may Day Rally - Belfast 2005
1 May 2005
Speech by David Begg, General Secretary Irish Congress of Trade Unions
When we assembled for the May Day parade this time last year we had as our guests the leaders of the trade union movement from nine of the ten EU accession countries. This was intended as a very public statement of our desire to welcome into membership workers whatever their country or ethnic origin. It is a statement we want to reiterate here in Belfast today.
The trade union movement is internationalist in outlook. Our core belief is that all human beings are morally equal; that we have an equal entitlement to self-determination; that all life chances should be as equal as possible and that social justice is a condition of liberty.
We work for social justice by organising workers into trade unions so that we can use our collective strength to force a fairer distribution of wealth in the market economy. We believe that an economy does not exist independently of society, and that it is proper for the democratic will to be asserted over business and private power. We do not believe that markets can regulate themselves or that best outcomes happen spontaneously.
These fundamental values are subscribed to by everybody here today. I state them only because they are the touchstone by which our programme and policy can be understood by the wider public whose conduct we wish to influence.
Globalisation is a phenomenon which is changing the world in an unprecedented way. The mobility of capital has changed the balance of power between business and labour. Business no longer makes any pretence about its driving motivation. It exists to serve the interests of property owners and shareholders. It has an ideological perspective which holds that all obstacles to its capacity to do that - regulation, controls, trade unions, taxation and public ownership - are unjustified and should be removed. Its ideology also demands that shareholder value be maximised, that labour markets be flexible and deregulated and that capital be free to invest or disinvest as it wishes. If there were any doubts that this is the case they were dispelled in an article in the "Financial Times" yesterday by Sir Digby Jones of the CBI. He was laying down the law for the next government. As he sees it, it is the responsibility of business to make profit and the responsibility of government to help it to do so. This is apparently in the Alpha and the Omega of public polity from the CBI's perspective.
It is the ordering of society in narrow subservience to these demands that creates a culture of impunity which allows vulnerable people to be exploited. In the last year - in Britain and both parts of this Island - we have seen the results of that exploitation. The tragedy of the Morecombe Bay Cockle Pickers and the treatment of GAMA workers, while different in the scale and enormity of their impact, are products of that culture of impunity. Employer demands for an end to "red tape" is a euphemism for no regulation and no restriction on their actions. Similarly attacks on the minimum wage in Britain, Ireland and Germany generally fall into the same category.
Let us be clear what is at stake here. Given the demographics and geography of Europe, the politics of immigration are the most important challenge for all European countries over the new decade. They threaten to destablise and brutalise even well established democracies.
It has to be recognised that there is a limit to how many newcomers even the most liberal society can absorb each year. But if we want the economic benefits of immigration we must be willing to invest in ensuring that people can integrate. We cannot allow a situation where people are treated like commodities the supply of which can be turned on and off in a sort of "just in time" model which facilitates business expansion or contraction or helps deal with infrastructural bottlenecks in the economy. No, we need regulation and effective enforcement machinery to prevent abuse in the labour market.
A number of current high profile cases in the construction industry, in Sweden and the Republic, have given us an insight into what would happen if the Bolkenstein Directive on Services was implemented as drafted. What is now happening illegally in respect of undertaking wages and conditions would effectively become legal. The so called "country of origin" principle is nothing more than a charter for social dumping. We have moved beyond the realm of speculation. We now have hard evidence to support our opposition to the Bolkenstein Directive and we must press our case against it with vigour and resolution.
And if an immigrant workforce can be exploited, and forced to work in low skilled jobs for illegal wages, and often at a level below their qualifications, this exerts a downward pressure on wages generally. It can create insecurity amongst the indigenous workforce and insecurity breeds resentment. Out of resentment can come xenophobia and racial tension.
Racial tension can be exploited for political ends. It has happened in Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands, all stable democracies, which have seen the growth of far right political parties. We are seeing it now in the British general election. The Tory party has identified that immigration is an issue in eleven of their targeted marginal constituencies. Under the direction of Mr Lynton Crosby - the Australian who got John Howard elected on an anti-immigration platform - the Tories are trying to link immigration to contentious issues like council taxes. It is a dirty campaign, irresponsible in the extreme.
Everybody here today knows that Northern Ireland is a fragile society and economy. It is characterised by a history of sectarianism, and sectarianism, xenophobia and racism have a common basis in intolerance. It is characterised by low labour force participants, low wages, high levels of immigration and inadequate enforcement of labour laws. It is characterised by a relatively large public and voluntary sector and a relatively small private sector. Taken together these conditions are far from ideal for promoting social cohesion.
There is, in my opinion, a mistaken view amongst policy makers that the way forward for Northern Ireland is to constrain the public sector through financial cutbacks of one sort or another. The belief apparently is that this will stimulate the private and voluntary sectors to take on some delivery of public services resulting in a more balanced economy.
What this fails to understand is that the very existence of a public realm is about more than a mechanistic delivery of services. The public realm defines a universe of belonging, membership of which allows individuals to relate to society and society to them. It is this philosophy that opens up the notion that business is not solely about the exercise of property rights in the service of wealth creation, instead business has social capabilities and a social dimension which it must respect. This public realm is there to minimise inequality and act as a safety net for the most vulnerable.
Markets can generate wealth, the voluntary sector can refresh and inspire around the margins, but in the end the goods that only government can deliver are what people depend on. Well managed and efficient public services are indispensable and precious. That is most particularly true in the complex society that is Northern Ireland today. This is not a time for experimentation with public services. All who have the interests of Northern Ireland at heart should consider this.
Interestingly, this concept of the importance of the public realm was well captured in a speech by an American politician nearly forty years ago when he said:
"Even if we act to erase material poverty, there is another great task. It is to confront the poverty of satisfaction - a lack of purpose and dignity - that inflicts us all. Too much and for too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things.... The gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our relationships; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile".
That was an extract from a speech by Robert Kennedy at an election rally in the University of Kansas a few days before he was assassinated.
So, let all of us, women and men of different creeds and ethnic backgrounds, gathered here in trade union solidarity on May Day, rededicate ourselves, as we have done for thirty years now, to the achievements of a tolerant society with justice and equality for all.