ONE OF the country’s largest trade unions, Unite, is to call on its 60,000 members to vote No in the forthcoming referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
The union, which also opposed the Lisbon Treaty in the last referendum, said that its opposition on this occasion was based “on the lack of any progress in the critical area of workers’ rights”.
Unite Irish regional secretary Jimmy Kelly said yesterday: “We were told that workers’ rights would be protected under Lisbon and that we were scaremongering. When the Irish Government went seeking legal guarantees they got them in areas of taxation, of morality, and in numbers of commissioners but not in relation to workers’ rights.”
“Instead we got a ‘solemn declaration’ that is worthless given the way in which the European Courts have interpreted workers’ rights as being subservient to those of business.”
Mr Kelly said that in the area of workers’ rights. however, there was a singular failure to secure the clause that would prevent social dumping and second class treatment of workers.
He said that Unite and other unions across Europe had sought the inclusion of a social progress clause in the Lisbon Treaty which would make it clear that the fundamental right to organise and the right to strike were in no way subordinate to the economic freedoms pursued by the EU member states.
“This was rejected and instead we are told to have faith in national governments willingness to treat workers fairly and with respect, and for Europe to act in the common good for all its citizens,” he said.
Trade union leaders are divided on their attitude to Lisbon. Last week a group of trade unionists supporting the treaty said that it represented a major advance for workers.
The Charter Group, which is to launch its campaign tomorrow, said in a report that the evidence was that the EU had been a champion of workers’ rights for the past 35 years. Secretary of the group, Blair Horan of the CPSU said the report showed conclusively that it was the EU that protected workers’ rights in Ireland.