I can think of no more appropriate use of the phrase ‘cutting off your nose to spite your face’ than the decision by union leaders this week to announce that they will campaign for a British exit from the European Union if David Cameron negotiates a British opt-out from any element of the social chapter.
The first obvious outcome if they get their desired result is that all of those protections will disappear. That means the higher standards of health and safety in the workplace, guaranteed four weeks’ annual leave, maternity rights and many other rights and protections we all enjoy as a result of Tony Blair’s decision to opt Britain in to the social chapter would be at the mercy of a Tory government free to set its own standards. Hands up if you think they’ll be higher?
The second outcome makes the first irrelevant to many of the workers union leaders are supposed to represent – the risk to the 3.5 million jobs in Britain which rely directly or indirectly on our EU membership. Do the workers at the Nissan plant in the north east agree with their union leader when car manufacturers have made it very clear they will be seriously considering their future in the UK if access to the single market is closed to their British operations? What about the 10,000 workers at Lancashire’s biggest employer, BAE Systems?
The reality is that Cameron stands a very slim chance of negotiating any weakening of the social chapter or another opt out for Britain. Many member states are dead against it and his lack of solidarity with other EU nations during the current refugee crisis has earned him even fewer friends. He knows this, which is why he appears to have quietly dropped plans to weaken rights for British workers from his shopping list.
Union leaders want to appeal to their activists, many of whom on the far left have been eager to drag Britain out of the EU for some time. But they need to listen to their wider membership and think about the bigger picture. The benefits of EU membership to working people in this country extend well beyond workplace rights and protections – and are too numerous to list in this article. Should Cameron be successful, a firm commitment from the Labour party that opting back in to the social chapter would be a top priority on day one of the next Labour government – as Blair did before the 1997 election – should reassure the unions that we will not countenance any slipping of standards.
Instead of threatening to join the same side as United Kingdom independence party – something that should always make anyone on the left stop and think – union leaders should spend their time investing in a campaign to properly communicate the benefits of continued membership to their members, recruiting new members in the industries which rely on our membership to continue creating jobs and building a mass movement of working people to demand that the government respect the rights of working people – and indeed go further.
Labour mobility is a huge issue across the EU and we urgently need reform to make it easier for jobseekers to access opportunities in other countries. We also need urgent changes to the Posted Workers Directive to ensure that workers posted in other countries have fundamental rights like the right to strike. Unions should be at the forefront of these efforts, not harping on about quitting the club.
This could be an opportunity to revitalise the union movement with millions of new members and a renewed sense of purpose. It should not be wasted on an endeavour which will ultimately lead to suffering for the very working people unions are there to represent.
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Kevin Peel is a Labour and Co-operative councillor on Manchester city council and represents the north west on the EU committee of the regions. He tweets @kevpeel
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“I want to see a social Europe, a cohesive Europe, a coherent Europe, not a free market Europe,” says the Leader. And he knows that David Cameron will bring back the exact opposite.
Cameron used same-sex marriage in order to create a new, and much younger, party that went on to win an unexpected overall majority.
Corbyn is going to do the same thing by driving out the rich old hippies to whom Tuscany “is just too, too maaahhhrrrvellous, darling,” and that somehow constitutes a policy.
If the people of this country feel they need to elect a government which gives them a raft of social and employment rights, they will do so. They don’t need a convocation of foreign politicians to grant them.
I am constantly amazed by this assertion that any (British or other) Left wing party is so dependent for its labour protection guarantees upon the EU, with its predominantly narrow – minded culturally Conservative and market driven Eastern European workplaces. Workplace culture in some of these former Communist nations are so backward we need to travel back more than half a century to find the like. It defies all sense to believe that the right wing Conservative regimes of Eastern Europe will be our employment protection security. Do we not think a future Labour Government has some capability? I would not look to the right wing Finnish regime to provide it for me.
In respect of company employment numbers, has the author already forgotten the announcement from Hitachi last week that their future is here whether we are in or out. They are not alone, even though I do concede some company Directors confuse their personal prestige, wealth and influence with that of their company. Directors of some multinational corporations promote their own personal financial benefits in their pronouncements about the future, creating a climate that the UK is somehow inadequate and needs to be modelled on Bulgaria, Italy or Spain amongst a dozen others.
The EU has successfully managed its false image as some great liberal movement, but now only the reinforced prejudiced hopes of managerialists remain.
Very good article. This declaration by union leaders makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Completely sane contribution to a debate which (in the UK alone of all 28 EU countries) is not always sane. One reason why the TUC are siding with UKIP’s view, or threatening to side with UKIP if Cameron doesn’t argue for a social Europe in his so-called renegotiation, is the ‘drip drip drip’ of anti-EU nonsense we’ve had for 40 years which some trade unionists start to believe when other usually reliable sources of information pick up on it. For example, who says that an organisation with the world’s only transnational parliament, where legislation then has to be agreed by the governments of the members, is “undemocratic”? Of course the EU is not perfect. but now is the time for UK progressive forces to join together to out-argue UKIP (and all mis-led fellow travellers) – I believe we owe this to the next generation. Sign up to http://labourmovement.eu/
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