Cameron’s EU Deal... What’s So Special?

Well, BBC Breakfast this morning has wall to wall coverage of the UK’s Special Status in the EU. Cameron has triumphantly marched back from Brussels telling us he has secured a deal that lets us stay in, while there is speculation about what Boris Johnston will say.... Don’t all yawn together.

But it is difficult to contain excitement about this deal.

Wording changes about European integration and further cuts to benefits for “migrants” are difficult to get excited about. Let’s look at what the renegotiation doesn’t say:-

• Nothing about job creation across the EU where youth unemployment in particular is at worrying levels
• Nothing about workplace democracy and collective bargaining
• Nothing about modernising labour laws to cover zero hours contracts
• Nothing about challenging corporate tax evasion (but more protection for the City of London)
• Nothing about the Robin Hood tax on financial transactions
• Nothing about the protection of quality public services in Europe, while privatisation continues running amok

So the EU remains exactly the same as far as its workers are concerned.The same EU that has dictatorially imposed austerity across Greece, Spain, Portugal, drastically cutting living standards, watching as unemployment rises and wages fall, cutting pensions, slashing public services, privatising public assets at knock down prices for private profiteers. But of course protecting the banks.

Maybe as workers the question has to be, what is in the EU for us?

UNISON must get anti-austerity, workers' rights and anti-TTIP message into EU vote debate

UNISON's Jane Carolan, speaking at today's Institute of Employment Rights Conference outlined the history of the union's position on the EU and the referendum debate ahead. This is the full text of her speech:-

'What happened in Greece was not 

an aberration from EU policies but a 

logical consequence of them.' 

Jane Carolan

"UNISON has no policy from NDC (National Conference) on the issue of leaving the EU. That may surprise some who have seen our regular opposition to policies on the European Union proposed through TUC Congress but there is no contradiction here. Quite simply UNISON’s democratically agreed policies have consistently been ultra-critical of the EU institutions practices and policies BUT not one of the motions that we have passed has actually gone on to propose that as a result the union should commit itself to backing an EU withdrawal.

This goes back to the first national delegate conference of the union. When Nalgo, NUPE and Cohse came together to form UNISON the Nalgo left could see from the proposed rule book that the new union was to be pro public service, anti-privatisation.

However there were a number of policies that had been hard fought for in the old Nalgo that needed to be reiterated in the new union. One was Palestine, where support for the self determination of the Palestinian People had been initially narrowly won in the 80s. A second was opposition to Trident replacement and a commitment defence diversification that remains UNISON policy to this day.

What can I say other than plus ca change…

And the final one was opposition to the Maastricht Treaty.

Public Services are trapped in an EU market straitjacket

A much neglected aspect of the 'European debate' is the extent to which the EU is a driving force for the liberalisation and privatisation of public services. Judith Clifton writing for the LSE's British politics and policy blog, examines how local and national governments have lost power over key areas of public service governance to Brussels. The Council of European Municipalities and Regions has complained that the European Commission 'proclaims to be neutral but in practice veers towards applying internal market rules to public services in an overly-market focused way, eroding local democracy'
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/beyond-hollowing-out-straitjacketing-the-state/

Stop TTIP - the Trojan Treaty

#noTTIP Many hundreds of campaigners, including a contingent of UNISON activists, protested in Brussels over the past two days. The demonstration coincided with the latest round of talks on the proposed EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). A giant wooden horse drew attention to the 'Trojan treaty' which threatens democracy and puts corporate profits above people.
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/02/04/brussels-rally-denounces-massive-trade-deal-would-be-hijack-democracy

The lesson from Greece - austerity must end

Yesterday, the Observer presaged the outcome of the Greek general election - a victory for the anti-austerity Syriza coalition - with an emphatic statement that 'the lesson of the Greek national polls is that austerity must end' Nobody would have expected David Cameron to heed that advice and his statement last night that 'the Greek election will increase uncertainty across Europe. That's why the UK must stick to our plan, delivering security at home' is consistent with his callous disregard of the impact of austerity on local jobs and services. But will Labour listen?
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/25/observer-view-on-greek-elections

T-TIP of the deregulation iceberg

'It is not just TTIP, across the board the EU is bowing to business pressure to do away with ‘burdensome’ regulation – regulation that tends to save lives, protect consumers and ensure standards' writes Linda Kaucher on the Institute of Employment Rights blog. Yet another example of capital treating the costs of social reproduction as an 'externality - a cost for which it bears no market responsibility' as described by David Harvey in Rebel Cities:
http://www.ier.org.uk/blog/eus-giant-and-secretive-deregulation-blitz

European Commission offensive against workers' rights

The TUC's Stronger Unions blog reports on the final report of the European Commission's so called 'High Level Group on Administrative Burdens' which recommends a range of deregulatory measures including 'calling for targets for reducing regulatory costs, ensuring that any new costs are balanced with reductions elsewhere and a “think small first” principle exempting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from EU obligations as far as possible.' Alongside the Commissions REFIT programme which is blocking any new health and safety directives and the UK Tory EU reform agenda, the neo liberal direction of the 'European project' is becoming clearer by the day:
http://strongerunions.org/2014/10/14/the-dead-hand-of-the-european-de-regulators/

TTIP and the duplicity of the European elite

The Critical Thinking blog has published a useful update on Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). EU denials that ‘standards on consumer protection, on the environment, on data protection and on food are not up for negotiation’ are blatant lies. So too are purported assurances that the NHS is excluded from the scope of the proposed Treaty:
http://freecriticalthinking.org/daily-pickings/1047-ttip-update-status-and-resistance

What path for Europe's Unions?

#NewPathDemo Today the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) is holding a demonstration in Brussels in support of a ’new path for Europe.’ Bernadette Ségol, ETUC General Secretary says that ‘Austerity is not working. Austerity has caused a mounting social and economic crisis: over 26 million Europeans are jobless, 10 million more than in 2008. This is why we demonstrate and demand a New Path for Europe, based on investments, quality jobs and equality. 
http://www.etuc.org/press/new-path-europe-fighting-investment-quality-jobs-equality-austerity-not-working#.Uz3E91pwbIU%E2%80%99

EU elite in hock to the interests of global finance - O’Grady

‘If the EU is about little more than protecting the single currency at all costs, privatising services and keeping a tight lid on public spending, then popular support for European integration and the European ideal will diminish as surely as night follows day. From the trade union movement’s perspective, Europe needs to rediscover the values that served it so well not just during the long post-war boom, but also through challenges posed by the Oil Crisis and the economic counter-revolution of the 1980s’ said Frances O’Grady, TUC General Secretary, in a recent speech on ‘revitalising social Europe’ to Ireland’s Institute for International and European Affairs:
http://www.tuc.org.uk/node/118945

The neo liberal reality of the EU

The European Social Model (ESM) is a mirage argue Philip B Whyman and Mark Baimbridge in a Chartist article which lays bare the neo liberal reality of the EU and challenges the sacred cow of those in the labour movement who promote social Europe as an antidote to austerity and marketisation – ‘if the ESM is unlikely to be enacted in any kind of meaningful way beyond the minimal welfare base line that for most EU nations represents a race to the bottom in social terms, where does that leave support for further integration and support for continual membership of the EU?'   http://www.chartist.org.uk/articles/europe/sept13whyman.htm

TUC challenges loophole which denies Agency Workers’ equal rights

#TUC13 Today the Trades Union Congress will be taking the unusual step of lodging a formal complaint with the European Commission against the UK government for failing to enforce the European Temporary Agency Workers Directive - which is meant to guarantee equal treatment for temporary staff (in the case of the UK this applies only after 12 weeks continuous employment because of an unnecessary concession by the TUC itself in 2008):
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/sep/02/agency-workers-paid-less-tuc
    The TUC complaint relates to a loophole known as the Swedish derogation, estimated to affect 1 in 6 agency workers, which allows agency workers placed with employers to be paid less than direct employees, provided the agency agrees to continue paying them for at least four weeks at times when it is unable to find them work.

Troika’s junta style policies asset stripping & crippling Greek economy

The IMF-EU troika is accelerating Greece's €20bn privatisation programme by forcing the government to cede state owned assets to a Luxembourg-based holding company that would take care of their sale to private buyers:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/29/us-eurozone-greece-privatisation-idUSBRE97S0EJ20130829
   ETUC economist Ronald Janssen analyses a study which finds the troika's scenario of economic recovery in Greece to be over-optimistic and predicts that unemployment could reach close to 35 per cent in 2016 under the current trajectory:
http://www.social-europe.eu/2013/08/greece-can-it-get-even-worse/

The quixotic demands of the ETUC

‘High noon for social Europe’ is the theme of the European Trade Union Confederation’s (ETUC) mid term conference which opened yesterday in Dublin, the graveyard of social partnership. ETUC General Secretary Bernadette Segol stated that ‘social Europe must be at the core of all economic decisions. Social Europe is not an optional appendage to economic governance, social Europe is part and parcel of economic governance.’

UKIP- no friend of workers or trade unions

UNISON’s Narmada Thiranagama, provides an overdue examination of UKIP’s policies beyond the EU and immigration and finds that ‘UKIP are not a friend of workers or trade unions. Nor is there an evidence base for their economic and employment policies, which would remove virtually all regulation particularly for small companies. They sincerely believe that this would have no negative impact on living standards or economic confidence. It is time the media started asking them some tough questions on jobs and work’
http://www.ier.org.uk/blog/ukip-workplace

Austerity Economics and the EU’s Fiscal Compact are indivisible

How should trade unionists respond to Tory in-fighting on the European Union (EU), in particular demands of the Tory right for a referendum? The TUC’s Owen Tudor writing on the Stronger Unions blog suggests that the focus of the debate should be switched from the EU to pinning the ‘blame for the economic woes facing families and communities – higher prices, lower or stagnant wages, rapidly worsening public services – on austerity economics, growing inequality and a tax system based on one rule for us and no rules for the rich’
http://touchstoneblog.org.uk/2013/05/europe-while-tories-burn-unions-must-do-more-than-fiddle

Deregulation & privatisation are entrenched in the EU

The modern European Union has given ‘a failed neoliberal model of capitalism the force of treaty, entrenching deregulation and privatisation and enforcing corporate power over employment rights’ writes Seumas Milne in the Guardian. It may be the case that EU withdrawal on the terms of the Tory right would lead to a (worsening of the) ‘carnival of reaction’ yet the default position of the labour movement should not be support for the status quo. As Milne points out, the EU's ‘profoundly undemocratic and dysfunctional structures have been brutally exposed by the eurozone crisis and the devastation wreaked by Troika-imposed austerity.’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/14/tory-led-exit-europe-carnival-of-reaction

Austerity imposed unlawfully on Greece

Professor Keith Ewing argues that the ECB/EU/IMF Troika have shown "a contempt for legality and an indifference to legal obligations" in imposing austerity measure as a condition for offering Greece financial support. He cites the destruction of "an entire collective bargaining system in Greece" and the enforcement of public sector pay cuts and wage reductions - as contrary to a treaty signed by the EU in 2008 and Greece's own constitutional rulings on managing labour relations. "The impact in Greece has been devastating, the consequences greater than on any other EU country and the impact on the national labour law system has been so dramatic that it requires some kind of legal response. Who has the right to determine the constitutional structures of a sovereign state? That's what's at issue in Greece"
http://www.ier.org.uk/blog/greek-austerity-illegal-says-uk-professor

EU is driven by Thatcherite ideology - Kelvin Hopkins

'The reality is that the European Union is a neoliberal capitalist construct, imposed upon most of the peoples of Europe' writes Kelvin Hopkins MP, long term joint Co-ordinator of the UNISON Group of Labour MP's, in an assessment of the options open to the left in the European debate:
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/
news/content/view/full/129391

A Trade Union Yes to EU? Not at any Neo-Liberal price

Yesterday in his Bloomberg speech David Cameron set out a five point bottom line for renegotiation of the UK relationship with the EU, to be followed by an in-out referendum in 2018. Some senior Labour politicians argue that Cameron's stance is a distraction but in reality that's far from the case. His agenda for (acceleration of) neo liberal reform of the EU is a deadly serious threat to working people: http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/eu-speech-at-bloomberg/