Peter Hadden Archive | ETOL Main Page
From Press Statement in PH Archives , 27 February 1986.
Transcribed and marked up by Ciaran Crossey.
The Labour and Trade Union Group today backed the statement of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions opposing Mondays one day Loyalist stoppage.
Group Secretary Peter Hadden said:
“We oppose this strike because it is being called by the right-wing sectarian parties and organised along sectarian lines. It will divide and weaken the working class.
“However we maintain our socialist opposition to the Anglo-Irish Agreement. This is a Tory pact which offers nothing to the working class, Catholic or Protestant, and which also will increase sectarianism.
“While welcoming NIC-ICTUs call for workers to stay at work we believe this is not enough. To say no more than this is to give de facto support to the Agreement and to the Northern Ireland Office. NIC-ICTU must also adopt a position against the Agreement and pose instead a socialist solution based on the unity in struggle of the working class throughout Ireland and Britain.
“Solely to call upon workers to go to work is not sufficient. It is also necessary that the Trade Unions take measures to ensure the physical safety of those who do.
“Given the danger of a massive increase in sectarian violence we now reiterate our call for a special conference the trade union movement to launch a campaign against the tory policies of cuts in services, for jobs, for houses, against sectarianism and repression and for a socialist solution to the national problem.”
Peter Hadden Archive | ETOL Main Page
Last updated: 24 September 2020