No Sellout to Haughey!

lcCracken.

The recent Irish Congress of Trades Union’s (ITCU) conference on the Programme for National Recovery (PNR) showed a picture of decay and corruption within the Irish Trade Union Movement. The programme itself is a monument to collaboration and betrayal by the ITCU leadership. Since its inception they have witchunted opponents at every level of the movement, acted as police against any sign of working class revolt and sabotaged and fragmented a series of fightbacks against Haughey’s austerity policy. The rationale was that cutbacks, redundancies and job losses would restore profitability to Irish business and generate new jobs.

Profitability there certainly is. Both local and multi-national capital have done well from the deal. Jobs have not appeared and criticism and opposition has emerged even in the bureaucracy itself. In desperation, the leadershiplet no vestiges of union democracy stand in their way. Many unions did not consult their members. Unions that did hold meetings did their utmost to confuse theissueand ignore the feelings of their members. The ITCU conference itself was accompanied by public arm twisting and intimidation. In fact the leadership did not hesitate to play the Orange card - using partitionist arguments to deny northern delegates a vote, attempting to break the rules and constitution of the movement and going as faras effectively threatening torepartition the movement, The narrow way in which they squeezed home shows that the ground is beginning to shift under this corrupt leadership. Workers have fought back despite them, and the narrow victory will encourage and legitimise further struggles. It is clear that combativity by itself will not be enough. A new struggle for union democracy will have to pose a class struggle alternative to the union leadership’s support for imperialism.

Below Kevin McCracken explores these issues.

In the months before the conference the consensus of not publicly criticising the PNR or the ICTU leadership has begun to break. Several unions, MSF, MPGW V andthe ESBOA have condemned the PNR and come out against a PNR Mark II.

The most prominent critic has been Brian Anderson of MSFand ICTU. Herecently debated the agreement with Phil Flynn (LGPSU) - a former vice-president of Sinn Fein who has emerged as the most vociferous defender of the deal. While it would be hard to find fault with Anderson’s critique of the PNR (the statistics on poverty, unemployment and emigration contrasted with soaring profits speak for themselves) his conclusions and the alternatives he proposes defy credibility. He does not break with the concept and main content of the PNR, that is, trade union’s assent to the economic programme and much of the political programme of the Fianna Fail government but pursues the narrowest of trade union demands. He concentrates his fire on the fact that the most AN REABHLOID - Page 3.

profitable sections of the privace sector have benefited from very low wage increases and have failed to create jobs. His main contention is that the private sector should return to free collective bargaining as many trade union members including those in his own union could havedone better given the economic upturn and the nse in profits. There is much that is divisive in the arguments that are coming from Anderson and others in the T.U. leadership. An impression is given that the PNR was just a public sector agreement and that gains were made here while the private sector made all the sacrifices. This view is completely at variance with the nature of the PNR and underestimates completely the scope and severity of the austerity offensive against the whole working class. In regard to the profit boom in some sectors of the economy one would have thought that experienced T.U. officials such as Brian Anderson would understand the direct relationship between the increased “business confidence’ and the austerity offensive embodied in the PNR. There was very little of this fighting talk in 1987 when the PNR was being negotiated. In fact only one TU official broke pubhely with iho ICTU on the agreement and gave TU members an opportunity to judge it on its real contents and not the glossy picture the [CTU and Fianna Fail presented, that was John Mitchell (formerly IDATU and ICTU).

Brian Anderson’s attack does not point any way forward as he does not break with ICTU’s policy of ‘social partnership’ (class collaboration). In fact, Phil Flynn and ICTU have already indicated thattwo ticr bargaining -national and local - might be necessary under any new agreement to take account of ability to pay.

If the only opposition to the PNR is of this weak-kneed, parochial self interested type we will undoubtedly end up with another.

A Programme of Total Capitulation.

When the ICTU were promoting the PNR two years ago It was presented in reverse order of importance. Job creation, industrial development, tax reform etc. - all the purely aspirational aspects of the agreement were pushed to the fore while the concrete commitments were glossed over. There seems to be still a reluctance to deal with the full enormity of ICTU’s treachery as contained in the PNR. Page 4- AN REABHLOID, It is worthwhile reexamining the main areas of agreement between the ICTU and the government. They are not simple TU/ employer agreements on immediate issues but political accords more far reaching than any previous deals and of longer d-iration than the agreement itself.

SECTIONI - European Community Dimension Commits the unions to support for the EEC and to the single European Act with all its implications for Independence, neutrality and economic sovereignty. The implications are of course very far reaching and outside the scope of this article but suffice to say the EEC is less about the prants and hand outs we hear so much about but the untrammelled restructuring of the major European capitalist monopolies through mergers, takeovers and unrestricted competition in which our weak economy and industries will get no special consideration. There are also grave implications for our public services and the struggle against privatisation as the SEA commitments toderegulation and open competition also opens the public services to competition.

SECTION IL- Macroeconomic Policies This is essentially a commitment to losing the ‘Debt’ problem by massively cutting public spending. This was central to the government creating a so - called ‘climate of confidence to stimulate economic activity’. When Haughey refers to the PNR as his governments greatest success he is referring to his achievement in getting the unions to agree that the working class and poor bear full responsibility for the ‘National Debt’. It was the erosion of the ‘social wage’, Health, Education and other services which was the most destructive and demoralising blow to the working class and provided a lot of the impetus for the so-called economic recovery.

SECTION V - Employment Part of this section contains a commitment to continuation of the policy of attracting overscas companies to locate here through IDA bribes - a policy discredited by the Telesis Report commissioned by a previous government. The [CTU must be as aware as anyone else that this policy has notcreated jobs. On the contrary, the multi nationals engage a large section of the Irish workforce in

Workers picket the vote on the programme for national recovery.

creating wealth which is then vacuumed tax free out of the country. We are ripped off on the double by these policies, between 1981 and 1986 subsidies and tax remissions cost an average £1,848,000,000 and last year £1.7 billion of the profit raised thereby left thecountry. If we add to these figures the £1.9 billion exported .by Irish capitalists last year and the £2 billion lost in ‘debt’ servicing it is plain that claims that the PNR is about job creation are nonsense except we are talking about creating jobs abroad.

No Role For The Working Class In his defence of the PNR Phil Flynn claims that they made modest gains which they could not have otherwise made. Rather than try to repeat ICTU’s exaggerated claims for the PNR individually I will deal with the flawed reasoning behind the claims. The central motive for the deal put forward by Flynn was to head off the prospect of Haughey’s minority government becoming through an alliance with the ‘new tight’ in Fine Gael and the Progressive democrats the government with the greatest majority ever. There are very few outside ICTU who believe that Haughey’s government was lacking in ‘new right’ monetarist policies. In fact, the Progressive Democrats and Fine Gael spent the whole term of government whining about Haughey stealing their clothes and, in the case of the Progressive Democrats, their votes in the general election.

Flynn also claimed that the trade unions had been marginalised and pointed to the resolution adopted at ICTU’s 1986 annual conference calling for a deal with government of a national understanding type to justify their position. This resolution ends......’The power and influence of the trade unions are not what they were’. These are all totally contradictory claims but reflect the type of thinking which typifies ICTU. The trade unions are marginalised, presumably the employers and government have the intelligence to understand this yet they must have been so beguiled by the silvery tonged negotiators of ICTU that they neglected to press their advantage home and made concessions instead.

It is the Alice in Wonderland concept of ‘Social Partnership’ that leads the ICTU to see themselves as central and the vast mass of the TU movement and working class as marginal. The history of ICTU over the last 20 years has been to stand against the trends of militancy and resistance in the working class. They joined in with employers in condemning unofficial strikes when they negotiated away the right to strike in various national wage agreements and national understandings. When condemnation didn’t work they broke traditional solidarity and respect for pickets by introducing the two tier picketing policy. They sidetracked the massive campaign of work stoppages and marches on the PAYE tax issue and avoided tackling repression and discrimination in the 6 counties under the excuse of avoiding political strikes and political issues; but they are quite prepared to accept the political and economic programme of Fianna Fail and of the IMF lock, stock and barrel.

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TRADE UNIONS - PLAYING THE ORANGE CARD Despite being atomised and disorganised by the ICTU the working class are far from marginal in Irish society. The employers and Haughey are well aware of their potential power even if ICTU are not.

They are very anxious not to provoke workers too far and rely on [CTU to keep the lid on while emigration and unemployment gradually take their toll. Still Haughey got arude awakening in the elections when the anger over cutbacks experienced at the doorsteps caused panic in Fianna Fail’s election machine and forced them to backtrack desperately to avoid a total eclipse in the election. The seats they did lose, one of which was lost solely on the basis of the threatened closure of a hospital are proof that if the ICTU had supported the protests against cuts in 1987 they would be riding high today.

The victory of the ICTU leadership at the special conference does not marginalise working class struggle. Rather, it begins to marginalise the ICTU.

Atthe time of signing the PNR An Reabhloid pointed out that the working class had suffered a blow, Fianna Pail, which nad retained leadership over the majority of workers by a combination of nationalist rhetoric and populism, had accepted the Anglo- Irish agreement and launched an unprecedented austerity offensive. ICTU, their industrial leadership, had Many Workers see the outcry against Northern Delegates at the PNR conference as only another example of the dirty tricks and intimidation employed by the ICTU leadership to win the vote. It is much more than this - the open expression of a long standing partitionist agenda given new strength and organisational form through the organisation of NICTU in the "60s.

The present structure was imposed on the the workers movement - a legacy of the old Stormont government. The unionists in power were not only sectarian - they were also violently anti-working class and refused to recognise the unions. When ‘wey did move towards recognition the organisation ! oNICTU asa six - county body largely independent of the overall movement was part of the deal. The Page 6 - AN REABHLOIM.

joined in promoting and policing the offensive.

Building such a leadership and programme has now become an urgent necessity.

Where ICTU stands for lies and intimidation we should stand for a full trade union democracy.

Where they stand for partition we should stand foran all - Ireland movement opposed to imperialist domination.

Where they stand for collaboration with capitalist and imperialist interests we should stand for confiscation multi national assets and the restructuring of the economy in the interests of working people.

Where they stand for making working people pay for the crisis we should stand for the repudiation of the national debt and taxing the rich.

Many workers still have illusions in the ICTU leadership. Many socialists and republicans enter the debate the leadership's actions as mistaken rather than criminal. The PNR conference should help to clarify matters. The ICTU leadership is a block against effective working class defence. They must be defeated and removed. bureaucrats were quick to agree - and quick to see the advantages for them in continued division.

A good example of this is the various Northern conferences. Because they are regional conferences Southern delegates don’t attend or vote. But this also gives the bureaucrats a whip hand over the agendas and a springboard to set the tone for the full congress. It gives a rationale for banning discussion of the North and preventing ‘political’ motions The bureaucrats are not victims of imperialist rule but collaborators. They and their two-nationist ideology must be swept away if the working class is to organise and advance.

Frank Rossa

Sal

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Union democracy is the key to fightback, argues Kevin