The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) has organized a day of action today protesting cuts under the banner “jobs and growth!” The European protest will take place in Cyprus, Serbia, Italy, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, France, Portugal, Spain, and Ireland (google map), with the main event set for Brussels. That action will include, along with Belgian trade unionists, delegates from across Europe. In Spain, a general strike has also been planned.

One narrative dates the new Age of Austerity to the crisis in Greece, however, the crisis has long been in the making. A recent Reuters article wonders if there is even any power left in the European Union? Citing the Monthly Labor Review, the article claims that “Europe’s union density — membership as a proportion of the total workforce — fell between 1970 and 2002 to 26.3 percent from 37.8 percent.” And as in France, where workers recently took to the streets over plans to change the retirement age from sixty to sixty-two, most recent labor actions appear defensive.

At today’s protest the ETUC is calling for a “New Social Deal” in Europe that appears somewhat similar to the One Nation Working Together platform in DC. How is one to asses the program? New bottle, old wine? In a scathing critique of the ETUC, Asbjørn Wahl argues that the “social pact” — often referred to as the “fordist comprise” in the US — set European unions on a business-friendly organizing track that ultimately “deradicalization of the labor movement.” On top of this, Wahl believes that since the “social pact” unraveled in the 1970 any call for a return to the postwar “compromise” fatally misconstrues the current relationship of forces. Off the mainland Spiked! editor Brendan O’Neill could not agree with Wahl more. He argues in the context of the Trade Union Congress in Britain that the “rehabilitation of the emptied-out rhetoric of old-style class politics springs from the narrow needs of an at-sea political class.” The same could go for the ETUC.