European Federation of Construction and Woodworkers

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The European Federation of Construction and Woodworkers (EFBWW) is a European trade union federation based in Brussels . Internationally, this trade union federation also appears under the names European Federation of Building and Wood Workers (EFBWW) and Fédération Européenne des Travailleurs du Bâtiment et du Bois (FETBB).

organization structure

The EFBWW brings together 76 member unions from the construction and building materials industry, the wood industry, forestry and related branches of industry with around 2,000,000 members in 34 countries.

Are members

President of the EFBWW is Dietmar Schäfers ( IG BAU ), General Secretary of the Swede Sam Hägglund (election or re-election 2015).

The EFBWW is a member of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) and cooperates with the Construction and Woodworkers International (BWI). The EFBWW is a social partner recognized by the EU in the sectoral European social dialogue (at sector level with the association of European construction employers' associations, the Fédération de l'Industrie Européenne de la Construction (FIEC)).

The EFBWW, alone or together with the FIEC, maintains multilingual information pages with information on construction work conditions in many European countries.

Creation of the EFBH

As a reaction to the establishment of the EEC , the construction and timber unions from Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Luxembourg affiliated to the International Federation of Building and Woodworkers (IFBWW) formed a “Joint European Committee for the Building and Wood Sectors” in 1958 ".

This initially rather loose association within the framework of the IFBWW quickly became independent with increasing European integration and the associated greater need for a coordinated policy towards the EEC institutions and gave itself its own statute. When the Belgian trade unionist Juan Fernandez was appointed secretary of the committee in 1968, the headquarters of the association's secretariat, which had previously been established in Amsterdam and Frankfurt, was relocated to Brussels.

In 1974 a new statute was passed at a general assembly in order to adapt the structures to new tasks and the expansion of the EEC and the previous joint committee initially renamed itself to the “European Federation of Building and Woodworkers in the Community” (EFBHG). This should also create the conditions for influencing the policy of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), which was founded at the same time.

At the same time the limitation of membership to member unions of the IFBWW was abandoned. From this point on, other building and timber unions, whose umbrella organizations also belonged to the ETUC, could join the EFBHG. At the same time, trade unions from the then new EEC member states Denmark, Great Britain and Ireland as well as an Italian trade union (Filca-CiSL) not belonging to the IFBWW were added. With each new expansion of the EEC, then the EC and finally the EU, the number of affiliated member unions continued to grow.

In 1983 the name was changed again to EFBH.

From 1989 onwards, Christian-oriented trade unions from the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France also joined the EFBWW after its umbrella organization, the European Christian Federation, had dissolved and the Christian trade union confederations finally joined the ETUC. From 1990 membership was also made possible for the trade unions of the EFTA countries, so that trade unions from Switzerland and Norway joined. Meanwhile, the trade unions from potential candidate countries of the EU have the possibility of membership, so that Turkish and Croatian trade unions also belong to the EFBWW.

literature

  • "50 Years of Solidarity and Engagement 1958-2008 (PDF; 2.77 MB), accessed March 29, 2018
  • Hans-Wolfgang Platzer, Torsten Müller, The global and European trade union federations: Handbook and analyzes of transnational trade union politics, Berlin (Ed. Sigma) 2009, half volume. 2, 479 p. Table of contents , there in particular p. 557-588

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ page "About the EFBWW" , accessed on 29 March 2018
  2. ^ "Affiliated organizations" , accessed March 29, 2018
  3. ↑ "EFBWW Structure" page , accessed on 29 March 2018