On the argument that most of our rights at work come from the struggle of unions & Labour here in Britain, not from Europe - I half agree and half disagree: a short thread (1/9)
I agree that’s where lots of them *came from*, historically. In a past world where Britain was one of the foremost industrial powers, it was well placed not to be simply outcompeted on cost by other countries when workers’ rights were improved here. (2/9)
But times have changed. More and more jobs have been moved by big companies to lower waged economies overseas. China was a smaller economy than Italy when we joined the EC in 1973. Not today. (3/9)
So while it’s true that trade unions and the labour movement here in Britain gave us so many of the rights we enjoy today, critically, they aren’t what keeps those rights in place any more. (4/9)
What keeps them in place is organisation by unions and parties across Europe, and laws and standards set and enforced across the continent. There’s nothing to stop the UK going further, and some of our rights are better than in other EU states. (5/9)
But today there is something to stop a right-wing government in the UK completely deregulating our labour market and throwing away environmental standards: European law. In a global economy where Europe is a major player, that matters. (6/9)
Acting together in Europe, social democrats have built the power to take on multinationals and achieve higher standards for workers and the environment. By ourselves, just in our country, our movement would not have anything like that clout. (7/9)
Outside Europe, our unions, our labour rights, our jobs, and our environmental standards would be picked off one after another by powerful multinationals and our jobs would go to other countries. (8/9)
And that’s why it’s precisely *because* I am a socialist and an internationalist that I want us to stay in the European Union: “by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we do alone” (9/9)
