Together we are strong!

About the book

The European automotive industry is undergoing deep structural transformations. In addition to the twin challenge of mastering the digital and ecological transition, it has to deal with the effects of the COVID-19 containment measures. All these changes are taking place within highly globalised value chains that have resulted from excessive offshoring and thus affect workers beyond single nation states or the European Union alone. The shift to electric mobility and the advancement of digitalisation will fundamentally restructure the value chains of the European automotive industry. This transformation poses multiple challenges to workers and to the organisations representing them. This brochure discusses those challenges from a labour perspective. More specifically, it explores what transnational solidarity means in this context and what role industrial policy needs to play in this process. On this basis, the brochure suggests concrete policies and measures which workers and their representative organisations should fight for, and identifies possible coalition partners for the social-ecological transformation of the European automotive industry.

About the author

Julia Eder is a social scientist specialised in trade and industrial policy. She has worked as a researcher and lecturer for various institutions, including the Johannes Kepler University Linz and the Marie Jahoda – Otto Bauer Institut in Linz, Austria. She has also been a lecturer in trade union education programmes and, more recently, she has been engaged as a policy adviser for left-wing political parties and organisations in Germany and Austria. In addition, she is active in a number of civil society organisations, including as deputy chair of the Mattersburg Circle for Development Policies, and is a member of the editorial board of the Austrian Journal of Development Studies.