Trade unions are about solidarity. The very name of our movement is symbolic of the fact that we are bound together by ties that go beyond nationality or location.
By John-Paul McHugh, Scottish officer at Community Trade Union
Trade unions are about solidarity. The very name of our movement is symbolic of the fact that we are bound together by ties that go beyond nationality or location.
We stand together with colleagues across the UK, campaigning as much for fairness in Scotland as we do in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
At a time of economic turmoil across the world now more than ever we need to stand together in the pursuit of social justice. Putting up barriers between workers in the rest of the UK makes no sense at all.
And workers across the whole of UK stand united in solidarity. Whether we are from Glasgow, Grimsby or Glamorgan, we know that by working together we can achieve so much more than we could apart.
Where is the social justice argument in abandoning colleagues south of the Border?
I am proud that Community members from across the UK have come together to say with a clear voice that we are better together and will campaign against Alex Salmond’s plan to break up the United Kingdom.
Working together with trade unionists across the UK we have achieved so much. From the National Minimum Wage, which the SNP failed to support, to health and safety legislation, pooling our resources across the UK has resulted in significant improvements for our workers.
Things are far from perfect, but the suggestion that workplace rights would be infinitely better in a separate Scotland is risible.
The complete failure of the SNP to support the Scottish steel industry when contracts were being handed out for the Forth Road Bridge replacement was a taste of what life would be like in a separate Scotland.
The SNP’s economic case for breaking up Britain appears to rest on cutting corporation tax for big business. When companies like Starbucks, Vodafone, Apple, Google and npower stand accused of avoiding tax on a grand scale, Alex Salmond wants to reduce their burden even further.
We are promised Scandinavian style public services and investment but Irish style levels of low taxation. It simply doesn’t stack up.
One area of significant concern to steel workers in Scotland is the impact of separation on pensions. Campaigners fought long and hard to establish the Pensions Protection Fund (PPF), the UK wide scheme which supports workers whose pension schemes go bust. What will happen to this if Scotland breaks away?
The failure of the SNP to provide any credible assurances on the PPF’s future is indicative of the flimsiness of their case.
Working together and pooling our resources is what the trade union movement, and Community in particular, is all about. Creating divisions on the basis of nationality is contrary to our whole world vision. We are so much stronger and better together as part of the UK.
49 Responses to “Trade unionism is not about creating even more divisions based on nationality”
Dr Alan McCowan
Since Labour slashed Corp Tax twice when last in power and the Tories are doing the same, it seems odd to single out the SNP.
Dr Alan McCowan
This is a shameful tissue of partisan Labour drivel from Mr McHugh.
1. There is no need for a political union between Scotland and the rest of the UK for trade unions to exercise solidarity. Many trade unions currently operate across borders, eg the NUJ, which represents both UK and Irish journalists.
2. Nobody will be “abandoned” by Scottish independence. England elected a Labour government as recently as 2005 and is perfectly capable of doing so again without Scottish votes. The last Labour government which relied on Scottish votes for a (tiny, almost useless) majority was in 1974.
3. Even if England sticks with the Tories, why should the Scots be dragged down too when we’ve rejected the Tories consistently for 60 years? How does that help anyone? Is it not better to have a left-of-centre government in Scotland setting an example of social democracy than to have the entire UK suffering under the Tories and constantly being dragged even further to the right by UKIP (and Labour’s gutlessness)?
4. Since the likes of Starbucks and Amazon and Vodafone already pay next to zero tax under Labour or Tory UK governments, what difference does it make if they’re dodging it at 25% or 20% or 15%?
5. You appear to be quite simply lying about the minimum wage.
6. When, precisely, did anyone claim “workplace rights would be infinitely better in a separate Scotland”? Infinity is rather hard to measure. But in 13 years Labour did nothing to restore union rights destroyed by Thatcher, and now the Tories are taking the axe to them again. How could Scotland possibly do any worse?
7. As others have noted, no Scottish steel company was capable of providing the type of steel needed for the new Forth crossing, because Labour stood uselessly by in the 80s and 90s and let Tory Westminster governments Scotland had rejected at the ballot box destroy the Scottish steel industry. At least the bridge is being built, creating jobs and economic stimulus.
You should be ashamed of yourself, telling these lies to try to stop five million people escaping from the Tories out of pure spite.
Jamie Hamilton
This article is nonsense, I’m afraid, and in complete denial about the realities of industrial relations in Scotland as part of the UK.
Since 1979, trade union membership in Scotland has halved and we have seen the most repressive labour legislation in the developed world imposed on Scottish trade unionists under successive British governments. Meanwhile, today, yet another Tory government at Westminster (that was, once again, overwhelmingly rejected by Scotland’s voters at a British general election) is winding itself up to weaken public sector trade unions (the last bastion of trade union membership in Scotland) further. And John-Paul McHugh’s response? – “we know that by working together we can achieve so much more than we could apart”. Even a cursory glance at the evidence of the last thirty years shows that this is little more than a shallow political claim for Scotland’s continued membership of the union rather than an evidence-based analysis of the unenviable realities of industrial relations in Scotland as part of the UK.
As for his claims about the National Minimum Wage and workers rights. Does he assume that his readers are complete idiots? Does he not know that in 1997, the UK was the only major advanced economy in the world that did not have either an explicit or implicit National Minimum Wage. Does he not know that many of the (limited) rights extended to Scottish workers after 1997 were a consequence of the British government belatedly signing up to the EUs Social Chapter and that, for years, Scottish workers had been denied these rights, which other EU workers had enjoyed, because the British government in 1991 had opted out of the Social Chapter of the Maastricht Treaty.
John-Paul McHugh’s position seems to be that continued Tory governments and continued weakening of the limited rights that Scottish workers currently have, are a price worth paying to keep Scotland in the union. Fortunately, more trade unionists in Scotland today have wakened up to the realities of their precarious position in the UK. They can see that independence, while not providing a solution to all of their problems, offers an alternative path of development to the continued attack of successive British governments on workers’ rights, social justice, equality and welfare, among other things..
Thank goodness the days are long past when British automatons like McHugh spoke for the Scottish working class.
Richard Lucas
Left Foot Forward is making itself look ever more foolish with its constant stream of evidence-free pro-Union bile. Get a grip.
EmbraBoffin
Perhaps its just failure of imagination on the part of Mr McHugh but unions can and do organise across national borders. Witness this multi-national union strike of air controllers recently
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22850250
“The French unions’ counterparts in some other European countries are set to join in the strikes on Wednesday or hold other industrial action. They are those in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Slovakia.”
Additionally, Unite manages to organises it members across both the UK and Rep or Ireland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unite_the_Union), it is surely simple enough to extend its membership in an independent Scotland.