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Owen Tudor

Owen Tudor

I’ve been the Head of the TUC’s European Union and International Relations Department since 2003 and have worked at the TUC since 1984. I’ve been a member of the Health and Safety Commission, the Civil Justice Council, the Social Security Advisory Committee and the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council and now I’m on the Wilton Park Advisory Council. I’m particularly interested in the trade union movements of Australia, Iran and Iraq, the Middle East and the USA, and I’m interested in migration, trade, and building trade union capacity. I’m the Secretary of TUC Aid, the TUC’s charitable union development arm and on the Robin Hood Tax campaign steering committee.

  • International

    The magnificent (European) nine backing Robin Hood

    8th February 2012 — Filed under: International

    Owen Tudor Owen Tudor

    French newspaper Le Monde reported yesterday that nine EU governments had written to the current holder of the EU Presidency, Denmark – where there is a huge row in the coalition about whether to support a Financial Transaction Tax(FTT) - asking them “to accelerate the work of the Council” to complete the first reading of the EU draft FTT directive by July.

    Although they pledged “full support” to the draft EU directive, the most interesting thing about this is that nine is the magic number of governments required to launch what’s called ‘enhanced cooperation’. This is a legal method of implementing a measure like an FTT without the unanimous support of the 27 EU member states required for an EU tax measure. So the nine governments calling for action at EU level are the nine governments who could, should such a measure fail to secure unanimity, go ahead anyway. The nine governments signing the letter are Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain.

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  • International

    Cameron plans to let Europe take £21bn a year from the City … and we get nothing!

    7th February 2012 — Filed under: International

    Owen Tudor Owen Tudor

    Big Four accountancy giant Ernst & Young say that the Government is planning to give away more than £21bn a year in tax revenue to other EU governments. The Daily Mail must be apoplectic. Eurosceptic MPs must be foaming at the mouth. Have Cameron and Osborne gone stark, staring mad? What on earth is going on?

    It’s all about Cameron’s ham-fisted attempt to opt out of EU regulation of the City of London. Many people have remarked upon his failed attempt to veto the Franco-German treaty proposal at the December European summit. Now, on top of the veto that wasn’t, here’s the opt-out that isn’t.

    By refusing to take part in the Commission’s proposed financial transactions tax, Cameron thinks he has protected his pals in the City of London from paying the tax. But he hasn’t. All he will do by opting out is make sure that the British people don’t benefit from the tax when the rest of Europe goes ahead with it.

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  • International

    EU Robin Hood Tax would boost growth, say experts

    7th February 2012 — Filed under: International

    Owen Tudor Owen Tudor

    A new report, launched in Brussels on Monday by the Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament, shows that – contrary to what the finance sector’s paid lobbyists have been insisting – a European financial transaction tax (FTT) would boost growth in Europe by at least 0.25%,  raise the revenue to combat poverty and climate change at home and abroad, and help re-balance the economy by making long-term investment more worthwhile than short-term, high frequency trading. This new report by noted economists Prof Avinash Persaud and Prof Stephany Griffith-Jones comes on top of revised estimates from the European Commission who originally produced some of the data that fat cat financiers pounced upon. The Commission’s original impact assessment was based on a flawed model which shows all taxes as harming growth, whatever the revenues are used for, but misunderstandings of what the impact assessment showed were used to create concern among progressive politicians and abused by people opposed to the tax all along to justify their position (even though the same people shed few tears over the impact on growth of measures they support like increased VAT or cuts in public services.)

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  • International

    UN Secretary General condemns austerity, calls for action against inequality

    5th February 2012 — Filed under: International

    Owen Tudor Owen Tudor

    UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has issued a report to the current meeting of the UN Commission for Social Development which pretty much reads like a trade union manifesto. The ITUC leader Sharan Burrow welcomed his ”emphasis on employment to reduce poverty, as well as the recognition of the deep crisis of youth unemployment.  Governments need to heed the UN’s call to deliver decent incomes and security, and the protection of international labour standards.” Ban Ki-Moon identifies weakened unions, austerity, inequality and informal employment as key causes of increasing poverty around the world:

    “Growing inequality is attributed to several factors, including the reduced power of trade unions, the uneven distribution of the benefits of globalization, the growing disadvantage of marginalized groups such as young people, and inadequacies of institutional frameworks and policies such as redistributive policies” (para 9)

    He urges Governments and international institutions to back the ILO Global Jobs Pact, extend social protection (eg disability benefits and pensions), offer youth jobs guarantees and take climate change mitigation action to reduce inequality and start reducing poverty again (global poverty was declining – albeit too slowly – before the financial crisis began, and has been thrown into reverse since).

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  • International

    Giving future Olympic Games an ethical dimension

    5th February 2012 — Filed under: International

    Owen Tudor Owen Tudor

    The row about the decision by the organisers of the London 2012 Olympics to accept sponsorship from Dow Chemicals for the stadium wrap demonstrates that good intentions are no longer enough. As the Playfair 2012 campaign that the TUC helps run argues, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) needs to put ethics at the heart of the financial decision-making of the Olympic movement. People had hopes that the London Olympics would be the first ethical Olympics, and the TUC believes the organisers have done more than any previous organisers in that direction (disclosure: the TUC have signed Principles of Cooperation with LOCOG covering many ethical issues). But it is becoming clearer, as the opening ceremony comes closer, that they have not done enough. And with the Brazilian World Cup in 2014 and Olympic Games in 2016 looming, we need to learn – and apply – the lessons of London 2012.

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  • International

    US unemployment falls again: jobless rate now better than Britain’s

    3rd February 2012 — Filed under: International

    Owen Tudor Owen Tudor

    The US January jobless figures came out today, and showed that December’s leap forward has been improved upon. In December, the economy grew by 200,000 jobs and in January a further 243,000 jobs were created, meaning that the unemployment rate has fallen from 8.6% to 8.3% in just two months and by 0.8% since August. That means that the US unemployment rate is now almost certainly better than the UK rate (which was 8.3% in 2011 Q4 and has deteriorated since) but even worse for us, we are heading in different directions. Apart from the fact that this surge of nearly half a million jobs in just two months suggests that the economy is improving just as the US heads towards its Presidential election, it does vindicate the efforts by President Obama to continue stimulating the economy: in contrast to what the UK Government is doing with predictably different results.

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  • International

    Cameron backs a (limited) European Robin Hood Tax

    31st January 2012 — Filed under: International

    Owen Tudor Owen Tudor

    Yes, you read that headline right. He said it, in the press conference after this week’s European Council ended. His precise words were:

    “I have said very clearly to other European leaders that there are ways of taxing financial services to make sure they make a fair contribution. We have stamp duty on share dealings. Other countries could do that.” (Emphasis added.) 

    There’s always a limit to how much you can read responses to questioning at press conferences. But we’ve always argued that the UK stamp duty is a good example of an FTT that works, and that expanding the UK stamp duty to other countries would be a good first step. This was originally what the German Social Democrats called for in the last German federal elections, and it seems to be something that even Chancellor Merkel’s neoliberal coalition partners the FDP could sign up to. It is, roughly speaking, what President Sarkozy has suggested in France.

    So this might be the beginnings of a consensus on a first step towards an EU-wide financial transactions tax which, while nowhere near as far as campaigners want to go, could give politicians the confidence to go further (it would raise only a few billion Euros – remember when billions sounded like a lot of money?)

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  • International

    The French President’s rather threadbare new clothes: Robin Hood, he ain’t!

    30th January 2012 — Filed under: International

    Owen Tudor Owen Tudor

    Desperate to paint himself in French revolutionary colours ahead of elections he is currently predicted to lose to the Socialist candidate Francois Hollande, current President Nicolas Sarkozy has unveiled a unilateral French Robin Hood Tax which he proposes to table as part in Parliament as part of the Budget debate next week. Campaigners have pronounced themselves less than impressed, as the measure being proposed is a fairly pale copy of the UK stamp duty, and is likely to raise only €1bn a year, certainly far less than the financial transactions tax the European Commission is proposing. And they are also unimpressed by his plan to use the revenue raised to cut the French government deficit rather than use any of it to boost France’s lamentable spending on international development or combating climate change. About the only positive thing about the Sarko-tax is that it could be in place by the end of the year.

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  • International

    EU Treaty con-trick: Cameron’s veto that isn’t and opt-out that doesn’t

    30th January 2012 — Filed under: International

    Owen Tudor Owen Tudor

    Today heads of government from across the EU will meet in strike-hit Brussels to discuss the new treaty described by Financial Times columnist Wolfgang Munchau as “quite mad” and “truly destructive” because it would “encourage eurozone member states to adopt extremely pro-cyclical policies”. But hang on, what’s David Cameron doing there? Didn’t he deploy the British veto against the Treaty before Christmas? Sort of. As many have pointed out, it wasn’t a veto because it hasn’t stopped anything happening, and he actually agrees with the end result of the Treaty which requires an austerity lock-step as we march towards recession. Which is why he will “nod through” the Treaty when it comes up today. So what on earth is he up to? 

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  • International

    Unions and employers agree to protect jobs as Spanish unemployment tops 5 million

    28th January 2012 — Filed under: International

    Owen Tudor Owen Tudor

    Spain is yet another country where austerity isn’t working. At the end of 2011, the number of unemployed in Spain had leapt to 23% or five and a quarter million (2.3 million of them out of work for over a year). 62% of the jobs lost in the last quarter of the year were young people’s, and the unemployment rate among 16-24 year olds is now a staggering 48%. The new right-wing Government has accelerated the previous socialist administration’s budget cuts: rising unemployment is the inevitable result. Meanwhile, the European Commission and politicians like Germany’s Angela Merkel blame Spanish youth unemployment rates on the strength of workers’ rights in the country, although temporary employment is also falling. Spanish union confederation leader Ignacio Toxo – also President of the ETUC - asked “Has Chancellor Merkel actually read the Spanish labour law?”

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