Lisbon Take 2: THE WORKING LIFE

Let’s work on the assumption that your average Hot Press reader is not a complete idiot (or even a partial one) – so you don’t believe the EU wants to introduce compulsory late-term abortion or conscript children to a European army where they will be paid a minimum wage of €1.84. Skipping all the Cóir-generated nonsense related to the Lisbon Treaty, we’ll move swiftly on to an issue that hasn’t been getting a huge amount of coverage in the national media: workers’ rights.

The Yes camp says that the Charter of Fundamental Rights – part of the Treaty – will enhance workers’ rights. Both sides in the Lisbon debate point to decisions of the European Court of Justice which have given greater weight to the rights of business than to those of workers to support their case – but for diametrically opposing reasons. In December 2007, the European Court of Justice ruled against Swedish trade unions in a case involving Latvian construction company Laval, who were subcontracted to work in Sweden but refused to sign a collective agreement requiring them to pay their workers at Swedish union rates. The court found that the right to strike is a fundamental one – but the right of businesses to trade freely across borders trumps it. So the Latvian company was found to be within its rights to pay their workers what they liked (in Swedish terms at least, very little).
For his part, Eamon Devoy, general secretary designate of the TEEU, says Lisbon should not be passed until stronger guarantees of workers’ rights are provided, to counter the precedent set by Laval. In contrast, Labour Senator Ivana Bacik, herself a lawyer who has fought cases on the European stage on the abortion issue, insists that the Charter is the strongest guarantee of workers’ rights yet – and could be used as a defence in a case like Laval.

NO VOTE: EAMON DEVOY
Why don’t you set any store by The Charter of Fundamental Rights?
The interpretation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights is down to domestic law and there’s no indication from the government here that they’ll implement it.
So you’d support Lisbon if the government gave a commitment that they’d adopt the Charter of Fundamental Rights?
Well, they’d have to go a bit further than that. They’d want to be supporting a social progress protocol. They have protocols attached to other elements of the Lisbon Treaty – about abortion and defence and the European Minister [sic – Commissioner] and so on. But they won’t touch workers’ rights because it’s a real issue. They’re afraid, in my opinion, that the American Chamber of Commerce wouldn’t want them to do it, therefore they won’t do it. All the American companies here don’t have any trade unions on their pitch and they don’t want them.
So if you got that protocol, would you support the Lisbon Treaty?
Yes.
But at any rate, you couldn’t say that the Lisbon Treaty is a retrograde step for workers…
No, it’s just deficient in relation to workers’ rights. The whole concept of social Europe is that there would be a balance between employers’ rights and workers’ rights but since these four judgements [Laval and others], clearly the employers’ rights are trumping workers’ rights. This is the last chance that workers have to fix their own rights by ensuring that the Lisbon Treaty doesn’t go ahead unless it has a social protocol.
In terms of specific workers’ rights, which do you believe are being undermined and how?
Every day of the week we’re finding subcontractors from other European countries where the workers are brought in and paid a pittance. Two years ago, in 2007, we [the Irish State, through the ESB] gave out a contract to a German company, Lenties, and they subcontracted the work to a Polish company. So workers were brought in here working for €5 an hour when the rate at the time was €18 an hour. No Irish worker got a chance to work in that place and we had to fix that rate of pay for the workers concerned and they all got their €18 an hour. But only because the TEEU put up a fight to get it. But the opportunity to put up a fight is being diminished by these European Court of Justice decisions. The Charter of Fundamental Rights has no value until it’s put into a protocol and until we get that protocol we’re at a disadvantage.
Clare Tracey of the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) is supporting the Lisbon Treaty because she believes it contains positive aspects for women. How would you respond to that?
Well I wouldn’t be aware that…I mean, workers are workers. I can’t see how it would be any more favourable to women than to any other workers.
The argument goes that the EU has been a progressive force for women in Ireland over the years. For instance, EU directives introduced equal pay and, more recently, increased the duration of maternity leave.
That has no connection whatsoever with what’s in the Lisbon Treaty – none. That was a social Europe in the time of social Europe. Europe is not the social Europe that it was, from a political point of view.

YES VOTE: IVANA BACIK
Will the Lisbon Treaty strengthen workers’ rights?
It has potential to strengthen workers’ rights. I’m optimistic because it gives very powerful guarantees – guarantees on the right to collective bargaining, for example. So it certainly goes further than our own Constitution in protecting union activity. I’m as critical as anyone of the anti-worker impact of some of the court judgements. But it must be remembered that they pre-date Lisbon. Lisbon will not worsen the position for workers.
I don’t see anything negative about the Charter. People say it’s too vague, it’s too aspirational – it’s still an enormous advance on what we have currently. The unions who oppose Lisbon say it doesn’t go far enough. I agree, but it goes a hell of a lot further than we’ve currently got. I see it as pointing in the right direction – I see it as pointing in the direction of a social Europe. I’m critical of the EU’s focus on the free market and free flow of capital. I want to see us moving much more towards a social Europe where the emphasis is on workers’ rights. To be fair to the EU, a great deal of the protections we’ve had, have come from the EU. Look at the rules on working time – the 48-hour week, things like maternity protection, parental leave. The Irish government would never have introduced parental leave – that’s directly from the EU, and equal pay, obviously, back in the ‘70s. I don’t think it’s logical to oppose Lisbon from the left because it doesn’t do enough. You can never do enough, but let’s not make ‘perfect’ be the enemy of ‘better’.
Take a case like Laval – will Lisbon ensure that can’t happen again?
I think Lisbon is going to assist because it would give more tools, more legal provisions for workers to use in such cases. I don’t think the effects of Lisbon will be dramatic one way or the other.
You’re a lawyer – what kind of legal standing does the Charter of Fundamental Rights have?
It’ll have equivalence in terms of other EU laws. The court will have to refer to the charter when it’s interpreting EU law so, for the first time, it’s giving status to guarantees of rights of ordinary individuals. It’s extraordinarily important.
If Ireland hasn’t enacted the Charter of Fundamental Rights, will it have any standing here?
That misunderstands the nature of EU law. If we pass the referendum, the effect of the referendum is to make the Treaty part of Irish Law. It’s not like the Convention on Human Rights which needed to be incorporated specifically into our law.
Is there anything in Lisbon that will strengthen women workers’ rights?
Lisbon will give us scope to further the direction of the social Europe I’m talking about. For the first time, instead of just having laws saying what maternity leave is, Article 33 of the charter gives it as an enforceable right – the right to paid maternity leave and parental and adoptive leave. There’s a very strong anti-discrimination provision in Article 23, which covers gender.