Hexham Debates: Alternatives to Austerity: a sustainable new deal?

The Hexham Debates are at 11.00am – 12.30pm

Saturday 11 May 2013

Judith Kirton-Darling Confederal Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation

‘Alternatives to Austerity:  a sustainable new deal?’

From a European Trade Union perspective, Judith will examine how far sustainable, green economics might offer an alternative to current Europe-wide austerity policies.

Judith Kirton-Darling After graduating from the University of Sheffield in Social and Political Studies, Judith was a Programme Assistant at the Quaker Council for European Affairs, responsible for their human rights and social policy. She has worked inside the trade union movement for over a decade. In May 2011 she was elected Confederal Secretary to the European Trade Union Confederation. The ETUC – the only EU-wide representative cross-sectoral trade union organisation – was set up in 1973 to promote the interests of working people at European level and to represent their 60 million members in the EU institutions. The process of European integration, with the euro and the growing impact of EU legislation on daily life, has changed the setting in which trade unions operate.