Trade unionists and community activists will march in Belfast on Saturday and next week in Enniskillen in response to the G8 Summit of international leaders in Fermanagh on Monday, 17th and Tuesday, 18th June.

According to Brian Campfield, vice-chairman of the ICTU Northern Ireland Committee, the CAJ has been asked to observe the rally due to the expected heavy security presence.

“Our concern would be that the security overkill would result in the prevention of a legitimate right to protest. This is the first time the trade union movement has asked a human rights body to oversee the way a demonstration is handled by the security forces. It is a measure of our concerns that the policing and security around protests could be overzealous, and it has to be stressed the trade union movement –led protest will be entirely peaceful,” he said.

Youth Workers and young people held a symbolic “Forced to Fly” protest outside the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, Mespil Road, Dublin 4, on Tuesday (28th May) at 11.00 a.m. to highlight continued funding cuts to youth services.

SIPTU has asked the Minister for Children, Frances Fitzgerald, for increased government investment in training for childcare workers which is both classroom based and involves 'on the job' training.

SIPTU has welcomed a Government commitment to regulate the provision of Home Help services but has warned that, without increased funding, regulation cannot guarantee quality care for elderly people.

SIPTU Health Division Organiser, Paul Bell, said: "We welcome the commitment from Minister of State for Older People, Kathleen Lynch, that she intends to oversee the regulation of Home Help services. However, regulation of Home Help services cannot be done in isolation. Home Helps are facing enormous challenges to delivering quality care due to cut backs, with some being asked to deliver very vital personal services to clients in less than 15 minutes."

He added: "In the absence of adequate resources to deliver quality care, regulation will be tokenistic".

Since 2008, the Health Service Executive has reduced Home Help hours by more than two million. The SIPTU 'Time to Care' campaign has organised thousands of Home Help workers who are demanding a restoration of hours cut from Home Support Services and proper contracts of employment for those working in the sector.

Accepting his award, Seamus paid tribute to the volunteers from all walks of life who often risk their own lives while trying to save others. “They are the backbone of the lifeboat institution,” he said.

“These people are available 24/7 in all kinds of weather to help rescue those who get into trouble at sea. They show incredible commitment for no financial reward and without them the RNLI wouldn’t be able to carry out its main function which is to save lives at sea,” he said.

The meeting in Dublin of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) in early June heard calls for a renewed focus on the creation of decent jobs and on coordinated efforts to tackle youth unemployment across the European Union.

ETUC leader, Bernadette Ségol, emphasised the need for movement towards a Social Europe which has been overtaken by initiatives to liberalise, deregulate and get workers to compete downwards on wages and working conditions.

She pointed to the empty rhetoric of EU leaders about going beyond austerity and stimulating new growth and jobs and said that these will not convince citizens as long as real policies keep concentrating on ‘structural reforms’ which weaken the social dimension of the economy.

Social Europe must be at the core of all economic decisions and is not an optional appendage to economic governance, she argued.

Segol also warned that trade union support for the EU project was based on the promise of social progress and full employment and not only on economic integration.

Without a major investment programme to restore sustainable growth and movement towards a Social Europe the continued support of the ETUC for the European project cannot be taken for granted, she said.

by Bernard Harbor

The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) has called for massive investment – of between €140 billion and €280 billion – in a European jobs and recovery programme.

Speaking in Dublin on Wednesday (5th June) ETUC General Secretary Bernadette Ségol said austerity policies had failed and investment of between 1-2% of EU-wide GDP was needed to create jobs and re-launch the European economy.

The European-wide federation, which includes the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), wants funds to go to green re-industrialisation, youth employment and other projects.

Ségol said massive investment was needed to re-boost the economy, create jobs and rebuild ‘social Europe’ – an EU based on decent work, citizens’ rights and strong public services.

“Trust and confidence in the very worth of the European project have been eroded and undermined in recent years because we have seen the European social model undermined and weakened.

“That means lower living standards, lower employment standards and weaker social protection for millions of European citizens. We need nothing less than a ‘new deal’ for Europe, in order to regenerate economies stripped bare by austerity, and communities laid waste by service cuts,” she said.

Ségol accused EU leaders of “empty rhetoric” on jobs and growth. “The empty rhetoric of EU leaders about going beyond austerity and stimulating new growth and jobs will not convince citizens as long as polices concentrate on ‘structural reforms’ which weaken the social dimension of our economy,” she said.

The union leader said the EU’s ‘youth guarantee’ – aimed at giving all unemployed young people training or work experience – was not enough. “We support the ‘youth guarantee’ but without a recovery programme unemployment projects will fail. It is not enough to solve the problem of unemployment,” she said.

ICTU general secretary David Begg said there was a structural weakness at the heart of the EU, which guaranteed that the full burden of economic adjustment fell on workers and their families. He called for a rebalancing of European institutions to give more practical weight to social policy, employment and workers’ rights.

“Social policy remains at national level but economic policy is centralised and no EU institution matches the power of the European Central Bank. We need to centralise European social policy as a counterweight to the European Central Bank,” he said.

The ETUC was holding its mid-term conference in Dublin under the theme ‘high noon for social Europe.’ Ségol said her federation had been lobbying for policy change at EU level and with individual governments. She said European leaders had an opportunity to change course at their summit on 27^th June. “If they fail us again, they will not be forgiven,” she said.