From Unity, 10 October 2009

Not a great day for the Irish workers

by Lynda Walker

In June 2008, 54 per cent of those who voted in the Irish referendum said No to the Lisbon Treaty. Had that 54 per cent said Yes, then you can bet your bottom euro that the Irish Government and their pro-Lisbon friends would have claimed it as a victory. Instead it was a blinding victory for the No campaigners.
     It was not so surprising that the “pro-Lisboners” got a 67 per cent majority last Friday: it was more of a shock that the anti-Lisbon campaigners won the first time around. This happened because the Irish people were treated with contempt by the Government and Euro business, who thought they could just lead the Irish electorate like lambs to the slaughter. (The October 2009 turnout was 58 per cent.)
     The Irish Government and Co have spent the last sixteen months working right, left and centre to turn the vote the other way. They pulled out all the stops to get their “democratic” way: poets waxed lyrical about the good of the Lisbon Treaty, artists, sports people, celebrities all said “Yes.” Campaigns run by groups such as “We Belong” and “Women for Europe,” alongside the financial backing of Intel and Ryanair, who gave Yes campaigners free flights and took out adverts for the Yes campaign, pulled in the electorate. As one journalist stated in the Irish Times, “Other key factors on the Yes side were . . . the more generally positive approach from the farming sector and trade unions . . . and the muted approach by Euro sceptic British owned newspapers on this occasion.” (Unite and the electricians’ union, TEEU, being the exceptions.)
     On the No side stood a fragmented opposition who for very different reasons were against the Treaty. The integrity of the People’s Movement, who exposed the Government the first time around, was overshadowed by the return of Declan Ganley, who, having stood and lost in the European elections last year, stated that he would not be involved in the campaign a second time. He changed his mind at the last minute, but his media presence was detrimental to the No campaign.
     There was scant media coverage for the leaders of the People’s Movement, Sinn Féin and the Socialist Party MEP Joe Higgins. The welcome invitation by Vincent Browne to Eugene McCartan, general secretary of the Communist Party of Ireland, to appear on his TV show was not going to overturn the massive media campaign paid for by big business and the pro-Treaty forces.
     The pro-Treaty people now have to deliver the goods, too numerous to mention. However, most important is the question of uplifting the economy, employment, and the enhancement of workers’ rights, which will allegedly be given priority. Ignored is the fact that Gordon Brown vetoed the request by Mr Cowen to sign up to trade union friendly “legal guarantees”; these were dropped after “crisis talks” with the French President, Sarkozy, and Brown, who was concerned that the nature of the legal guarantees sought by Ireland could reopen the British referendum issue. (K. D. Ewing and John Hendy QC et al., A New Spectre is Haunting Europe: The Institute of Employment Rights.)
     This, however, went virtually unnoticed by many in the Irish labour movement. What is now required is for the Irish Congress of Trade Unions to reject the Social Partnership policy and get into solidarity action with the trade union movement globally. As Lord Wedderburn said in 1973, “It is not the free movement of labour but free international trade union action which is the true counterpart to free movement of capital.”
     It was not a great day for the Irish workers—or any other workers if it comes to that—but the struggle continues!

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