 Hello and welcome to this video on networks of solidarity and trust trade union strategies along the global automotive value chain. My name is Hendrik Simon. I'm a researcher at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt and at Frankfurt University. In the next 10 minutes or so I would like to first introduce you to global value chains as a social problem and a challenge to transnational trade union organizing. And second, I will conduct a short interview with Jochen Schrot and Katrin Schäferst from IG Metall on the IG Metall International Network Initiative, an interesting approach to transnationally organizing value chains on a plant to plant level. So let me start with a basic perspective on global value chains. Since the 1990s we have seen an enormous differentiation and transformation of the global automotive industry. Whereas 30 years ago all product steps from development to marketing were each integrated in a single company. Today these production steps are interwoven in complex value chains. But now the question arises, how can we characterize these new value chains? And here I would like to introduce you to two main assumptions. So the first assumption has been formulated for instance by former OECD Secretary General Angel Iria. He has argued that in a highly integrated and interdependent global economy trade liberalization is essential to foster competition, innovation and development. Well consistent with this assumption early research on value chains focused on inter-firm relationships and possibilities to industrial upgrading. So here too the basic thesis was that in principle global value chains are wealth enhancing. Now if that was the only possible answer to the rise of global value chains we actually would not have to deal with them in the context of a conference on social problems of course. But here's the second assumption which now comes into play and I would like to underline that recent research on global value chains has an underline that these value chains indeed are a social problem. And Benjamin Selvin from Sussex University for instance has analyzed garment and electronic chains in Cambodia and China and he has shown that contrary to these very optimistic claims I just presented, value chains generate new forms of worker poverty. Similarly Carmen Ludwig and I have tried to show that also automotive value chains are enormous catalysts of inequality in terms of wages, working conditions and life prospects of employees. So if we start from these more critical research insights on global value chains we can formulate the finding that there are enormous challenges for workers in global value chains and of course this also raises the question of transnational trade union organizing as well as trade union organizing from below. So actually it is widely acknowledged that due to company power trade unions face major challenges in developing effective responses towards the globalization of production processes. So this is due to something I would call a fundamental similarity of non-similarity in global value chains because while companies are globally positioned and now dominate 80% of world trade transnational strategies of trade unions have so far been largely confined to the national frameworks and global value chains actually have resulted in increasing competition between workers and national labor movements and this fragmentation of workers' relationships may prevent transnational solidarity but on the other hand global value chains could actually also foster transnational solidarity due to their in a logic or their structure. Just think of just in time production and the possibility to identify effective points of disruption. So it is therefore quite possible to develop power power from below even in value chains dominated by companies and we have seen in the cases of several trade unions like IGMETAL or NUNSA in South Africa that there are new strategies to foster transnational organizing in the automotive chain. So now as I promised in the second part of my talk I would like to focus on a particular interesting example in the automotive value chain which is the international network initiative of IGMETAL. This international network initiative represents a strategic reorientation one could say of IGMETAL's transnational trade union work. It aims to promote more intensive and lasting transnational cooperation between workers representatives in an international company. So the special feature of this initiative is the focus on the plant level. So trade unionists, works councils, members or shop stewards are globally connected with each other at the plant level in order to jointly develop counter power against company strategies and to build trust and solidarity. At the moment the network initiative has projects with various partners in Germany and abroad currently for example in Mexico and South Africa and one best case or best practice case in the initiative has been the network project on the US company LEA at year one supplier and here it has been inter alia been possible to invite the South African shop steward to the meetings of the european works council of LEA and now in the interview with Jochen Schroed and Katrin Schäfer I would like to find out how exactly this worked. So welcome to the second part of my presentation now joined by Jochen Schroed and Katrin Schäfer. Jochen Schroed is director of the transnational trade union policy department at IGMETAL headquarters in Frankfurt and Katrin Schäfer is a trade unionist with a regional focus on sub-Saharican Africa at this very department at IGMETAL headquarters and she's also the coordinator of the international network initiative we are now going to talk about. So thanks so much Jochen and Katrin for joining me. The first question is could you summarize again what the basic idea of the IGMETAL network initiative is and to what extent would you say is it suitable for generating transnational solidarity? International network initiative aims to promote intensive cooperation between employee representatives at sites in Germany and also abroad. The focus is on building sustainable network structures and to jointly address company specific issues like for example the transformation of the working world, dealing with relocations or coping with the pandemic. The aim is to counteract undercutting competition with regard to working and employment conditions and to jointly develop strategies that focus on the interests of employees. At our near-goal track the idea is to address concrete common concerns of employees at the worldwide locations through more intensive transnational cooperation. For example German colleagues can pass on information to the South African counterparts or vice versa. In this way we can ultimately demand that the workforces in the individual companies be prepared for changed work processes for example that they be trained. In short it is a matter of familiarizing as many colleagues as possible in the lead group with the effects of changed value change products and processes of forcing communication between the employees of the locations and strengthening cooperation in solidarity. If we know how capitalism works at the end it is important that we use our networking structures to promote transparency, exchange and also multiple trust at the trade union level. Yeah thank you so much so building mutual trust and solidarity is important. What are the main challenges you're facing particularly in your work? The corporation like Lea naturally has no interest whatsoever in implementing German co-determination structures worldwide. The company has to put up with these structures here in Germany but certainly doesn't want to see that in Morocco, Mexico or South Africa because without these structures it can continue to put the workers there under pressure and expose them to poor working conditions. That's why the company is also trying to avoid the strengthening of the transnational trade union process for example by making transparency more difficult. One example in Morocco where Lea employs nearly 20,000 workers. So when we visit plans over there Morocco we are completely sealed off so that we cannot talk to individual employees at their workplaces and what is also true for Morocco is that we see there's a clear sign that the employees have not yet dared to make any contact at all with the European Works Council and also we've been informed that the employees of another automotive supplier who took part in one of the trade union workshop in Morocco a couple of years ago lost their jobs afterwards and it goes even further because some of our colleagues from the trade unions they told us that there are blacklists on which employees who are involved in any trade union activities end up on. So they do this to prevent them from finding any work again in another industrial company. So this makes our action all the more important because in this way we can show that we care and that we try to support through our transnational solidarity. Yeah thank you. In the case of the Lea project one of here aims was to include workers from African plants to be admitted to the European Works Council of Lea. What would you say were the successes of the Lea project that can be highlighted so far? An important success is certainly the networking that has already taken place with colleagues from non-EU countries and Africa with the 11 countries represented in the European Works Council. At the last physical meeting of the European Works Council in May 2019 in Spain two elected Lea employee representatives from South Africa and also Serbia were invited by us to learn more about working conditions at Lea in their respective countries. However Lea management requested that the members of the European Works Council should exclude these employee representatives from the exchange with management. However the European Works Council jointly rejected this where upon management left the meeting without a report at all. The decision in the EWC was a great sign of transnational solidarity and that we do not allow to be divided. What's more one German side rejected request over time over Witzen as a result of management's appearance at the European Works Council's meeting. Both of these things show Lea employees will not be played off against each other. Lea management advertisers will fight with the slogan working together and winning together as one Lea. The employee representatives in the EWC show what that means. Yeah thank you so much again Jochen and Katrin for these wonderful answers and I am now looking forward to the discussion. Thank you so much.