WORKERS' RIGHTS:FOUR CASES involving workers' rights that were the subject of controversial rulings by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) could not have happened in Ireland, members of the Oireachtas Joint committee on European Affairs said yesterday.
Speaking at the launch of a report on the Lisbon Treaty and workers’ rights, Clare TD Timmy Dooley (FF) said that the Laval, Viking, Ruffert and Luxembourg cases were “all peculiar to the member states involved”.
He said the Lisbon Treaty would not institutionalise the ECJ judgments and “enshrine a neo- liberal agenda”.
“Opponents of the treaty are basing this claim on article 52 (2) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, but they fail to say that the Laval and other cases are based on existing treaties and not the Lisbon Treaty,” he said.
The Oireachtas report says the Laval case occurred due to the manner in which Sweden implemented an EU directive on the posting of workers.
It said that the Laval case, which has been highlighted by some on the No side in the current referendum campaign, could not and should not be linked to the treaty. “They are two very different issues,” it says.
The report says that the ECJ in the Laval, Viking, Ruffert and Luxembourg cases also established some important principles which benefit workers’ rights in Ireland.
“These include the right to collective bargaining, including taking strike action and the legitimacy to take strike action to combat social dumping,” it says.
The second co-author of the report, Joe Costello of the Labour Party, said that the reason for compiling the report was to bring a sense of clarity to the debate on the treaty and workers’ rights.
“From our detailed inquiry, it is clear that claims made by opponents of the Lisbon Treaty that it will undermine workers’ rights or force a reduction in the minimum wage are completely false”, he said.
Mr Dooley said that the European Union did not systematically take the side of employers against workers.
He said that EU had always worked in the interest of workers in improving and protecting their rights.
