Irish Congress of Trade Unions conferenceThe trade union movement expects Taoiseach Bertie Ahern to clarify the Government's position on the EU charter of fundamental rights when he addresses its conference today, according to Ictu president Peter McLoone.
In his address to the conference yesterday, Mr McLoone signalled that Ictu would campaign for a "No" vote in a referendum on any new EU treaty that included a clause allowing Ireland to opt out of the provisions of the charter.
He said he had been shocked at media reports that the Government had sought "to hedge its bets" on the fundamental values in the charter.
He added that the charter represented a statement of basic values such as respect for human rights and dignity, democracy, equality and workers' rights.
"Any form of opt-out would represent a significant shift in the Taoiseach's position - outlined to this conference in 2005 - and would jar incongruously with everything we have tried to achieve on workplace rights in Towards 2016 [ the current national agreement].
"We expect the Taoiseach will definitively clarify the Government's position when he addresses us. But I have no doubt that this conference will deliver a clear message that congress would never support a treaty that included such an opt-out clause."
Mr McLoone said the EU had underpinned many gains in workers' rights. "But we now have the most right-leaning, employer-friendly commission and council, in the history of the European Union."
He added that since the last Ictu conference in 2005, unaccountable private equity and hedge funds had acquired control of vast pools of capital as well as significant swathes of the economy. "Increasingly unions are experiencing situations where globally-driven competition and market pressures expose workers, consumers and communities to fundamental flaws in legal protections, which allow businesses to simply maximise profit without any regard to the social and economic consequences.
"Even staff who hitherto felt secure in their jobs, their working conditions and their pensions, are feeling increasingly vulnerable," he said.
Mr McLoone said it would be "an outrageous moral lapse" on the part of the Government if it did not intervene immediately to restore protections promised to workers under the 2001 and 2004 Industrial Relations Acts.
The unions believe rights to represent workers in non-union employment, set out in this legislation, have been undermined by a recent Supreme Court ruling in a case involving Ryanair.
"The Supreme Court judgment on the Ryanair case cannot be the last word on the right of workers - individually and collectively -- to fair representation in the workplace. It may be tempting for Government and employers' representatives to engage in a bit of revisionism. But they well know that the Supreme Court outcome was not what we collectively envisaged when we signed (the national agreements) Sustaining Progress and Towards 2016."
Mr McLoone also said: "Britain, Hungary and Ireland are the only countries that allow agency workers to be paid less and treated worse than regular staff. This has to stop and we demand immediate legislation to outlaw such reprehensible practices as a top priority."
He added that it had been a major achievement for congress in the Towards 2016 deal to secure commitments for stronger employment standards, underpinned by a more robust compliance regime. He said that this had "undoubtedly shifted the balance back in favour of the individual worker". But we left the negotiations with no illusions about the challenges that lie ahead. There is still ample evidence that, when push comes to shove, the needs of the market still carry far more clout with our Government than workers' rights," he said.