Emergency motion on the urgency of an action plan for quality industrial jobs and a strong and ambitious reindustrialisation

Furthermore, we know that never before has so much money been spent by multinationals, Big Tech, and fossil fuel lobby groups on lobbying activities targeting European policymakers. Last year, more than €343 million was spent by companies that report allocating more than €1 million a year to lobbying. This represents an increase of one third compared to 2020 (and we are aware that this is a blatant underestimation).

We know the result of this strengthened alliance of employers: deregulation and dismantling of social correction mechanisms in the name of preserving European competitiveness (e.g. the Omnibus package).

What’s more, the employers’ side is supported by our increasingly right-wing governments, which are doing nothing but opting for bad decisions like austerity and deregulation. At the same time, while showing ingenuity in order to evade tax, companies have never paid out as many dividends to their shareholders as they did this year.

It is obvious that the ‘Just Transition’ is a priority area for our trade union organisations and we fully subscribe to the Strategic Plan that will be debated and approved at the Congress in Budapest. With the nuance and expectations outlined by the ETUC in its press release of 12/5/2025:
“Trade unions are always favourable to genuine social dialogue, but the time for words and speeches is over. The Commission must present a European industrial plan aimed at protecting and creating new, quality jobs by investing in our industries.”
It is also URGENT that we, as representatives of European industrial workers, express ourselves with one voice, more clearly and more united.

The coming months will be decisive for European workers.

To achieve this, we need a stronger and more assertive industriAll Europe, around which we must unite!

We expect our European organisation to:

•    Intensify, more than ever, the fluidity of communication between us;
•    Make our voice heard even more clearly by our European elected representatives, in discussion forums and the lobbying groups in which it participates;
•    Clearly demands investment in industry and R&D;
•    Encourages a coordinated action plan across all our regions for the promotion and defence of:
o    Our quality jobs
o    Fair wages
o    Fair taxation
o    Decent pensions
o    A European industrial plan that rises to the scale of today’s challenges rather than a race towards a war economy
o    Democracy both in the workplace and in society
o    Professional training that ensures the quality of our workforce, which has up to now been renowned
•    Advocates for an employment protection mechanism, similar to the SURE programme which helped save jobs during the pandemic, in order to prevent irreversible losses of our industrial capacity;
•    Encourages more support measures for those who lose their jobs despite everything. We need to keep our highly-skilled workforce already prepared for the challenges of tomorrow – not sacrifice them or let them to evaporate into thin air.
•    Strengthens and supports the workers’ representatives on EWCs during restructurings, in their struggle to maintain jobs and mutual solidarity
•    Compiles a detailed study of our sectors
o    Development/industrial decline
o    Job creation/job losses
o    Catalogue of advancements/social regressions
•    Conducts a review of union strategy over the past two years

• But also opposes any form of austerity and deregulation of the labour market and workers’ social protection systems

We need to provide the workers we represent with trade union answers to the problems they face today. We must fight for a future for our sectors and their value chains, and stop the current haemorrhaging.

It is time to send a stronger signal and to build a more powerful counterforce with our members, our activists, the unions of the Member States and OUR European federation, industriAll Europe.