unite BrexitCheck


BY RYAN FLETCHER


ON OUR TERMS Make sense of EU-exit with Unite’s BrexitCheck


Unite has launched a new online resource dedicated to bringing members news, views, facts and analysis on Britain’s exit from the EU.


BrexitCheck.org is part of Unite’s campaign to win an EU exit that works for working people, because the vote to leave the EU was not a vote for attacks on jobs, employment rights and living standards.


That’s why Unite is fighting for workers to have a seat at the table during the Brexit negotiations, for tariff free access to the Single Market, for the government to implement an ambitious industrial strategy and for working rights to be retained and protected.


As well as appointing a Brexit team made of Unite officers, the union is asking members to get in touch through BrexitCheck.org to provide information on how Brexit is affecting their workplace.


This could include employers blaming Brexit when withholding holiday pay,


blocking union reps from attending meetings or trying to justify job losses.


Unfortunately, the repercussions of the Tory plan to cut ties with the Single Market – endangering the frictionless cross border supply chains many industries depend on – and replace them with ad hoc trade deals, are already beginning to become clear.


In the last weeks manufacturing workers in the East Midlands voted by a 99 per cent majority in favour of strike on an internal ballot because of an unacceptable pay offer which their employer blamed on Brexit.


Additionally Unite reps on European Works Councils, which ensure that employees are consulted and listened to on transnational policies and plans, have been prevented from taking up their seats or been told they will become “affiliated members”.


Guy Hands, a British tax exile in charge of private equity giant Terra Firma, recently announced that a hard Brexit


will be good for buyout vultures but a “bad thing for the majority of the people and bad for the country.”


Accounting firm PWC has made similar pronouncements, saying that Britain will weather a hard Brexit because of its “flexible” economy. In other words an economy dominated by low paid insecure work typified by zero hours and gig economy roles.


Unite general secretary Len McCluskey promised that the union will lead the fight to resist a Brexit that punishes working people.


“Our union – the biggest organisation of working people across this country – has a responsibility to build alliances to defend the decent jobs upon which our communities rely,” he said.


“We will not shy away from engaging in this, the most important recasting of our economy since the Second World War, because anything less would be a gross dereliction of the duty we have to defend working people.”


For more on the Brexit campaign and latest updates visit www.uniteBrexitCheck.org 18 uniteWORKS Spring 2017


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