Private Equity Investments and Labour: Current Trends and Challenges of Trade Unions

Maria Alejandra Caporale Madi

José Ricardo Barbosa Gonçalves

The 2008 global economic crisis revealed how deeply the social life of the working class has been affected by deregulated finance. In this setting, the impact of private equity funds on working conditions has been attracting lots of attention since private equity funds - such as Blackstone, Carlyle Group or Texas Pacific Group - have been responsible for the employment standards of tens of millions of workers. Truly, as workers are confronted with over US $ 1-trillion in worldwide concentrated private equity buyout power, the relevance of private equity funds is outstanding in an analysis of the perspectives of mergers & acquisitions, employment and organised labour.

Maturing Contradictions: the 2010 Public Sector Strike in South Africa

Claire Ceruti

The huge strike in August by South African public sector workers brought the number of strike days in 2010 to the highest ever. Teachers and hospital staff struck for three weeks despite police harassment of picket lines and a series of court interdicts to prevent police, soldiers and nurses from striking(1). The strike started after members forced their leaders to reject government’s ‘final offer’ of 7% and R700 (€70) housing allowance. After seeing the government’s lavish expenditure on the 2010 soccer world cup, strikers found it difficult to believe that government could not meet their demands. The public servants were asking for an 8.5% wage increase and R1000 (€100) a month housing subsidy. However, the strike was much more than a wage strike: three years ago, public sector workers struck during the dying days of the regime of previous president, Thabo Mbeki, while the 2010 strike was a major test of his successor, Jacob Zuma and thus of the unions’ strategy for social change.

The struggle against pension reform in France

Philippe Légé

In 2010, France has experienced an intense social struggle. The triggering factor was the pension reform which the government of Prime Minister François Fillon argued was necessary to “save the pension system”. The French system relies on compulsory basic and supplementary state pension schemes financed mainly by contributions (proportional to wages) and taxes decided at national level. According to the government, because of the growing number of retired people and an ageing population, it is necessary to raise the legal retirement age from 60 to 62 (and from 65 to 67 for a full pension) in order to encourage people to work longer. But the trade unions are very sceptical about this reasoning, for the average age at which workers cease activity is 58.8 years. And 60% of workers are not in employment when they claim their pension rights: they are either unemployed, or invalid. For example, “25% of nurses and 40% of auxiliary nurses are invalid when they retire” (Lambert 2010). In the first part of this article, the terms of the debate will be analysed, and in the second part the struggle around the pension reform will be discussed.