Strikes target global companies - not foreign workers

How long before public services are attacked by Euro laws that undermine conditions? UNISON’s Policy Chair JANE CAROLAN explains.

Recent headlines in the Daily Mail, Daily Express and the Sun have been quick to sing the praises of the strikers who have been taken action ‘supposedly’ under the slogan of “British jobs for British workers.”

For once those on strike have not been layabouts, scroungers or wreckers, but honest British workmen defending honest British interests. The BBC however have not been quite so sure, preferring to refer to them as ‘racist’ or ‘xenophobic’.

From a UNISON point of view however, what is noticeable is that few in the media have honestly reported what the strikes are about or what the strikers have to say for themselves, preferring to fit them into comfortable stereotypes that fit with their preconceived world view.

What is clear in these disputes is that the major issue that is involved is that of jobs, but not in terms of a debate as constructed by the BNP. Where that party has tried to become involved, the response of the strikers has been robust, to say the least.

The strikers themselves are clear that their targets are the multinational corporations and the employers. The nub of the problem is the right of corporations to hand out contracts to the lowest bidder, a problem that we have been familiar with in the public services for a very long time, since the days of CCT.

What we are seeing within the construction and engineering industries is exactly the same, work parcelled up in a contract and let out to the lowest bidder, and as we have seen a contractor with no obligation to the existing workforce who will use the cheapest labour possible, even if that means that bringing in a workforce from a foreign country.

All this is possible under EU law which places its highest possible value on the rights of the contractor. Within the EU the rights of capital and business are sacrosanct. The free market must be allowed to function. Workers rights are supposedly protected by the Posted Workers directive.

The reality is that there are no standard wages terms and conditions that apply throughout Europe. Rather, within each country, there will be wages, terms and conditions negotiated by the appropriate trade unions, according to the collective agreements of the country.

So “posted workers” are those employed by a contractor in one country to temporarily work in another. However as far as the EU is concerned, there is no obligation on the contractor to abide by the national collective agreements of the country they are working in, only to abide by the national minimum wage.

The directive drives down wages terms and conditions. Again, from our own experience of CCT, we know the inevitability of this. Where unions have challenged this in the European Court of Justice, the court has ruled against them on the basis that they are placing barriers to trade or obstructing the free market in services or labour.

Not only are those the ‘freedoms’ upheld but the court is clear that industrial action to uphold the collective agreements is itself illegal as a series of judgements made over the latter half of 2008 make clear. Within the EU the prevailing doctrine with regard to workers’ rights is that of ‘flexicurity’.

Individual workers should have individual rights and contracts as opposed to trade union negotiated collective agreements. The legal framework should be personal rather than collective. The focus is on the development of minimum conditions alongside the weakening or removal of existing national employment rights.

In reality these proposals are a call for the end of collectively bargained agreements and the end of collective bargaining itself.

No one in UNISON would support demands that bring discrimination into our workplaces and in many of our public services we are only too aware of the crucial role that is played on a daily basis by workers from overseas - in our NHS and in many care homes for example.

The strikes that are taking place are not simply about a loss of building or engineering contracts. Crucially what we are seeing is a fight back against an ideology that seeks to force down wages and conditions, an ideology that seeks to undermine collective agreements, an ideology that seeks to undermine trade unionism itself.

This fight ought to be supported. Yet, in the world that we are forced to live in, the procurement culture prevailing does cause a moment of pause for thought. Where every public sector contract can be put up for grabs, how long before we see “posted workers” providing our services?

Before rejecting the thought entirely, remember that in some London hotels the domestic workforce is brought in on precisely that basis.

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