The General Secretary Designate of the Technical Engineering and Electrical Union (TEEU), Eamon Devoy, has called on Labour leader Eamon Gilmore to withdraw his allegation that the union is
'misleading workers' over the Lisbon Treaty.
"We accept that, however much we disagree with advocates of a 'Yes' vote, they are sincere in their viewpoint and we expect then to respect our viewpoint," Mr Devoy said.
Speaking on RTE radio last week, Mr Gilmore said people who argued that Lisbon was bad for workers "were simply wrong."
"Some of these posters . . . saying the minimum wage will be cut to €1.84, that is a lie. The European Union has no say, one way or the other, in what the level of minimum wage is going to be in this country."
"The Lisbon treaty does improve the rights of workers . . . and it will write those into the European treaties. That is of benefit to working people, and those who argue that the treaty is somehow weakening workers' rights are misleading workers," he added.
Mr Devoy said it "ill-behoved the leader of the Labour Party, himself a former senior trade union official, to question the bona fides of the TEEU and our 45,000 members."
"If we oppose the current treaty we do so on the basis of our own experience, feedback from members and expert advice," he said.
"It is a slight on this union to say we are deliberately setting out to mislead anyone. It is not just a distraction from debating the issues but devalues the debate and we believe workers deserve better from the leader of the Labour Party."
"On July 7th Eamon Gilmore himself implicitly acknowledged that the Lisbon Treaty would do
nothing to help workers in this country when he gave a pledge at the Irish Congress of Trade Unions that, if Labour was returned to Government, it would insist on the entitlement of workers to collective bargaining, enshrined in Article 28 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, being transposed into Irish law," he added.
Mr Devoy said the TEEU was calling for any EU Treaty to contain a special Social Progress Protocol
that binds member states to give precedence to workers' rights over the co-called 'four freedoms'.
These currently cover the provision of goods, services, capital and mobility of labour.
"The only 'freedom' relating directly to workers is one which has been repeatedly highlighted in the European Court of Justice as a weapon for undermining unions and existing living standards, by backing 'Race to the Bottom' employers," said Mr Devoy.
"We speak from direct experience representing workers from new EU accession states such as Poland and non-EU states such as Serbia, who have faced gross exploitation in this state."