Thousands of Nurses, teachers, civil servants, local
government workers and other hard pressed public sector workers will no doubt
shed a tear today after hearing how disappointed Mr Cowen is that they are
going to be on strike. For sure the Taoiseach wasn’t just disappointed
according to RTÉ he was indeed “deeply disappointed”.
“Mr Cowen said he believes it would be far better to
continue with the discussions over how to manage the public service pay cost in
the current economic climate.” Well there’s a thing! Would the Taoiseach be
surprised to know that the main reason that these strikes are taking place is
because the “talks about talks” have produced absolutely nothing?
The truth is that the so called “social partnership”
talks have been proven to be little more than a dialogue with the brick wall.
The government have used them as a cover to carry out ruthless cuts in our
wages and conditions, attack the public services that the workers of Ireland
have fought to secure over generations and put at risk services to the old the
poor and the sick.
It is gross hypocrisy for the Fianna Fáil to say that
these strikes will damage the very services that we are fighting to defend. FF
and particularly Cowen and Lenihan have demonstrated that they are little more
than the hired mouthpieces of the bosses. Not just the mouthpiece of the Irish
bosses either, but the US and British imperialists as well. The bosses have no
intention of paying their way in this crisis. That pleasure is reserved for us.
The press and the bosses have tried to whip up anti
public sector feeling among the workers in private industry. But that policy
will backfire. Many workers in private industry realise that if the bosses get
away with an attack on the well organised public sector workers then it would
be open season on workers in the small and medium companies. The private sector
employers are waiting like vultures. They have already sought to undermine the
REA agreements.
The picture painted by the gutter press is truly
disgusting and demonstrates the utter hypocrisy of the well fed leader writers
and “commentators”. You’d think we were all living in luxury and spending our
millions on Caribbean cruises. How many families rely on two parents working,
one for the council and one in the supermarket, or driving a van? The bosses’
arguments are worthless and only seek to divide us. They understand that this
struggle is one of the most important in the state for decades. We have no
choice but to fight the cuts. The lesson of the past year, the bail out of the
banks, the pension levy, pay cuts, the budget then An Bord Snip, mean that we
won’t get anything from the government but cuts, cuts and more cuts. FF and the
Greens are after holding the line for the bosses. The only way to defeat them
is through the united action of the working class.
There are sections of the trade union leadership who
are happy to see this strike as way of letting off steam. It seems that they
and the government have been resigned to the fact that these strikes were going
to take place for some time. But that begs the question why are we striking? In
the first instance this strike will demonstrate the scale of the opposition to
the government. That will have an effect. It will have an impact on the
consciousness of the workers as well. But it has to be backed up by an
industrial strategy that hits the government where it hurts. That means
shutting off the revenue supply to the government and local councils, disrupting
transport, closing down key services and drawing the rest of the working class
into a movement that can stop the government in its tracks.
The next stage after this strike which will be solid
and highly effective should be to campaign for a one day general strike. The
Irish working class has the power to shut down the whole of society. If we are
going to defeat this vicious assault on the working class then we need to raise
the tempo and the scale of the movement. We can’t afford the cuts. Ultimately
we can’t afford the capitalist system that created this crisis.
