SIPTU has today issued a stark warning regarding the proposed new pan-European “28th company/EU Inc. regime,” stating it risks dismantling decades of hard-won workers’ rights and labour standards in Ireland and across Europe.
The warning came at a trade union rally at Cork City Hall Plaza and an information event in the Imperial Hotel, jointly organised by the Cork Council of Trade Unions, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) and the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC).
SIPTU Deputy General Secretary, Ethel Buckley, said: “We believe this new ‘EU Inc.’ will be a parallel corporate system where large companies can operate under a new set of rules that bypass the protections, traditions, and labour standards that workers in Ireland have fought for decades to achieve. This is unacceptable. When capitalism is allowed to run rampant and write the most convenient set of rules, the pressure is never upward. It never becomes a race to the top. It always becomes a race to the bottom.
“We are calling on EU Commissioner Michael McGrath to row back on this regime. He must not allow corporations to shop around Europe for the weakest rules and the lowest standards. Decades of hard-won progress in workers’ rights across Ireland cannot be quietly dismantled in the name of deregulation and the free market.”
She added: “Commissioner McGrath has a responsibility to stand up for the workers and communities who put him where he is today. As an Irish politician, he must protect the jobs, rights, and living standards of the people in Ireland, not be complicit in creating a system that lets big corporations drive them down.
“The reality is, without workers, there is no economy. Without solidarity, there is no fairness. And without strong labour rights, there is no real democracy in the workplace. These are facts.”
ETUC General Secretary, Esther Lynch, SIPTU Services Divisional Organiser, Adrian Kane, President of the Cork Council of Trade Unions, Natasha Linehan Tracey, also addressed the protest.