Several hundred representatives of workers in the energy, water and waste sector came together to decide policies for the next 4 years at a Verdi Conference 10-11 May 2007, Berlin.

The EPSU Deputy General Secretary addressed the Conference welcoming the proposals to fully participate in the campaign to obtain a million signatures for the petition. We need your support. You can be the ambassadors of another Europe in which not markets and profits are central but in which people take center-stage, he said. Erhard Ott, Verdi Executive Committee member for the utilities area supported the EPSU campaign for Quality Public Services. We will contribute to collect the million signatures for the ETUC petition. A resolution to this end was adopted.

The representatives voted against European Commission proposals to impose ownership unbundling in the energy sector and against proposals to create independent system operators, Sven Bergelin argued: These proposals are a risk for investments. They endanger working places, collective agreements and information and consultation rights. Verdi works with other European unions to oppose these plans”.

Verdi President Frank Bsirske asked conference delegates to support the Telekom strike in which workers are seeking to block the outsourcing of 50.000 workers who should work longer hours and for less pay and benefits. These are brutal policies of the employers who demand sacrifices of workers to reap huge profits. The Verdi President said: We need an offensive European trade union strategy for a Social Europe. We do not accept that financial, economic and political elites want to make it normal that 2-3 people have to work to give a family a decent income. Who is the third person anyway, the child, the grandparent ???