Trade union calls for legal right for workers to refuse to assist genocidal regimes [Video]

DELEGATES AT CONNECT Trade Union’s conference have today called for the legal right for workers to refuse to assist genocidal regimes. 

Connect held its biennial conference in Athlone today. The trade union represents workers from engineering, electrical, and technical sectors, including apprentices. 

Connect activist, Frank Keoghan, who proposed an emergency motion on the issue, said: “This Union will support, through the [Irish Congress of Trade Unions], the moves by political parties in the Dáil for the immediate insertion in labour law of a right for workers to refuse to assist in any way regimes which stand accused of war crimes and genocide by the International Court of Justice.”

The motion was supported unanimously by delegates. 

Keoghan said that in Ireland, there is currently the “unacceptable situation” in which Irish workers who refuse to handle, transport or otherwise engage with goods that could “possibly assist regimes” are subject to disciplinary action. 

Connect General Secretar Paddy Kavanagh said the …