A senior delegation of Fórsa travelled to Washington DC last week for a seven-day visit, during which they had a series of meetings with US unions and political and employer representatives.

The Fórsa delegation, comprised of the union’s general secretary Kevin Callinan and the five senior elected officers of the union’s National Executive Committee (NEC), travelled to gather information on the latest US labour organising strategies, to comparatively examine the legislative developments on collective bargaining coverage in the US and EU, and provide a trade union analysis on the Irish political situation as the Good Friday Agreement approaches its 25^th anniversary.

Kevin Callinan said the Irish presence in Washington in the week of St Patrick’s Day has become a key fixture in the Irish political calendar.

He added: “Government officials and employers have, for some years, been heavily invested in the St. Patrick's events in Washington. It made sense to insert a trade union voice in the conversations, if only to show our determination to hold them to account in relation to the commitments contained in last year’s high-level report on collective bargaining, and on the EU Directive on Adequate Minimum Wages, which is due to be transposed into Irish law by 2024.

“In the context of the continuing parallel developments to improve collective bargaining coverage on both sides of the Atlantic, an Irish trade union presence was both practical and necessary, as there is always a host of discussions helping to determine Ireland’s economic future,” he said.

Strategies

Kevin explained that the initial idea for the Fórsa visit came from an “unlikely” source: “The Republican-leaning pollster Frank Luntz spoke to an Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA) audience shortly before last year’s US mid-term elections.

“He predicted a Republican landslide, casting US President Joe Biden as too old and suggesting the Democrats were in disarray. I questioned how well this analysis sat with the buoyant state of the labour market and, in fairness to him, he said ‘you should get to Washington to see what the labour unions are doing on the ground’ to help Democratic party candidates.

“I had also heard American labour activist Liz Shuler speak about the new approaches to grassroots political campaigning that had helped to ensure Luntz's prediction fell wide of the mark. On that basis I became more convinced it would be worthwhile to visit and learn more about the methods involved.

“We met with our US union colleagues to talk about their campaign approaches and about parallel efforts - in the US and the EU - to increase the number of workers with access to collective bargaining for wages and work conditions.

“President Biden called upon on Congress to pass the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act in his State of the Union address in February, while the EU Directive on Adequate Minimum Wages is due to be transposed into Irish law by 2024.

“AFL-CIO legislative counsel Bart Sheard told us the absence of a super majority, together with the filibuster tactic in the Senate, makes it very unlikely that the PRO Act will pass, although the legislation has still been included on the list of Democrat priorities keeping it in sharp focus.

“AFL-CIO assistant political director Dave Carpio told us how the union has tried a lot of different approaches to political work over the last decade. As a membership organisation they have had to take account of the fact that there are supporters of both the Republican and Democratic parties in membership.

“They focus on issues targeting voters by appealing to their sense of equity, and a major campaigning focus now is on worksite-based conversations.

“We also met with representatives of the Laborers' International Union of North America (LiUNA!) and our US counterparts, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

“The message we kept hearing from our union colleagues was that ‘Biden has been the greatest ever President for the labour movement.’  US union leaders made favourable comparisons with Obama and even FD Roosevelt, although Biden was characterised as less patrician and more at home with labour issues and their advocates,” he said.

Networks

Kevin said another focus of the visit was to share a trade union analysis and perspective on the Irish political situation, with a particular focus on the peace process, including the very recent developments relating to the Northern Ireland protocol, which has significant implications for the northern economy and its workforce.

The Fórsa delegation took the opportunity to meet with a number of senior Irish political leaders, in addition to a number of US politicians and representatives.

“It is an unavoidable fact that the presence of so many Irish visitors to Washington, and the extensive list of social events, brings people together in a way that provides an opportunity and a setting for conversations that would not happen otherwise. I wouldn't want to overstate it but the scale of networking has to be seen to be believed and there's no doubt that, in some cases at least, positive developments will ensue,” he said.