TUC Delegates passed Motion Seven on EU Attacks on Trade Union Rights yesterday, which the TUC General Council supported with reservations.
The Fire Brigades Union moved an amendment over the effects of the Civil Contingencies Act, exposing how this anti-terror law is being used to attack trade unions.
This was accepted as part of the motion.
Moving it, Tam McFarlane said: ‘We tabled this amendment because we’re greatly concerned at the use of legislation which was introduced to deal with terrorism in the “post 9/11’’ world, but is instead being used to attack and undermine even further the rights of trade unions, specifically, the Civil Contingencies Act.
‘Introduced in 2004, it gives the government and its agencies wide-ranging emergency powers in the event of what we were told would be situations such as a major terrorist attack.’
He said: ‘This year, when the Unite tanker drivers were on strike, the government threatened to use the Act in order to draft in soldiers to drive the tankers and undermine the union action.
‘Now, in the Fire Service, we see the Chief Fire Officers Association, egged on by belligerent employers and the government, putting forward a strike-breaking plan called “Project Fireguard’’ and quoting the Civil Contingencies Act as the excuse.
‘Under this plan, fire brigades would give a one-off payment of almost £10 million, followed by an annual retainer of over £9 million, to a private company who would provide scab labour to come in and ride fire engines in the event of the FBU taking strike action.
‘And the private company they’ve identified is Group Four, a company familiar to us as being responsible for a series of debacles in the Prison Service, now to be asked to take responsibility for emergency calls in the Fire and Rescue Service.
‘I’ve got a message for the people who designed these plans: if you’ve got £10 million of taxpayers’ money to spend, instead of putting it in the pockets of a discredited, private multinational company, you should be spending it in cash-starved frontline public services.’
Moving the motion, RMT leader Bob Crow said: ‘The EU is about attacking workers’ pay and conditions.
‘We have to reaffirm what the TUC stood for 100 years ago by mobilising workers in Britain and Europe to take action.’
TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber intervened on behalf of the General Council to say that its main reservation was over the inclusion of a reference to the Lisbon Treaty.
He said: ‘Our view is that this motion is not the vehicle to state our views on the EU.’
The resolution was passed unanimously. The resolution states: ‘The Lisbon Treaty will exacerbate these attacks (on unions) by handing greater powers to the ECJ to interpret disputes concerning the Charter of Fundamental Rights.’
