Owen Reidy: Irish trade union movement’s place is in Europe

The trade union movement must start to take its engagement and relationship with European institutions much more seriously, writes Owen Reidy

The recently agreed Adequate Minimum Wages Directive is potentially one of the most significant and progressive directives to emerge from the EU in recent decades.

The Irish trade union movement’s attitude towards Europe and its institutions has varied over the years depending on the prevailing political and economic winds both in Dublin and Brussels. There is no doubt that sentiment towards Europe, whatever we mean by that, was negative during the Barroso period and during the economic crash. However, the chaos and tragedy of Brexit that we are seeing play out on our own island and in Britain has certainly left Irish trade unionists and indeed citizens more positively disposed towards the EU.

However, from a practical and strategic perspective it is critical that the Irish trade union movement starts to take its engagement and relationship with the various European institutions much more seriously and less ad hoc. The employers, the farmers and the community and voluntary sector do. We must also start to do so.

Transformative for workers

The recently agreed Adequate Minimum Wages Directive is potentially one of the most significant and progressive directives to emerge from the European Union in recent decades and could be transformative not just for workers working in Ireland but right across the twenty-seven Member States. It emerged from a context of declining wages, declining union density and declining collective bargaining coverage. A number of member countries have had chronic and very high levels of youth unemployment and clearly, the European project was not working for everyone. 

The political class in Brussels could see the centre ground failing to maintain its presence and coherence with the steady and gradual increase of populist, nationalist right-wing parties in many Member States whereby another version of Brexit elsewhere could not be ruled out. 

They also realised post-pandemic that for too many people work was simply not paying and something needed to be done.

The progressive Commissioner for Social Affairs, Nicolas Schmit published his draft directive in October 2020 and the social partners and various institutions commenced engagement on the proposal. The European Trade Union Confederation led by Irishwoman and former ICTU official now General Secretary of the ETUC, Esther Lynch steered the work of the European trade union movement on the Directive. She argued that for work to pay we really needed to promote collective bargaining and that minimum wages on their own was not the answer. 

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions probably engaged and involved itself in the work of the ETUC in Brussels and at home like never before with any other directive. We saw up close how the EU can work with the tireless and excellent leadership shown by the Parliament’s co-rapporteurs, two MEPs Agnes Jongerius from the Netherlands and the Socialist and Democrats group along with Denis Radtke from Germany and a member of the EPP. Both trade unionists, both progressives, working in partnership with each other and the trade union movement.

Indeed, we found our engagement with our Irish MEPs excellent on this issue. All MEPs irrespective of their party or political allegiance supported the co-rapporteurs’ position and voted in favour of the outcome. 

The Directive will require Member States to promote and strengthen collective bargaining like never before. 

Trade unions and employers must be facilitated to have meaningful and informed negotiations on an equal footing to bargain on wages at cross-industry level. Collective bargaining coverage in Ireland is 35%, across the EU the average is 60%. There is an implicit target of 80% across each Member State. Member countries will be obliged to develop an action plan in conjunction with the social partners [with] real actions and clear and concrete timelines to achieve progress. Irish governments can no longer be passive or disinterested bystanders when it comes to promoting collective bargaining in the future.

Owen Reidy, general secretary, Irish Congress of Trade Unions. Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins

We in the Irish trade union movement now look forward to engaging with the employers and the government on the transposition of this Directive. We have had several false dawns before with other EU directives. The directives have been good. But governments have been conservative and narrow in transposing into Irish law. We cannot and will not accept this on this occasion. Nothing short of the full transposition of the text and ambition of this Directive will do.

When workers ask the question “what has Europe ever done for us?” I think they are asking the wrong question. The real issue is what have we done to take Europe, our role in it, our activity in the institutions to leverage our interest, seriously? The answer is, not enough. Now is the time for our movement to engage in a more meaningful and strategic way so we can play our full role. 

EU directives are very important. We must treat them as such. 

EU law takes precedence over Irish law, so we must ensure the Irish trade union movement's voice is both heard and heeded at the heart of Europe. We intend to do just that. The values of the trade union movement are international, now more than ever we need to take our rightful role at the centre of Europe and in the European trade union movement.

• Owen Reidy is general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. This is an extract from ‘Workers and the EU: reflections on Ireland’s membership’ by ICTU, out May 9