Letter of support for the Lithuanian trade unions protests

Re: Letter of support for the Lithuanian trade unions protests

Dear Prime Minister,
dear Sirs,

The European Metalworkers’ Federation represents over 6.5 million metalworkers and their unions throughout Europe. We were informed by our colleagues in Lithuania that today three national trade union federations – the Lithuanian Trade Union Confederation, the Lithuanian Labour Federation and the Lithuanian Trade Union “Solidarumas” – are organising a protest action in Vilnius with the main slogan “European wage for Lithuanian employees!”.

The EMF fully supports the protest and welcomes that colleagues in Lithuania are willing to take action. In recent years, we have experienced throughout Europe downward pressure on the working conditions, especially on the payment and the working time.

As a European industry federation we are especially concerned that initiatives have been initiated in a member country of the European Union to increase the allowed working time from 48 to 60 hours per week as this will undermine the existing European Working Time Directive and its role as a minimum safeguard against long and irregular working hours in EU Member States. The EMF is calling on European leaders to listen to the wishes of the EU’s democratically elected Parliament, and of the workers, expressed via the European trade union movement, and to agree on a revised Directive that protects the health, safety, and family life of workers in Europe.

Further, the EMF fully supports our Lithuanian colleagues’ demand that wages should reflect the growing economic possibilities of Lithuania. Workers have played the central role in generating the economic growth Lithuania has experienced in the past few years. It is there right to benefit from this by increased wages through collective bargaining. It is the task of politics to guarantee fair conditions for collective agreements and good social standards, i.e. by increasing the minimum monthly wages. From our point of view, the demands to increase the minimum wage to 700 Litas (around 203 Euros) as of January 2007 are fully justified. Due to low wages, as many as 340 000 Lithuanians or 10% of the population have left the country since 1990 in search of a higher standard of living.

We would kindly ask you to acknowledge the protest of the Lithuanian workers and consider the trade union requests proposed to you.

Yours sincerely,

Peter Scherrer
General Secretary

Bart Samyn
Deputy General Secretary