NTF Guidelines for the future (2023 - 2028)

Foreword

When we departed from our previous congress five years ago in Aalborg in Denmark, no-one could predict what the world would look like today. A global pandemic with massive lockdowns and a war in Europe were not something we expected or even wanted to believe possible. For Nordic transport workers this congress period has been full of changing plans, adopting to a new reality, and finding ways to survive. But also, a period to learn new ways to cooperate and succeed.

The covid-virus started spreading in the beginning of 2020 and turned into a global pandemic. Most countries started lockdowns, remote working and online meetings became a norm, and boarders, even between the Nordic countries, were closed. The Nordic model showed its power of flexibility as aid packages were negotiated at a fast rate from the beginning of the pandemic. Transport workers played a crucial role in keeping the countries moving – taking critical people to work, keeping the warehouses and shops stocked and making the transportation of medicine, test results and vaccines possible. The world would simply have stopped if it wasn’t for the transport workers working at the forefront of the pandemic.    

While some transport modes, such as aviation, ferries and tourist coaches suffered from lockdowns, other transport workers had too much work to do. When almost everything suddenly was delivered to the front doors of people’s homes, warehouse workers and delivery drivers worked day and night, often in poor conditions. The amount of home deliveries and work facilitated via different apps increased exponentially. To understand this topic better, the NTF conducted a study about platform work in the Nordic countries, which was published in 2022.

This document aims to list key elements of the congress theme Future of transport and how the Nordic unions can participate in shaping the future. The document describes the strengths of the NTF and its affiliates by giving good examples and lists tasks and aims for the coming congress period under different headings: Future of transport, Environment, Nordic coordination, Women’s participation, Sections, Communication and Campaigning, and International Solidarity.   

The congress period has been a challenging one, but we want to end on a positive note. The past five years have shown us that the Nordic model still works and that the Nordic unions are flexible and innovative. We learned to keep in contact and communicate in new and efficient ways, the first ever collective agreements were signed for platform workers, and the importance of cooperating and working together has never been greater. Let’s start the next congress period as an even more unified and cooperative Nordic team!