BECTU NEC Report to 2002 Conference appendix C: TUC General Council statement on European Union

The following statement was adopted by the TUC General Council at their meeting on 25 July 2001 and was included in the General Council Report to Congress 2001:

European Union - trade union priorities for the next term

The British trade union Movement has been, and will continue to be, at the forefront of those bodies and institutions leading the way for British co-operation in the European Union. Our EU membership is the foundation for jobs, protections at work including health and safety, worker involvement, equal treatment and family friendly provisions in Britain.

The General Council, and Congress, have supported the Labour Government in its efforts to establish the UK as a full participant. They applauded its immediate acceptance of the Social Chapter following the 1997 election; they acknowledged its influential role in the introduction of an Employment Chapter in the Treaty at Amsterdam; and they have encouraged it in its policy of preparing for entry into the single currency, so as to give the British people the option of joining. The General Council believe that progress in these key areas of social, employment, economic and monetary policy should go hand in hand.

Single currency

For 12 EU countries, Economic and Monetary Union will be completed with the introduction of euro notes and coins on 1 January 2002. The euro Group is forging ahead in co-ordinating European economic policies, which will have lasting repercussions for the UK, whether we are members or not.

The General Council recognise that entry into the single currency is a pivotal issue facing the Government in its historic second full consecutive term of office. They note that it intends to assess the five tests set by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in October 1997 within two years, and that if the Government and Parliament agree to entry, their recommendation will be put to the British people in a referendum.

The General Council have consistently argued in addition that a sustainable exchange rate between the pound and the euro needs to be established by the time the currency is locked in. They are concerned at the relative weakness of the euro, which makes that objective more difficult to meet. They also recognise that adjustment of the exchange rate could impact on stability and lead to inflationary surges which could prompt the independent Monetary

Policy Committee to impose interest rate increases and the Government to reduce public spending. At the same time, the relative strength of the pound against the euro is causing severe problems for British manufacturing and tourism and there has already been a loss of well over 100,000 jobs linked to currency volatility since the launch of the euro in an economy which, overall, continued to grow. The need for a more secure and competitive alignment of the pound against the euro is important and urgent.

The General Council, and the ETUC, have called for more openness and transparency from the European Central Bank, and have supported an enhanced supervisory role for the European Parliament over it. They have also called for the ECB to act more positively in regard to its duty to support Community objectives notably in pursuance of high levels of employment and socia1 protection, without prejudice to the objective of price stability. The General Council sympathise with suggestions by the Chancellor of the Exchequer for improvement in ECB mechanisms, for example in relation to setting symmetrical inflation targets, which do not require Treaty amendment, and believe that they could be accommodated within a review by the ECB Governing Council of their Monetary Policy Strategy, set on 13 October 1998. From its position on the sidelines, however, the UK is unlikely to be able to lead debate on these points.

In line with the decision of Congress last year [2000], the General Council will continue to encourage an informed debate on Britain's membership of the euro, and to press the case for positive support for UK membership of the single currency if the five economic tests are met and at an exchange rate that is sustainable - it being understood that meeting the tests is not a prerequisite for the General Council to campaign about the euro.

Social Policy

On social policy, British workers have to thank Europe for legislative advances which have been made, for example on:

Collective redundancies, transfer of undertakings and protection of employees, protection of employees in insolvency situations;
Working time, including extension to those groups excluded from the original directive (transport workers and doctors in training), with outstanding proposals for road transport workers about to be agreed;
Information and consultation, including the European Works Councils Directive, and proposals on involvement of workers in the European Company and information and consultation of workers in national companies about to be adopted as directives;
Equal treatment for part-time and fixed term workers via framework agreements, with a forthcoming directive on equal treatment for temporary agency workers; rights to parental leave via a framework agreement;
Equal opportunities with the Equal Treatment Directive and a revision soon to adopted, dealing with sexual harassment, gender mainstreaming and forced protection for women returning to work after maternity leave; protection for pregnant women at work; reversal of the burden of proof in equal pay cases;
Combating discrimination on grounds of racial or ethnic origin in employment and other areas of life; combating discrimination on grounds of religion, belief, disability, age or sexual orientation in employment;
Health and safety at work with a framework directive, a series of specific directives, with further action on noise, vibration and other physical hazards;
Protection of young people at work, with the end of the UK opt-out in 2000.

The General Council are particularly pleased that agreement was reached in the Council in June on a framework directive on the information and consultation of workers in national companies, and they will be seeking to improve its provisions through action in the European Parliament. They can but denounce the negative attitude taken by the British Government in this matter. The General Council will pay special attention to the transposition of the directive into UK law to ensure that its spirit and letter fully apply in Britain.

The General Council call on the Government to show greater commitment to enhancing social policy, and are concerned that it has sought systematically to minimise the effect of EU instruments at the stage of transposition into UK law. This concern covers in particular the Working Time Directive and the three directives based on the social partner framework agreements covering parental leave, part-time work and fixed term contracts. Trade unions should not have to take the Government to the European Court of Justice to ensure the proper implementation of European social legislation, as in the case of parental leave, which involved legal action by the TUC, and in the BECTU case over paid holidays.

The General Council applaud advances in social dialogue at European level and have repeatedly called for equivalent action in the UK. They recognise that some progress has been achieved in involving the social partners in the drawing up of the National Action Plans for employment, and that the Government has recognised the value of fostering social dialogue in respect of telework, albeit because the objective is a voluntary rather than a binding agreement.

Nevertheless, much remains to be done, particularly in relation to social partner involvement in the application in Britain of EU social policy instruments.

Employment Chapter action

The General Council, and the ETUC, have co-operated in the various processes which emerged from the Amsterdam Employment Chapter, and subscribe to the objective set at the Lisbon European Council on Employment for the EU to become in the next decade 'the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion'. They underline the need to raise the skill levels of the European workforce as a whole and welcome initiatives of the European Commission in this respect, including the setting up of a High Level Task Force on Skills and Mobility of which the TUC General Secretary is a member. They are happy to participate in 'open policy co-ordination' involving benchmarks, targets and peer review groups but do not, however, accept the Government's interpretation that this obviates the need for EU legal instruments to be advanced in the social field, whether adopted by the European institutions or negotiated by the social partners.

They call for a comprehensive follow-up to the Social Policy Agenda agreed in Nice, which in particular characterises the common core values of the European Social model by systems that offer a high level of social protection, by the importance of the social dialogue, and by services of general interest covering activities vital for social cohesion. In this connection, the General Council ask the Government to consult on the White Paper to be prepared for the Spring Employment European Council under the Spanish Presidency, and any 'Ceccini' document, as announced by the Chancellor in his Mansion House speech in June, with a view to ensuring that negative features of the US system characterised by the worse inequality and literacy levels in the developed world - which the UK closely follows are not exported to the rest of Europe.

The Future of Europe debate

The debate on the Future of Europe in the run-up to the 2004 Intergovernmental Conference and further EU enlargement is the setting in which the issues will be considered in the next period. As a first step, the Government has introduced the European Communities (Amendment) Bill to enable the UK to ratify the Nice Treaty bringing forward the institutional reforms necessary for the enlargement of the EU to as many as 27 member states. The General Council support this, but believe that institutional matters, although important, are not seen as relevant by most people. The General Council, and the ETUC, have stressed the need for the social acquis to apply throughout the enlarged Union and called for a wide-ranging debate on issues arising from enlargement. The agenda should aim at building an open and people-centred Union, including incorporation into the Treaties of the Charter of Fundamental Rights; maximising possibilities for free movement for people to match freedoms of movement for capital, goods and services; and action to reinforce democratic control and openness in EU decision-making, notably through the European Parliament and public access to meetings of the Council of Ministers.

The General Council believe that international trade can foster growth and jobs. They support multilateral trade agreements and oppose protectionism. At the same time, they share with many groups in Europe and throughout the world disquiet at the lack of mechanisms to ensure that basic labour and environmental standards are respected by all parties, notably in the World Trade Organisation, and by multinational enterprises. The General Council believe that it is incumbent on the EU, which speaks with one voice on international trade, to continue to lead positively in this debate in line with the mandate agreed in October 1999 and to promote human rights worldwide.

The General Council believe that a robust case for our full involvement needs to be made consistently. They urge the Government to involve fully the social partners, community organisations and other elements of civil society, to promote understanding of European issues and combat the misinformation of the anti-Europeans.