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Scottish Campaign against Euro-Federalism

Meetings and Conferences

Forty STUC delegates attended the SCAEF fringe organised at the STUC in Perth

Bob Crow, general secretary of transport union RMT, opened the meeting by stressing that trade unionists were the true internationalists and attacking the bogus internationalism of the EU.

“Our union unites with organised labour across Europe and beyond to defend conditions and to prevent employers exploiting differences between workers. The current phase of the EU is seeing law courts being used to criminalise workers trying to stop super-exploitation.

This is what happened a few months ago when British Airways set up a subsidiary company in France, recruited workers at lower pay and then took BALPA to court when they balloted for strike action. The judges used the EU Court’s Laval decision to threaten the union with unlimited damages should it proceed with strike action.

The EU and its institutions is now actively attacking workers freedom to withdraw labour, public sector services, the social wage and hard fought for achievements such as the 40 hour week and the right to retire at 60.

Far worse, it is attacking democracy itself. The Lisbon Treaty will end our parliament’s ability to limit the power of capital and give legal primacy to EU law.

This is why my union is backing the No2EU platform. MEPs are stooges for the enactment of pro-big business policies so, if elected, there will be no question of giving legitimacy to a charade. No2EU MEPs will use their position to campaign publicly aand outside the EU Palriament against the EU. Our slogan is out of the EU and into the world.

Eddie McGuire, Chair of the Musicians Union in Scotland,

cited the reports to the STUC and Cuba and Venezuela and their assistance to other countries within the ALBA group

‘Here we have an example of democratic economic cooperation, decided by the peoples of these countries, and not subordinated to the capitalist market. This shows that alternatives models are possible. The EU is committed to sustaining capitalist market relations and making socialist planning impossible.’

Eddie pointed out how the free market for capital imposed by the EU had led directly to the current economic crisis.

‘However, as Steven Boyd pointed out in debate, words such as deregulation and flexibility no longer resonate. They are open to challenge. And as trade unionists start to reconsider the nature of our economic system that brought this terrible crisis, it is vital that they also consider the nature of the EU.’

The meeting concluded with a very active debate between the chair of the meeting, No2EU candidate John Foster, and ex MEP Hugh Kerr who sought to urge the merits of the EU parliament and its legislation.

Conference

1 February 2009 Glasgow

EU Neo-liberalism

Threat to trade union rights, world development and economic recovery

Scaef President Alex Smith opened the conference by noting the irony of current attempts top force through the Lisbon Treaty. ’The Treaty is based on neo-liberal economics. It inscribes the freedom of the market as its most basic principle. It minimises the role of the state and the democratic rights of electors. Yet at this very moment we face a terrible economic crisis brought about by these very same neo-liberal principles and the freedom of capital to move wherever it wants. This is why conferences like this are necessary.’.

Convener of Trade Unionists against the EU Constitution Brian Denny condemned the hypocrisy of the EU for opposing "protectionism" as an evil when it comes to workers' rights but promoting it for bankers and big business.

‘The neo-liberal policies of the European Union pose a threat to trade union rights, world development and economic recovery,’

"We have to combat the media spin that the Lindsey oil refinery strikes are about hatred of foreign workers," Denny said. "We have to explain what is really happening and expose what lies behind it. Under the European Court of Justice laws, labour is a commodity like a tin of beans, and with no more rights than a tin of beans."

UNISON NEC member Jane Carolan argued that it was a damning indictment that the European Central Bank had so far said nothing about the economic crisis.

"The TUC needs to wake up to the fact that there's no such thing as a Social Europe, it's always been a dream," she said.

Perth Monday

20 April

STUC Fringe

Sunday 17 May

Glasgow Film Theatre

Rose Street

Glasgow

12 noon

Showing of film by Trade Unionists against the EU Constitution

“No to EU Liberalisation—Yes to Workers Rights”

Scottish Regional Organiser of the RMT Phil McGarry introduced the film. He stressed the urgency of the issues raised—particularly those concerning trade union rights. ‘It is high time that the trade union movement as a whole woke up to the danger. The EU Court of Justice decisions delivered over the past two years undermine the whole basis of collective bargaining and the right of workers to withdraw their labour.

This film ought to be shown at every trade union conference in Britain. The public sector is directly at risk and we need all unions taking up the issue’.

Text Box: October 11 Glasgow Patricia McKenna, leader of the Peoples Movement in the Irish referendum and former MEP for the Irish Green Party, addressed 80 delegates at the Scottish Morning Star conference ‘Democracy versus the Market’ on Sunday 11 October. Ms McKenna told the conference that the overturning of the No vote in the referendum on 2 October illustrated the EU Commission’s contempt for democratic processes. ‘The EU Constitution drafted in 2002-3 transformed the legal relationship between the EU and member states, transferring most economic and social policy to the EU and giving the EU legal superiority over member states. This made the EU a state in its own right but unlike any other state one committed by law to the sovereignty of the market. When the Constitution was defeated by the French and the Dutch, the EU Commission withdrew it and then, with complete cynicism, recycled it as a set of amendments to existing treaties. According to its architect Giscard D’Estaing, this quite deliberately rendered it incomprehensible to any ordinary reader. They then sought to have it adopted simply by parliamentary ratification and without referenda. ‘They succeeded in all cases except one: Ireland. This is because the Irish Constitution specifies that ‘all power derives from the people’ and as a result of the legal decision secured by the late Raymond Crotty, all changes have to be subject to a referendum. The treaty was convincingly defeated on a 54 per cent poll in 2008. ‘The EU Commission and Council of Ministers then did two things. One was to spend a fortune on discovering why people voted NO and what the main opposition constituencies were. The second was to instruct the Irish government to hold a further referendum after ‘guarantees’ had been negotiated which were designed to meet the objections’. ‘The EU Commission surveys discovered that the main reasons Irish people voted to reject the Treaty was because of the clauses requiring increased military spending, the added legal powers given to the EU Court of Justice and the detrimental impact this would have on workers rights and the overall loss of democratic powers for national parliaments. They found that the main opposition constituencies were the young, women and trade unionists. The ‘guarantees’ sought to address these concerns – though it was also made clear to other signatory states that these in no way changed the content of the treaty. In the run-up to the election the Commission and the Irish government not just spent disproportionate sums of money in an unconstitutional way. They also set up EU-financed front organisations ‘Youth for Europe’, the Future is Europe’, Women for Europe’. Ms McKenna warned that this willingness to manipulate and distort democratic processes reflected an elite of decision makers that was contemptuous of ordinary people and at the beck and call of big business. ‘Now that the referendum had removed the last obstacle to the ratification of the treaty we can expect a raft of EU directives that will further privatise social services and minimise workers rights. All democrats should also be gravely concerned at Clause 48 which gives the Council of Ministers the ability to transfer further areas of decision making to the EU without referenda or new treaties. Another major concern is the ‘solidarity clause’ in the section on ‘mutual defence’ that enables the Council of Ministers to agree to pre-emptive military action if the interests of members states are threatened’. Ms McKenna concluded by stressing that although the referendum had been lost, the process of fighting for a NO vote had consolidated an alliance of citizen’s groups and trade unionists who would continue to battle for democracy and against market based policies. ‘It is ironic that the Treaty was drafted at the high point of neo-liberal confidence when the market was believed to be able to do everything and the democratic state was simply an encumbrance. We have now seen the result of unregulated markets. This should give us determination in the struggle to defend what democratic powers still reside in our own national parliaments and to unite with others across Europe to defend the rights of ordinary people.’

Friday, 27 November

Aberdeen Trades Council

7 p.m. Trades Council Club, Adelphi

Presentation from SCAEF on the EU and workers’ rights