At the GMB Congress, my Region, London, organised a fringe meeting on the “ The rise of the far right and worker’s rights “. This was jointly organised with the Labour Movement for Europe who had planned to put their President, Stella Creasy, up to speak. I had originally planned to use the meeting and Congress as a last attempt to get better policy for the Labour Party on trade and relations with the EU but the announcement of the election obviously changed this, and meant that Stella could not make it.
My speech to the fringe, spoke of workers rights, sovereignty and its constraints and looked at the European Parliament results which has occurred on the previous weekend. You will find below my speech notes, although I did not use them all as I was unable to time the speech in practice and had too cut the speech short.
My notes for the speech I gave are below,
Workers Rights & the EU
We have spent time this week looking at the sustained attack on workers rights in the UK, however, the 14 years of Tory misrule started with a low bar.
Much of the UK’s mandatory, minimum terms and conditions were based on EU regulations and directives, the regulation of working hours, maternity leave and pay, holidays entitlements and many more. The Tories have used their newfound sovereignty to attack Unions, workers and the right to…
