IRELAND: The
outcome of the ballots among the ICTU affiliated unions over the Croke
Park deal will be finally clear by next week when the SIPTU and IMPACT
ballot results are counted. A huge amount of pro deal propaganda has
been brought to bear on the membership of the public sector unions,
backed up by the trade union leadership who have been desperate to
present the deal as the saviour of the Irish working class.
In
the event that deal is passed the outcome will be that the trade union
leaders will have handed the government the opportunity to savage
conditions of service, lengthen hours, introduce a process of
redeployment and “reform” public services, on a promise of no wage cuts
for four years. We have argued time and time again in the columns of Fightback that there is no chance of any sort of equitable “Social Partnership” under today’s conditions.
As we explained in May 2009:
“…there is truly ‘nowhere else to go’. The only way to stop the bosses’
onslaught is through coordinated national industrial action. If we give
the bosses an inch they’ll take a mile and a country mile at that.
Social partnership in a huge boom is an easy game; the bosses can
afford to offer a few scraps to the workers. But under conditions of
deep slump and crisis all bets are off.
To
rely on the old methods from the Celtic Tiger days is very short
sighted. The bosses won’t make any concessions unless they absolutely
have to do so. Relying on social partnership will be like firing a pea
shooter against a tank. We know that weakness invites aggression. Just
look what Thatcher did in Britain in the 1980s. The British trade union
leaders held up the white flag and the Tories saw it as a sign of
weakness.”
http://ireland.marxist.com/ireland/trade-unions/7573-ireland-class-struggle-rising-as-slump-deepens
Any
agreement with the government that there will be no wage cuts isn’t
worth the paper that it’s written on. There are a number of reasons for
this. Firstly, there is more than one way to cut workers living
standards than directly cutting wages. We have already seen the pension
levies and the various other impositions on working people that have
been wheeled out over the past couple of years. Cuts in the “social
wage” on the very services that low paid public sector workers have to
access themselves will also have an impact.
The
economic situation in the Eurozone is such that the there is also a
very real threat of a double dip recession. The crisis in Greece,
Spain, Portugal and now Bulgaria where the budget deficit has
mysteriously doubled over night means that the general uncertainty and
instability internationally is likely to have dramatic effects on
Ireland on top of the policies of Cowen and Lenihan, which as we
already know are simply to attack working people. A whole series of
governments introducing austerity programmes at the same time would cut
the market and potentially send the world economy back down the
slippery slope. The bosses are “tobogganing to disaster with their eyes
closed” as Trotsky said in the 1930’s.
As
such the goal posts could be moved at any stage and it is quite likely
that the Coalition will be back for more. The gloves are off, the FF
and Green Party ministers know that they are going to be ditched at the
next election. They have a job to do on behalf of the bourgeois; make
the workers pay for the crisis. This is a one sided Civil war against
the trade union movement and the working class. In these circumstances
the role of the trade union leadership has to be to put forward an
intransigent class position. This crisis is of the bosses making, The
government will no doubt claim as will their counterparts in Greece,
Spain, Portugal and Britain, that there is no alternative. But any
policy that attacks working people has to be opposed, and more
effectively than the trade union leaders have done so far.
If
the deal is accepted by SIPTU and ICTU members it is likely that the
deal will go through on a card vote. If however one of the big unions
votes down the agreement then the deal is likely to fall. But if the
deal goes through it will be a pyrrhic victory for the trade union
leaders. The acceptance of the deal would represent a green light for
the government and should the truth be told also the private sector
employers to unleash a wave of attacks on working people.
By
refusing to stand up to the government, McLoone and David Begg have
weakened the movement through pursuing what is effectively a divisive
policy within the movement. Had the leadership developed a strategy to
escalate and spread the partial actions that have taken place since
Christmas, it is quite possible that they could have defeated the wage
cuts. But instead their vacillation and prevarication has confused
sections of the movement and lead the members up a blind alley. The
Croke Park deal is no solution to the situation faced by hundreds of
thousands of members. It merely replaces one set of attacks on workers
with another.
What
are the prospects for the next period? If the deal goes through then it
is probable that the government will soon begin to try and implement
its programme of “reform”. It is likely that this will mean a series of
attacks on different sectors at different times. This will inevitably
generate opposition, particulary in those sectors like the civil
service and among the teachers where the Deal was rejected by large
sections. But inevitably it is going to be harder to defend services,
conditions and jobs. After all, the Croke Park Deal doesn’t do away
with an Bord Snip, in fact it means that the proposals will become part
of “the reform programme”. McLoone and David Begg have sold the members short.
For
active trade unionists and socialists the task is clear, to fight every
cut and campaign to defend jobs and services. There is also a job to be
done inside the trade unions and within the Labour Party also. The
campaign that has been waged by workers against the Croke Park deal
needs to be developed into a movement to renew and refresh the trade
union structures, to build union organisation and strength at a local
level and to transform the unions into genuinely democratic fighting
organisations that defend working people.
