Union warns Government to accept fundamental rights charter

A leading trade union today warned it would reject the new European Union treaty unless the Government endorsed the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) said it was shocked by reports the Government had been looking at the possibility of an opt-out from the charter.

President Peter McLoone, speaking at the group’s biennial conference in Donegal, branded a failure by the state to improve workers’ rights as an outrageous moral lapse.

The Government last week refuted claims it was distancing itself from the EU rights agreement after seeking legal clarification of an opt-out granted to the British government.

The four-day ICTU conference focusing on equality issues also heard sexual discrimination was rife in society and a radical review of the methods used to measure gender inequality was badly needed.

“Any form of opt-out would represent a significant shift in the Taoiseach’s position, outlined to this conference in 2005, and would jar incongruously with everything we have tried to achieve on workplace rights in Towards 2016,” Mr McLoone said.

“I have no doubt that this conference will deliver a clear message that Congress could never support a treaty that included such an ’opt out’ clause.”

Under the Charter, EU citizens are given basic legal protections in areas like human and democratic rights, equal opportunities, and workplace protections.

Mr McLoone said unions in Northern Ireland were bitterly disappointed that the UK Government had denied its citizens the basic protections set out in the Charter.

Meanwhile earlier in the day ICTU Vice President Rosheen Callender said considerable and unacceptable levels of sexual discrimination still existed in Irish society.

She added the extent of such inequality was not being accurately measured and a radical review was required to properly reflect the gender gap.

“Despite all the hard work of trade unionists over recent decades, we are still not even accurately measuring the extent of gender inequality in Ireland - never mind removing it,” she said.

“At the time of the first European Directive on Equal Pay for Women and Men, the gender pay gap was about 25%.

“It’s now about 15% – more than 30 years later.

“Not only is this pace of change unacceptably slow, but the method of measuring the gap is itself in need of radical review, if it is to properly reflect the true extent of gender inequality that persists.

“In this European Year of Equal Opportunities for All, when many people are under the misapprehension that sex discrimination is a thing of the past and that women have full equality nowadays, it is vital that we rededicate ourselves to demonstrating that in fact, considerable and unacceptable levels of inequality persist and are stubbornly resistant to removal.”

Around 600 delegates are attending the four-day event in Bundoran, which is due to be addressed tomorrow by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.

Issues such as quality public services, climate change, equality, privatisation, childcare, pay and inflation, pensions and health are all to be discussed.

Representing almost 830,000 workers, ICTU members will debate over 70 motions on issues affecting both working life and quality of life.

ICTU adopted equality as the theme as 2007 is the European Year of Equal Opportunities for All.

International speakers have been invited, including Commissioner Vladimir Spidla, EU Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities and representatives from the TUC, STUC and the Welsh TUC.

ICTU is an all-Ireland body representing trade unions in the Republic and in Northern Ireland and has an affiliated membership of 817,000.