When I first became a trade union activist I was very fortunate to work in a private sector unionised workplace where our members enjoyed decent conditions of employment and employment security.
Union density was around 99 per cent and just about everyone could name the four people who weren’t trade union members. We had decent holidays, didn’t work overly long hours and following our transfer from the public sector a decade earlier our employment benefits had been protected.
When my trade union activity began to take me beyond Rosyth Dockyard in the early 1990s I soon realised that many colleagues, working across the private sector in particular, did not enjoy the same benefits that I did. The then Major government had done everything in its power to stop the social chapter being extended to the UK – thus excluding millions of British workers from the right to a paid holiday and protection against working long hours.
To be honest very few people working in the UK were aware of that struggle as at that time the debate around Europe focused on the problems it caused the Tory party and was seen through the prism of the straight-banana-wielding Daily Mail.
Little is made of the Labour party’s support for the social chapter after 1997 and little credit given to Europe for the rights we all have to paid holidays and the protections against long hours. Unfortunately the debate about Europe in these islands has been ill-informed and divisive and constructive trade unions have found it impossible to get a coherent positive message about Europe to cut through.
Following the financial crash in 2008 employment security has been eroded – paid holidays and your conditions being protected when moving from one employer to another are irrelevant if you are unemployed or on a zero-hours contract. Add to this the actions of unscrupulous employers who exploit migrant workers – playing fellow worker against fellow worker in a race to the bottom – and we can begin to comprehend the challenge of getting a positive message out about the importance of EU membership to quality work.
Community, like many other unions who understand the interdependence of workers across Europe, welcome this report from the IPA and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. We want to see new rights at work that provide greater economic security while at the same time promoting longer-term thinking by employers. But first we must ensure there is a clear fact-based promotion of the benefits of the EU to trade union members and workers more generally. This has to be done in a calm, rational and positive manner – if the trade union movement fails to tackle the misconceptions about Europe within our own membership then our ability to drive up minimum standards for UK workers will be severely hampered.
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John Park is assistant general secretary of Community union