TRADES UNION desk
To date, we have a worrying lack of detail from the Government on key aspects of Brexit policy and strategy. ICTU’s Macdara Doyle writes.
At some level this is understandable, given the huge uncertainty which surrounds both the process and the intentions of the UK government.
The surprise decision of Theresa May to call an election for 8 June has merely added to that sense of unpredictability. While favourable polls may have swayed May into calling the poll, the volatility among electorates across the European Union means we could be facing an entirely unforeseen scenario come 9 June.
As the fate of Theresa May’s predecessor will doubtless affirm, Tory governments do not have a happy history with national ballots centred on such highly-charged issues. All of which makes the need for some concrete detail from our own government so vital at this time, especially when it relates to issues as fundamental as livelihoods and economic security.
In recent week, Congress General Secretary Patricia King has outlined her own experience of the economic upheaval that can follow events of major significance. In a recent Irish Times opinion piece, she recalled: “In 1984, the British Leyland car assembly plant in which I worked closed its doors and I was among the hundreds that found themselves out of a job. The shutdown was yet another chapter in the slow, painful demise of a once thriving sector and a direct consequence of Ireland’s entry into the then European Economic Community (EEC), in 1973.”
In advance of Ireland’s entry into the then EEC, it was clear there would be industrial casualties and that jobs would be lost. In the event, the car assembly industry – comprising notable companies like Fiat, Ford, British Leyland, Datsun and Chrysler – went to the wall and some 12,000 well paid and skilled jobs were lost with it. The Irish economy of the time was ill-equipped to cope with losses of that size and scale.
Not only were there losses in term of the skills, capacity, wages and revenue, but it also resulted in a period of prolonged industrial unrest as working people fought to hold on to their livelihoods. But perhaps the most troubling aspect of this period of upheaval was the simple fact that no one in officialdom seemed remotely prepared for the upheaval, much less had a coherent plan to deal with it. If the losses had been expected, there should have been a strategy in place to respond, not least to offer some prospect other than the dole queue to those workers affected.
Are we about to see history repeat itself? If so, then the dry run of the 1970s provides no comfort for hundreds of thousands of working people across Ireland who are likely to be adversely affected by Brexit. To date, the Government has had nothing of substance to say to workers in key sectors of the economy that trade heavily with the UK: agri-food, engineering and manufacturing.
Some €39 billion was traded between the UK and Ireland in 2016 – €15.5 billion in goods and €23.5 billion in services. According to the CSO figures, this supports over 700,000 jobs. Not all are vulnerable, but many thousands may be. Indeed, while we may also gain some jobs, how will new jobs in financial services, for example, benefit workers who have lost out in the food processing or manufacturing sector? Remember that some 82 per cent of agri-food jobs are in the regions, where employment opportunities can be minimal.
Has anyone in government or the state agencies given thought to a plan to protect employment in these vulnerable sectors and to ensure that Brexit does not lay waste to whole swathes of the domestic economy? Clearly, as they stand, EU State Aid rules could prevent the Government from extending support to ensure the viability of those sectors. Therefore reform of those rules should be a key priority of the Government’s Brexit strategy, coupled with a clear determination to block any settlement that impedes our capacity to support vulnerable sectors and save peoples’ livelihoods.
