Trade unions ‘can no longer ignore’ constitutional question, NI conference hears

The trade union movement can “no longer ignore” and “must engage” with the debate around constitutional change on the island of Ireland, a senior trade leader has said.

“I think it’s an issue that can’t be avoided, I think it’s an issue that, if we’re serious about representing all of our members … we must engage on it,” said Owen Reidy, the General Secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu).

This is understood to involve participating in debates and ensuring the voice of workers is heard in the unity conversation, similar to the example set by Scottish colleagues ahead of the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence. It will not take a position either for or against constitutional change.

Mr Reidy was addressing delegates at the biennial conference of the Northern Irish Committee (NIC) of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), which met in Enniskillen on Tuesday for its first in-person gathering since 2018.

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NIC-ICTU is an umbrella trade union body which represents 200,000 workers in Northern Ireland.

In his speech Mr Reidy said Brexit had made the prospect of a unity referendum over the next decade more likely.

“The outcome of that referendum is a matter for the people,” he said, “but I do think it is probably more likely than not that that type of a referendum may take place in the next ten years.”

The trade union movement, he said, needed to be involved in the debate because its level of diversity made it “unique”.

“There’s no political party like us, there’s no church group like us, there’s no civil society group like us that has the reach and breadth into every community in Northern Ireland because we are truly cross-community.

“We have that rich diversity, that is our strength, that plurality of views, so I think our unique voice needs to be heard in this debate,” he said.

“This debate is too important to be left to politicians and it is too important to be left to people with firm and fixed views, irrespective of what their view is, because there are many people who haven’t got a settled view.”

The trade union leader emphasised that engagement in the debate must take place “in a time-honoured trade union tradition of respect, of tolerance and acceptance”.

“There is no one right view, there are many right views,” he said. “We do not want to become a movement that primarily gets its support from people who want constitutional change, we do not want to become a trade union movement that primarily gets its support from people who want the constitutional status quo.

“We are and we must remain a movement that gets its support from all workers who want and desire greater justice in society and more fairness at work,” Mr Reidy said.

The conference is taking place under the slogan “Workers Demand Better!”, the campaign launched last month by NIC-ICTU – which represents 200,000 people in Northern Ireland – calling for “immediate and urgent action” to tackle the cost-of-living crisis.

In her speech, Alison Millar of Nipsa, who is also the chair of the NIC, addressed the challenges facing workers, describing them as “unprecedented times.”

This was demonstrated, she said, by the fact that “in this jurisdiction we have almost all affiliates either engaged in industrial action ballots, have announced strike dates or in industrial action at this time.”

Addressing the current political limbo in Northern Ireland, which remains without an Assembly or Executive, Ms Millar said it was “totally unacceptable that one party [the DUP] is holding the others to ransom” and “all parties must get into government and deal with the issues before them.”

The guest speaker, the Labour MP and shadow Northern Secretary Peter Kyle, said Northern Ireland was bearing the brunt of the “chaos and neglect” of the Conservative Party.

He said it was an “abject failure” that after six months the North’s power-sharing institutions had still not been restored and that time “wasted”, said said the Northern Secretary must “turn a new page and find new ways to bring Northern Ireland’s parties together and in from the cold because Northern Ireland cannot afford more of the same”.