When David Siegel, chairman of Gate Gourmet, attempted to smear the workers his company sacked by megaphone as "these militants, these radicals" (most of them are middle-aged Asian women), his remarks exposed all too clearly the fear and loathing widely felt by employers towards their employees. The slur merely emphasised the dignity displayed by the trade unionists involved, and pointed to how collective action can force ruthless employers on to the defensive. If Brits want something to be proud of, they need only look to the protesters on Beacon Hill, near Heathrow. Sadly, the reasons for the protest are things of which Britain should be far from proud - anti-trade union laws and a "flexible" labour market that enable business to behave in a way that wouldn't have seemed out of place in Victorian England.

In despair at new Labour's Tory policies, some may look to the EU for help, as Nina Fishman (page vi) proposes. The "European social model" certainly sounds comforting. But trade unionists should be concerned that there is much more consensus among political and business leaders on the ideals of the planned EU constitution and services directive than there is about the nature of a European social model and how that might be achieved. Moreover, the privatising, deregulating drive of both constitution and directive dampen hopes that the solution to Britain's woeful industrial relations is to be found on a European level. Apparent gains for workers in the constitution would exist only "in accordance with national laws and practices". The answer, this suggests, is to step up the fight for rights nation by nation. There is nothing anti-European about that, and it is what trade unionists everywhere have a responsibility to do.

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