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Ambulance workers on the picket line outside the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast, as thousands of health and social care workers, including paramedics, in Northern Ireland take part in strike action over pay and conditions, January 26, 2023
UNIONS are warning that stability in Ireland could be threatened if workers’ rights are “ripped up” under the Retained EU Law Bill.
The TUC and NIC-ICTU (Northern Ireland Committee in the Irish Congress of Trade Unions) issued a joint statement ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement on Monday as the Bill makes its way through parliament.
The unions warned that under the Bill workplace rights such as holiday pay, rest breaks, health and safety rules and protections from discrimination will disappear from the end of this year unless ministers table new regulations to retain them.
It is only trade union power at work that will materially improve the lot of working people as a class but without sector-wide collective bargaining and a right to take sympathetic strike action, we are hamstrung in the fight to tilt back the balance of power, argues ADRIAN WEIR
