Lisbon Treaty 'is a bad deal for workers'

Dear sir - Your editorial (Meath Chronicle, 2nd September) talks about cutting "through the chaff being thrown about by the treaty's opponents. This time, let us at least have a factual, balanced, but above all, truthful debate on what the Lisbon Treaty is about." While we in Éirígí agree with the latter part about the need for an honest debate on Lisbon, something we have tried to engage in, the reality is that the "chaff" as you put it is being thrown about by the political and business establishment here pushing for a 'Yes' vote. They claim they have secured legal guarantees that address the reasons that we democratically rejected this Treaty last year. That is untrue. The so-called guarantees are meaningless political promises by discredited politicians and bureaucrats and do not change the content of the Treaty in any way. The Treaty is unchanged in any way. Not a word or a comma has been altered. They claim that voting 'Yes' is essential to economic recovery. That too is untrue and simply scaremongering. The economic model proposed by Lisbon has completely failed working class people. It was precisely those economic policies, their neo-liberal, privatisation agenda, that created the current economic recession, resulting in mass unemployment, severe pay cuts and major cutbacks in the provision of essential public services. The declaration in recent weeks by both Intel Ireland and Ryanair that they intend to spend hundreds of thousands of euro each campaigning for a 'Yes' vote in the Lisbon referendum is a clear indicator as to whose interests are served by this Treaty. Those who will benefit from a 'Yes' vote are the multi-national corporations and big business in general. For workers Lisbon is a very bad deal. Contrary to what the likes of Intel and Ryanair are suggesting, the antidote to the current jobs catastrophe facing workers is not an even stronger dose of this neo-liberalism and more of the failed greed before need policies that caused this economic crisis. What is in the interest of big business, as Lisbon so obviously is, is not in the interests of workers and their families. All that Lisbon will provide for workers is more misery and hardship and yet further attacks on their living standards and working conditions. Yours, Daithí Mac An Mháistír, Éirígí.