European round-up / President’s column

Italian rail unions in massive 24-hour strike MILLIONS of Italians stopped work to protest against the right-wing government’s plans to slash pensions as part of over £4 billion in public spending cuts. The half-day stoppage halted rail, air and urban transport and shut factories and banks. Doctors and nurses waged an eight-hour strike but emergency services were maintained. The three union movements organised 70 demonstrations throughout the country. Rome’s spending cuts are designed to meet the requirements of the Eurozone stability and growth pact, the rules that govern the single currency. Italy’s billionaire Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who is also the country’s finance minister, has persuaded eurozone finance ministers not to accept the Commission’s proposal for an ‘excessive deficit early warning’ against Italy. However, EU finance ministers approved excessive deficit procedures against smaller EU member states Greece, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovakia. Unions protest against EU Services Directive PUBLIC sector union Unison general secretary Dave Prentis joined other unions in a lobby in Brussels last month against the draft European Union Directive on Services. The directive aims to remove all barriers to the cross-border provision of services in the EU. It would reduce control over working practices, open the door for companies to bypass labour and environmental standards and impose barriers to state regulation on public services. “We could find service providers moving their headquarters to the EU country with the lowest protection to ‘bid’ for temporary contracts to exploit this loop-hole. And, as usual, those more adversely affected will be women - in particular, low-paid part-time women”, Dave Prentis said. Labour MP Ian Davidson warned that “those countries which have established better standing will be obliged to cut them in order to compete”. Workers protest against job protection deal RAIL workers have protested against an agreement signed by German unions with state rail operator Deutsche Bahn that guarantees employment until 2010 for its 140,000 employees with at least five years’ service. Complaints have been made that the agreement neither guarantees that the number of DB employees remains at present levels nor protects rail workers with less than five years employment. Leave is also reduced by a day without compensation and working time has been hiked without extra pay. DB, Europe’s biggest rail network, is also seeking to save £700 million by cutting 5,000 freight jobs by 2009, 2,000 of them this year. EU forces Thailand to buy aircraft TSUNAMI-struck Thailand has been told by the European Commission that it must buy six A380 Airbus aircraft if it wants to escape the tariffs against its fishing industry. While millions of Europeans are EUROPEANROUND-UP French rail unions launch strike action SEVEN French rail unions called strike action last month against plans to slash nearly 4,000 jobs and other cuts planned by state rail operator SNCF. The CGT rail union, the industry’s biggest, said that more than 8,000 jobs have already been lost since September 2002. Polls suggest that two-thirds of the French public back the unions. The latest strike follows a united day of action last autumn when 50,000 rail workers demonstrated in Paris for jobs, against low pay and pensions and against attempts to curtail the right to strike. Further action is expected against European Union policies of enforced privati- sation of rail systems across the bloc. Brussels has also put pressure on Paris to slash public spending in line with eurozone rules. New EU transport commissioner Jacques Barrot, until recently a minister in the French conservative government, is spearheading the rail privatisation drive. A CGT spokesman told RMT News that “90 per cent of all decisions now come from Brussels and they all back privatisation and attacks on public services”. The CGT’s hundred strong executive committee (CCN) also recently voted overwhelmingly to oppose the proposed EU Constitution. The decision will boost the French no vote lobby before the referendum on the subject due in June. CGT railway workers Didier Le Reste said that, “unsurprisingly, there is a majority in the CGT to reject the liberal policy directions, including at the European level”. 24 CUTS: German riot police arrest protesters outside a benefits office in Berlin last month. Police quashed protests when unemployment benefits were slashed. Germany’s unemployment levels are now around five million and analysts are warning that the situation could get worse. J ANUARY 25 was the 242nd anniversary of one Robert Burns, recognised the world over as one of the greatest poets that ever lived. Like many others on that date RMT held a Burns night at our headquarters Unity House. What a revelation it was to hear Allan Craig of our accounts department give the one of the most passionate toasts, known as giving the “immortal memory”, I have ever heard. It was a fitting tribute to freedom, women and song, all of which were close to the heart of Scotland’s true bard. Burns is best remembered as the author of Auld Lang Syne, a song that still unites people the world over. He is also remembered for his odes to freedom, such as A Man’s a Man for a’ That, which still have a much resonance today as the day he wrote them. It made me wonder just how many countless trade unionists and progressives Burns must have inspired over the centuries. Just a glance at his work and you can see what a visionary he was, inspiring many to fight for their own freedom. His deep sense of anger against the plight of the poor, injustice to women and the growth of aggressive imperialism were all subjects for Burns acid tongue. When Parliament was asked “to give thanks to God” following a naval victory, Burns reaction was swift. “Ye hypocrites are these your pranks? To murder men, and gie God Thanks/Shame give o’er – proceed no further/ God won’t accept your thanks for murder.” Now what do you think Rabbie, as Burns is known, would make of the oil wars raging around the world today? Burns was also an early political champion for women’s rights, penning the subliome Rights of Women. “While Europe’s eye is fixed on mighty things/ The fate of empires, and the fall of kings/ While quacks of state must each produce his plan/ And even children lisp the Rights of Man/ Amid this might fuss, just let me mention/ The Rights of Women merit some attention”. With enormous courage, Burns also supported the end of feudalism in France and the American Declaration of Independence. These were the first stirrings of modern national democracy. A battle cry that trade unionists in Britain were later to take up through the Chartist movements to demand universal suffrage and the right to vote. T HESE democratic rights were not given to us but fought long and hard for. That it is why they are worth defending. This brings me to another inspiring event that I have been involved in over the last month, the launch of the Trade Unionists Against the EU Constitution. Now you might ask yourselves what is the link between Burns and Brussels. Well, I believe that this proposed Constitution threatens the existence of national democratic rights that Rabbie yearned for in his own time. Under the Constitution, unelected eurocrats in Brussels will decide our economic policy, our industrial and manufacturing policy, our foreign policy and how to organise our welfare state. It gives Brussels all the powers of a state yet with no democratic accountability. That does not bode well for working people here and across Europe. Moreover, I have just heard that, when launching the Constitution in Brussels, the eurocrats threw a lavish party for themselves costing over quarter a million pounds. Now, I bet Rabbie Burns would have penned a suitable witty verse to aptly describe their antics. TONY DONAGHEY The legacy of Robbie Burns 25 sending aid to Thailand to help its recovery, Brussels is demanding that Thai Airlines, its national carrier, pays £1.3 billion to buy its double-decker aircraft. The demand will come as a deep embarrassment to newly unelected trade commissioner Peter Mandelson as Thailand is struggling after giant waves killed tens of thousands of people and damaged its economy. Oxfam attacked EU tariffs on Thai fish, saying: “When countries are lying prostrate before us, it is criminal to continue to tax them on what they sell”. It has also emerged that the EU’s contribution to the Tsunami disaster fund will come from existing aid allocations, and is not actually new money to help the areas affected. Spanish ships use mostly Spanish seafarers A NEW report shows that Spain’s maritime operators employ almost 10,000 seafarers - almost two-thirds of them working on vessels flying the Spanish flag. Spanish shipowners together employ 9,900 officers and ratings, two-thirds of whom work on vessels flying the full Spanish flag or the Canary Islands Register. The report attributes the large increase in employment to the growing number of cruise vessels registered in Spain. EU orders Spain to end national wage bargaining EU Finance Ministers have told Spain to abolish its system of national collective bargaining agreements, which automat- ically links the negotiation of new salaries to inflation. EU ministers ordered Madrid to introduce a new system of sector and regional bargaining. French Council in talks on Hoverspeed route FRANCE’S Seine Maritime District council, which operates the conventional Dieppe-Newhaven passenger ferry service with its Transmanche Ferries, has confirmed a possible take-over of the rival Hoverspeed service. The Normandy authority’s chairman Didier Mari said that an understanding has been reached with Hoverspeed boss James Sherwood to “end competition between the two operators, which is harmful to both services.” Negotiations are expected to continue over the next few months.