Speaking at the Trade Union Roundtable on Delivering Social Justice in Practice, organised by the Global Progressive Mobilisation in Barcelona, Judith Kirton-Darling, industriAll Europe’s general secretary stressed that Europe’s manufacturing sectors remain among the most organised in the world, yet workers are experiencing pressures on a scale not seen for years.

From metalworking and machinery to chemicals, steel and automotive supply chains, multiple transitions are converging at once. Global competition, persistently high energy costs, rapid digitalisation and the race to decarbonise industry are reshaping production models across the continent. In too many cases, decisions taken in distant corporate boardrooms are resulting in downsizing and job losses in local communities.

Judith Kirton-Darling emphaised that “strong trade union organisation does not provide immunity from change, but it does make a decisive difference in how workers experience it”

Collective bargaining remains the most effective tool for delivering fairness during industrial transformation. In sectors where sectoral agreements and worker representation are well established, restructuring can be managed through negotiation rather than unilateral imposition.

Across manufacturing, unions have secured employment protections, working-time arrangements, income guarantees and access to lifelong learning when companies reorganise production or introduce new technologies. “While bargaining cannot prevent every job loss said Judith Kirton-Darling, it ensures dignity, predictability and a fair sharing of the costs of change”

Cross-border trade union coordination is highly important for responding to multinational employers. Without stronger European coordination, companies can continue to play workers and production sites against each other, driving down standards and using the weakest protections as a benchmark for all.

Turning to industrial policy, Judith Kirton-Darling continued “Europe has rightly rediscovered the need to strengthen resilience in strategic sectors such as clean technologies, semiconductors, critical raw materials and the circular economy. Strategic autonomy, depends on maintaining industrial depth, productive capacity and research capability within Europe”

However, workers increasingly see a contradiction when public money is allocated to industry while jobs continue to disappear. For industriAll Europe, industrial policy must therefore be tied to binding social conditions, ensuring that public support delivers secure employment, quality jobs and investment in skills.

This is particularly urgent in energy-intensive sectors such as steel and chemicals, where decarbonisation must go hand in hand with worker participation, training and long-term employment guarantees.

Judith Kirton-Darling said the same principle applies to climate policy more broadly. “A Just Transition can only succeed when workers are involved in designing change, rather than being presented with decisions after the fact. Without social guarantees and regional investment, climate ambition risks fuelling resistance rather than progress”

The digital transition, including AI and algorithmic management, is creating new risks of surveillance, work intensification and job erosion if left unregulated. Where unions negotiate digital change, workers gain stronger protections, clarity and access to new skills.

Concluding, Judith Kirton-Darling called for enforceable rights across global supply chains and rejected reliance on voluntary corporate commitments.

“Collective bargaining is not a luxury, it is a lifeline – and the foundation of social justice in a rapidly changing world.”