Protecting workers’ rights in trade deals is essential to ensure trade is fair. If trade deals don’t contain effective protections for workers’ rights, they just make it easier for companies to locate themselves in countries where wages are lower and workers are less able to resist…Read more…
Rights at work – this May Day, it’s all happening at once
You wait for years for the needs of working people to become the focus of political attention and then suddenly everybody’s interested. The onset of the General Election campaign has coincided with the beginning of Brexit negotiations and the long overdue dawning of understanding at the…Read more…
Europe’s response to Article 50: what unions want
On Wednesday, the Prime Minister will trigger Article 50 and fire the starting pistol on negotiations to leave the European Union. The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) has already adopted a statement setting out what unions here and in the res…Read more…
Counting the cost of Brexit
Time was when nothing could be done by the Government or the European Union without a rigorously mapped impact assessment. Almost invariably wielded as a tool by deregulatory zealots to show that workers’ demands would lead to unacceptable burdens on business, I can remember exposing many of…Read more…
Drop the MIC
Yesterday the TUC responded to the European Commission’s consultation on its plans to develop a global version of the notorious Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS). ISDS is the court system found in thousands of trade and investment agreements that foreign investors have used to sue…Read more…
European Parliament vote for CETA brings the battle for fair trade deals home
Today the European Parliament voted 458 in favour of the EU-Canada deal known as CETA with 254 votes against. This means that about 90% of the deal comes into force and paves the way for the deal to be sent to the UK parliament for approval. If the UK parliament agrees to CETA we will…
The…Read more…
The role of unions in challenging violence against women – #IDEVAW 2016
25 November marks the UN Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and the European Trades Union Confederation (ETUC) is marking the day by launching a new report mapping union initiatives in…Read more…
Working people’s rights after Brexit: campaigning for continued compliance
This morning I was pleased to be asked to address a European policy forum in Yorksire & the Humber by the local Labour MEPs Linda MacAvan and Richard Corbett. Shadow Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union Keir Starmer spoke for Labour. Here are some of the remarks I made about…Read more…
#CETA: zombie trade deal is no recipe for #Brexit
Today the Prime Minister of Canada flew into Brussels to sign the EU-Canada so-called trade agreement known as CETA – the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement – with the European Union. For the past fortnight, the signing had been held up by the French speaking regional parliament…Read more…
New declaration shows why countries must say NO to CETA deal
Yesterday an add-on to the CETA EU-Canada trade agreement proposed by the European Commission and the Canadian government (titled a ‘joint interpretive declaration’) was leaked. Trade ministers from EU countries will be asked to vote on CETA in just over a week on October 18 so the purpose of the…Read more…
#WDDW16: unions calling for decent work around the world
Now in its 9th year, World Day for Decent Work (WDDW) is a day set aside by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) for trade unionists and others to reiterate our call not just for jobs…Read more…
Trade deals still on the Brussels agenda – we say no!
Despite the Prime Minister’s mantra that “Brexit means Brexit”, the UK is still engaged in negotiating so-called trade deals as part of the EU, so yesterday, the TUC sent a small…Read more…
Brexit’s implications for the rest of Europe: relaunch social Europe now!
As I’ve already reported on Stronger Unions, leaders of Europe’s trade union movement visited London on Monday. They were here in part to show solidarity with the British trade union movement post-Brexit. But they were also beginning to grapple with the implications for the rest of…Read more…
Europe’s trade unions come to London to show solidarity
This morning, the leaders of Europe’s trade unions met in the TUC General Council chamber – people like ETUC (European Trade Union Confederation) General Secretary Luca Visentini and…Read more…
European unions take a stand on the platform against undeclared work
Undeclared work, if not properly confronted, threatens to undermine employment, wages and conditions for workers across Europe. The launch of the European Commission’s ‘Undeclared Work Platform’ was a long overdue initiative to tackle the exploitation of workers and unfair competition for…Read more…
Unions on the march & uniting across Europe, USA and Canada to say no to Market Economy Status for China
Today Unite, GMB and Community held a March of Steelmakers in London which brought steel workers from across the country to Westminster to demand the government ensure the responsible sale of Tata Steel’s UK assets and deliver a sustainable industrial strategy. A key cause of the crisis currently…Read more…
#TTIPleaks show the UK government is actively choosing not to protect NHS and public services
Some have been using the Greenpeace leaks of negotiating texts from the EU-US trade deal known as TTIP to claim Britain should leave the EU to escape damaging trade rules being imposed on us by shady Brussels negotiators. But disturbingly, what they actually show (adding to evidence we had from…Read more…
TTIP negotiations ‘On the wrong course’, say EU and US union leaders
The agreement must not include a private justice system for foreign investors…Read more…
EU Parliament votes for public service protections and labour rights in TiSA report
On Wednesday the European Parliament passed with an overwhelming majority a report on the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) that called for broad exemptions for public services and respect for labour standards. TiSA is a trade deal on services the EU is negotiating along with 22 other countries….Read more…
Cameron’s renegotiation deal: tinkering, not tackling the real issues
There’s a lot of noise today about the proposals that European Council President Donald Tusk has sent to European leaders to address David Cameron’s call for a reformed European Union ahead of the UK’s referendum on EU membership. Eurosceptics are hostile, supporters of remaining…Read more…