I Was delighted to have the opportunity to speak at Irish Congress of Trade Unions Global Solidarity Summer School on behalf of Irish Left With Ukraine, alongside Chris Ford of Ukraine Solidarity Campaign and Kateryna Maliuta-Osaulova of the Trade Union of Education and Science Workers of Ukraine, on the topic of why Irish trade unionists should show solidarity with our Ukrainian colleagues and how we can do so.- Gregor Kerr

Gregor’s speech is below.

Gregor Kerr’s Speech :

I’d like to start by thanking David Joyce and the Global Solidarity Committee and conference organisers for including this session on the Summer School schedule. In this session, I’m going to invite you to put yourself in the shoes of Ukrainian workers and trade unionists – people who in the last months of 2021 and the early months of 2022 were grappling with exactly the same sort of struggles we face on a day to day basis – struggles with individual employers about wage rates and terms and conditions, struggles with the broader neo-liberal government agenda on issues of access to public health, housing, education etc etc.? 

But, suddenly, their lives were turned upside down by a brutal invasion of their country.  They found themselves facing the sort of horrors we really can’t envisage and they found themselves grappling with how to respond. 

How do any of us know how we would respond in such a situation?  Our pre-ordained political theory might suddenly not fit the reality of the brutality of what is happening. 

So the challenge for each of us as Irish trade unionists and as Irish left political activists is to be able to step outside our political theory and to listen to the voices of Ukrainian trade unionists, feminists, LGBTQ+ activists, socialists, anarchists.. to listen  to their reality, to respond to their requests, to empathise with the horrific situation in which they find themselves…