ROSE was formed in August 2016 to bring together those in the trade union and Labour movement who want to campaign for a post-Brexit settlement that protects and enhances workers’ rights both at work and politically in terms of the freedom of Scottish governments to advance democratic control and public ownership.

Its core principles are, first, the enhancement of workers’ rights in Scotland and, secondly, internationalism and solidarity with all those across Europe struggling against austerity and privatisation.

ROSE’s Statement of Aims lists the following potential benefits to be campaigned for in any Settlement. The aims of Radical Options for Scotland and Europe should be to mobilise support for, and campaign to secure, the following beneficial outcomes in any settlement of relations with the EU.

• Power to take essential utilities, such as transport, energy and communications, back into public ownership.
• An end to austerity and the redevelopment of the welfare state.
• Power over taxation and particularly the ability to reduce or end regressive taxes such as VAT.
• The restoration of collective bargaining at sectoral level with the aim of enhancing labour skills, productivity and consumer demand and ensuring intakes of labour from overseas were planned in ways that were not exploitative.
• An end to compulsory competitive tendering and the restoration of the powers of local government to develop direct labour departments and create synergies with local small business
• Power for governments and local authorities to refuse contracts to blacklisting employers and require all contractors to pay a living wage and end practices enabling agency and subcontract workers to sign away rights
• The creation of a State Investment Bank that could take advantage of very low interest rates to buy dominant stakes in key companies to combat the short-termist ‘share-holder’ value demands of the investment banks and enforce investment and R&D
• Power to develop strategic industries through a mixture of public ownership, state aid and indicative planning
• The development of public sector-led infrastructure programmes for transport, housing, energy and digital communications that will be free to require contractors to adhere to specified employment conditions
• The power to redevelop fishing as an industry by recovering control over territorial waters and using subsidy payments to develop cooperatives protecting the rights of small producers
• Recovering control over agricultural production and using subsidies to enhance production and to develop marketing boards that would protect farmers from exploitation by retailers
• Recovering control of trade policy and exempting us from trade treaties such as CETA and potentially TTIP that give corporations legal rights to sue governments is their rights to maximise profits is infringed
• Democratising land ownership through tenant farmer right to buy and community ownership and using the increased agricultural funding available after the ending of CAP to develop marketing cooperatives that would challenge supermarket exploitation, phase out wasteful subsidies to big landowners, protect fragile communities and expedite land reform
• Freedom from compliance with judgements from the EU court of justice such as Viking, Laval, Ruffert and Luxemburg that make it illegal for trade unions and governments to seek to enhance the pay and conditions of posted workers in line with domestic workers.

You can join by filling in the form at the link below and following the payment instructions there:

Link to membership form here