Tribune. Hundreds of thousands of seasonal workers crossing Europe gripped by the pandemic to help harvest have had to deal with a mosaic of inconsistent border rules. European fishermen have been stranded in the Atlantic due to the closure of landing ports in Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire. Commercial workers in major cities have been assaulted by customers over shortages of certain consumer goods and mandatory social distancing measures.
Printers have faced shortages of solvents due to exploding demand for hydroalcoholic gel. Telecommunications technicians have even been harassed because, according to the rumor of social networks, 5G would promote the pandemic! How did employers and workers deal with such situations, sometimes totally unexpected?
The European Trade Union Institute looked at social negotiations between representatives of employers and workers at European level. Some thirty sectors of economic activity, ranging from hotels and restaurants to private security services, including tourism, transport, agriculture and fishing, live entertainment, etc., have been scrutinized. in the light of the measures taken or requested from Europe and from governments to try to overcome the concrete consequences of the pandemic in their sector (““Sacred union” ? Sectoral social partners in the face of the Covid-19 crisis in Europe ”, Christophe Degryse, ETUI 2021-4 report).
Sectorial management
It is true that the management of the pandemic by the public authorities has been mainly sectoral. Most of the measures taken for more than a year relate to the opening or closing of schools, shops, restaurants and cafes, public administrations, culture, tourism, etc.
Despite themselves, these sectors constitute the main adjustment variable to the pandemic. And the interdependencies create domino effects. For example, employers and workers in sea fishing provide nearly 50 billion meals a year to Europeans; When, at the start of the pandemic, they warn the European Commission that fishing vessels may have to stop their operations, we realize that the priority will be to find the conditions for maintaining economic activity at all costs.
How to adapt in a few days supply chains, transport services, logistics, port activity – without which 75% of goods would have been outright stranded in Europe in spring 2020? The analysis of European sectoral social dialogue in times of pandemic provides several lessons.
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