considered this question and here's what we did in relation to it it sits on my desk and we are discussing it within the ETUC collective bargaining committee to look for a joined up collective bargaining strategy I explained a little bit about about that vision of using where we're strong and that's why unions like Igemetal are really really important because because if we want to get if we want to lead by saying well this is the type of agreement this is the blueprint for an agreement you don't go to you don't go and try to negotiate that with a Ryanair do you know so you know like that you look at you know a strong union within a responsible industrial relations environment and so so yeah I'm I'm I'm optimistic and I think I think as I said that the COVID is a moment and people there is a growing understanding within within all political say viewpoints that that that that that the most vulnerable workers can't be the consequence of all of this can't be that they're that that they that we go back to the way things were before that that that that exploitation has to be tackled and and that the amount of hours that people have to work is part of that discussion but it's is popping up in lots of different ways but yeah so I'm I think that yeah we have the mandate to have a discussion we're developing that discussion unions are bringing forward motions there's already lots of activity as you've heard during this conference and so the ETUC now needs to bring that all together so we have a clear set of policy demands and to do that in a way and that the that the that the that is like bottom up it can't be like the ETUC telling everybody right you know here's what you all need to do and as you know that's not that's not that's that's never successful it needs to be bottom up it needs to be discussions and and they are already on the agenda we're already having initiative discussions in our collective bargaining committee. That's really interesting to hear I'm really exciting and and I guess that's exactly what what the network is in many ways and it'd be lovely to continue that conversation with the unions with kind of broader civil society and it's certainly what the four-day week campaign tries to do in the UK so it'd be lovely to chat more after after this without that. We're getting towards the end of this panel discussion now I'm going to give the opportunity to each of our speakers to to kind of give a last word and you don't have to because we've already spoken a lot but if you do want to have kind of a final word or a summary then feel free to step up. Sean would you like to would you like to say something at the end? Just thank you for putting this together I spoke a lot and too quickly so I'll stop there and a great meeting some new faces and activists in the movement doing the work you do and fantastic keep up the great work. Great thank you Sean it's great having you here as well. Katarina. Yeah thank you for having me I hope I don't know it sounds a little bit if I'm too proud of myself I don't know but I want to spread the word and maybe just push this to all the other countries to find unions and Fridays for Future to get together because I think this struggle is going to get harder and the fights I don't know if you saw it in Germany right now Verdi is in a really big struggle against the politics because they want to cut and not raise the wages of nurses even in the crisis so I think we truly have to get together and I don't know like Luisa Neubauer who is the face of the Fridays for Future movement in Germany her mother is a nurse so I think we can't not see the connection between all of this and I think I hope this will get beyond Germany and will be an example for all the other countries too. Thank you Katarina. Rachel. Yeah I'll take this time to just quickly respond so I can see there's a question and I won't have time to type it out about the NHS yeah I think you're absolutely right like public sector and NHS places being the first place trial for a week would be amazing I know that's something that we've kind of thought about having nurses on board in the past and you've kind of reignited my like memory of that so I think that's maybe something we can take forward from this yeah just thank you everyone it's been really great to hear about all the different ways that yeah that people have been working to like deliver change and I think in particular what stood out for me was just how much collaboration between different groups of people and different unions was kind of a theme of this and I think that's something that yeah we should all think about how we take forward so thank you. Thanks so much Rachel and Esther do you have any final words? Well I want to completely agree with Margretta's comments in the chat which is the two things which is that we capture the moment of Covid and everything that we've learned and like the public opinion behind that but also that we use this experience to build firmer foundations for the just transition and to let to combine them I completely agree with that and to end by saying enjoy the weekend. What a perfect way to end it on and thank you Esther and thank you to all brilliant panellists for your talk today it was greatly valued. I am going to pass over to to Adrienne I think who is doing the last bit of this conference. Yes thank you Ellen it was very great to have you from this front table so yes a little word of conclusion and I will start to thank the people that have been working with us to make this conference happen and it was very a collective effort so by order so yes Philippe Frey you are the first for the music and foundation Will you are strong from autonomy? Alexandra are staying from the UK Philippe Frey from the Center of Emancipatory Technology Studies also from the support of Rosa-Alexandre Foundation from Brussels and from A2E also to their support to organizing the conference and to Toril Dour, Amy Studier from ALDA of Iceland that has been our technical host for today so thank you and thank you to all of our speakers it was very great to have you and to for that so thank you thank you for all this great discussion before I conclude Margarita, Toril Dour can you can you put also every member of the team if it's possible and Margarita I will give you the floor for some few words and I will conclude and give you some information about the next project of the network so Margarita you have the floor to somewhat of conclusion if you want yes thank you Adria yes I also have to thank to all our contributors it was for me really amazing that we listened so from so different points of view from trade unions from the Green New Deal people from Fridays for Future and from our scientists on post growth and so on all these different perspectives on the question of working time reduction and climate crisis I before did not believe that it would go in this way together as it did and I think we have a lot to yeah let's say to have learned by all these discussions first of all that working time this reduction is really on the agenda by Corona but also by campaigns like the four days week campaign and also by the question of the climate and that all these trials are in the frame of let's say on the one hand the knowledge now that we have to fight against the profit maximization principle in all energy and industry sectors when we want to get something like a Green New Deal and at the same time that we have to take the people with us to win them with the idea that the wealth today is not any more the wealth of money or consume but more than ever the wealth of time and I'm very happy that we maybe now still have also with that widened our network somewhat I would invite everybody of you to join us more steadily and also to connect with Aydan for our newsletter European with that on working time reduction and so I really I'm very hopeful that we now everybody of us will in his contact go ahead with this joint question of working time reduction and fight against the climate crisis yes many things okay thank you Magaeta yes I would just to have some words but you are saying the essential things about it so yes thank you all for all this fruitful discussion and debate the goal of this meeting this conference was to give an overview of some experimentation in Europe and to fulfill the goal of the network to connect initiative to connect people and to make links between you so if you want to contact another and start working together that is our goal and we will be happy to help you with that and to welcome you like Magaeta I say in the network but I think also the goal of this conference was also to have us to explore the deep connection between working time reduction and climate change and climate issues and we did it and all of the round table show the great opportunities but also the challenges that we have ahead and we have to to talk about it but it was very inspiring and very motivating to do some action and to try to build something together so I think this is quite positive and the last round table about the the example that we discussed about coalition and what has been shared by every speaker it was really great to inside our network and every one of us to develop the link between us to try to build a campaign in all national local places where we live when we are and to do things so and to have this mindset to create connection and ask everyone to to work together so thank you for that just to conclude some words about the network so the next project of the network would be to continue the european news later so I then put you the link on the chat thank you and so if you have something you want to send to share please you have his contact on the website you can send it or to us and we will this newsletter is the same every quarter so basically the idea is to spread the word and share information so we will continue that we will also develop our I think our next project we need to have a website on website for us to share information more broadly and more easily so you can find them also the minutes of the last conference about the minutes so I have some question about the presentation we will diffuse the presentation with the minutes of the of the conference and we have been recorded the conference but I for now maybe but for now we have not we will not release the whole conference but we will make a short video of the highlights for each one table because we have a one day alpha video is too long to too short but with the minutes it would be easier and with a video to have some something to share on the so you will receive it by email this is we will be the last email we send you for the conference because to respect the gpd and everything so you will get one email for us with that information the minutes the video maybe some links to and some contacts and we are at your disposal and also to finish our next project will be a next meeting that is very important for us and so I think it will happen very soon at the soonest as possible we can say and to meet and if possible physically it would be good to see all of you in one room to to to discuss and so that's our objective our main objective I think for for the next year and as my guide I say we are happy to welcome you to the network but the coordination team of a network is also open if you want to help organize this meeting send us an email it would be with pleasure we are all volunteers and as the network is growing and growing we need more more more human human resources human people to help us organize that so basically I think I have said everything I wanted to send you to say to you so thank you for your participation your question it was very great and I I wish you a good weekend like best of luck