NO2EU ELECTION CAMPAIGN KICKS OFF

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: october 2013 :: RMTnews 6 N o2EU kicked off its 2014 Euro election campaign at the TUC Congress in Bournemouth calling on the trade union movement to wake up to EU rules that are condemning a generation to permanent austerity. John Hendy QC gave a powerful warning about EU plans to launch a major attack on the concept of national collective bargaining agreements between trade unions and employers. “Under EU treaties and EU court judgements, big business rights to make money override the human rights of working people to defend themselves,” he said. He said that EU structures were undermining workers’ rights particularly in member states in the Eurozone suffering permanent austerity as part of ‘bail-out’ agreements such as Ireland, Portugal and Greece. He described the moves as a ‘gamechanger’ as the myth of ‘Social Europe’ was being dropped completely in favour of the EU’s ‘fundamental four freedoms’, the free movement of capital, goods, services and labour’. RMT general secretary Bob Crow said that unemployment in the euro zone was over a record 12 per cent and unending austerity was being imposed across the continent. “25 years after European Commission president Jacques Delors promised TUC Congress full employment, better workers’ rights and protection from Tory policies in return for full support for the ‘European project’, it is clear we were sold a pup. “Across the EU, health care, education, transport and every other public service face EU demands for privatisation and opening to market forces which, of course, the Con Dem coalition is only too happy to oblige. “The neoliberal Tory-boys of UKIP should not have a monopoly for opposing a corporate, anti-democratic EU whose policies they support. “Our movement created democracy in the 19th century with The Chartists and the demand for universal suffrage which is now being taken from us in the 21st century by the EU. “The only rational course is to leave the EU and rebuild Britain with socialist policies,” he said. Bill Greenshields of the People’s Charter warned that all TUC motions opposing austerity and calling for public ownership were illegal under EU rules. “Capitalism is built into all the EU treaties it is what the EU was designed to do,” he said. Former Labour MP Dave Nellist warned that the EU was using the current economic crisis to impose austerity and transfer wealth from the poor to the wealthy. For more information on No2EU policies go to www.no2eu.com NO2EU ELECTION CAMPAIGN KICKS OFF