Vote NO to the partnership deal

national | miscellaneous | news report Friday January 31, 2003 14:03 by Des Derwin

Some thoughts on the imminent social partnership deal

At a time of cuts in social spending, of wholesale privatisations, of pitiless closures, rising prices and service charges, of arrests of building workers, when nurses are forced to threaten action about hospital conditions, when workers in CIE, Ballinasloe and the building industry are taking to the streets in anger, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, instead of leading a fight back, wants another social partnership agreement with the rich and powerful.

Vote NO to the national pay deal!

Social Partnership is still a con!

At a time of cuts in social spending, of wholesale privatisations, of pitiless closures, rising prices and service charges, of arrests of building workers, when nurses are forced to threaten action about hospital conditions, when workers in CIE, Ballinasloe and the building industry are taking to the streets in anger, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, instead of leading a fight back, wants another social partnership agreement with the rich and powerful.

The deal itself offers a wage cut and ties the unions up as never before. By introducing compulsory and binding arbitration this deal practically does away with effective trade unionism for the duration.

The pay terms of 7% over 18 months put wages behind inflating running at close to 6% over 12 months, and puts in by stealth the six months pay pause demanded by IBEC. The employers’ briefing to their own members truthfully states “the figure negotiated works out at 3.5% over the first year” (IBEC News, January 2003). There were no noticeable tax concessions this time to sweeten the pill.

In the public sector there is a clear pay pause. Benchmarking, which is being lumped in with the deal as more for the public sector, is actually a pittance for enormous changes and giveaways. Benchmarking was supposed to be compensation for past productivity and for falling behind the private sector. Instead new ‘modernisation’, blunting of the strike weapon and stitching-in to national deals are required, on top of the loss of relativity.

Separate changes for different sections will be voted upon by all (people voting on other people’s conditions!), and, for both the public and private sectors, the deal commits us to three more years of social partnership but with only the terms for half that time on the table.

Labour Court Rules All

Under the deal we will be committed to compulsory referral to, combined with binding arbitration by, the Labour Court. This is a major departure and an outrageous surrender of trade union rights and principle. IBEC are rightly hailing the new deal as a “ground-breaking move on compliance” (IBEC News). Union members would be putting their fate into the hands not of their union but of the LRC and the Labour Court.

Throughout P2000 and the PPF unions and workers at local level claimed and won rises above the deals. Now these claims would have to be adjudicated on by the Labour Court. But, furthermore, under Clause 10 (i) if a union considers that an employer has breached the agreement, after local discussion the matter must “jointly be referred to the Labour Court under Section 20 (2) of the Industrial Relations Act, 1969, and the parties will accept the outcome”.

Under Clause 10 (iv) “where there is disagreement as to what constitutes normal ongoing change”, the parties will accept as binding the outcome of the Labour Court. This opens up the prospect not just of the Labour Court ruling that a union pay claim for a change is unfounded, but that a change must be implemented by the workers as “normal and ongoing”.

Bashed by Benchmarking

Benchmarking is being sold as a bonanza for the public service. Actually for a few pence the government and employers want public sector workers to dismantle their conditions and the trade union power that guarantees those conditions. The cost of Benchmarking includes:
*protective notice, one-year contracts for all new staff and new dismissal and disciplinary procedures in the civil service;
*hours of unpaid overtime for teachers;
*payment (of Benchmarking and the national deal) will be dependent on verification and co-operation with flexibility and ongoing change, the agenda for modernisation and the absence industrial action;
*new red tape to prevent health workers from striking.
In addition the national pay offer commits the unions to agree Codes of Practice by September that would restrict the right to strike in ‘essential services’.

Again No Union Recognition

In December Jack O’Connor, Vice President of SIPTU, said: “No matter what emerges from the current pay talks, SIPTU will not back an agreement unless it addresses the right to be represented…The procedures laid down in the Code of Practice have turned out to be worse than useless.” (Liberty, Dec ’03). But all the new deal does is hurry up those procedures a bit! While Cityjet workers struggle on, the new deal offers nothing on union recognition. IBEC is telling its own members, “There is no change in the principle of trade union recognition: no company can be forced to statutorily recognise a union” (IBEC News, emphasis in original).

Pillar of Salt

We are told these deals give the unions a say on the social wage as well as the paypacket. The non-wage elements of the deal are just sops, waffle or measures already planned. The reality is that the social wage, public spending and services, have been cut by Charlie McCreevy. The SIPTU newspaper lists his “latest dirty dozen” cuts. The Community and Voluntary Pillar is merely an appendix to make it look like the savings of wage restraint are going to the less well off. This very Pillar has been undermined, along with the special jobs and the services they provide, by Mary Harney’s CE cuts.

Trade union members are the only sector asked to give up something in these deals: wage restraint. What do farmers, for instance, give away in order to sign up to social partnership? Profits, dividends, prices, fees, rents, land and house prices are all free to rise.

The increase in statutory redundancy payments is well below what the unions recently marched for. It is still a pathetic pittance for closure and job loss, and any half-decent settlement is already twice this or more. Besides, a substantial rise in redundancy rates is long overdue without exchanging it for wage curbs.

The rise in the minimum wage to €7 per hour in 2004 is such a sham that only a tiny few will benefit from it by then. The Congress target in 1998 was €6.25!

The housing ‘concession’ insults our intelligence. The government has cut housing provision and even social welfare rent allowances! It has backed down on the 20% reserved for social housing in new developments. Local authorities are paying up to €500,000 an acre for land! Instead of social housing for reasonable rent from local authorities we are thrown a crust of 10,000 (if that is the actual figure) “affordable” houses. I.e. houses at scandalous prices we can barely afford on two pay packets. The reality of government housing policy was highlighted in January by the main housing charities: “A 23 per cent increase in housing waiting lists, followed by a reduction in spending on social housing. A cap on the rent allowance [from] health boards. An effective cut in social welfare payments, with inflation and increased rent contributions leaving recipients worse off now than before the Budget” (letter, Irish Times, 13th January ’03)

The deal continues the myth of social partnership, that workers and bosses have the same interests. The damage that these deals have caused to trade union strength, numbers and member participation will continue. Under ‘partnership’ the profits share of national income rose from 25% in 1987 to 38% in 1998.

What is the alternative?

The alternative could not be simpler. During the PPF section after section wrested pay and conditions above the national deal. SIPTU January figures show that 54,000 members gained money rises above the PPF, ranging up to and beyond an accumulative 40%; 47,000 members secured additional fringe benefits during the PPF. Since the PPF ran out unions have already lodged claims not for 7% in three phases over 18 months, but for 7%, 10% or 12% over 12 months.

The alternative is free collective bargaining and campaigning unions, fighting for better health, social welfare, housing and education provisions. Unions, industrial sectors, Branches and shop stewards, should be able to lodge substantial claims as they need to. Free collective bargaining would switch the emphasis back to shop stewards and local reps representing their members in real negotiations and can revitalise the activist layer in the unions.

The alternative is not a dog-eat-dog ‘free for all’. Many industrial groups and public service sectors have always bargained as large units. This is not the same as a universal low ceiling, tied to restrictions, negotiated in government buildings by a handful of General Secretaries. There is no means by which rises given up by strong sections of workers are passed to weak ones. Solidarity, weakened by partnership, needs to be restored! There is a need for a network of shop stewards to take back our unions from the suits.

Where in this deal is the shorter working week, more holidays, better pensions and sick pay? Where is the room for claims for better childcare facilities or slower work speeds at local level? Where is the guarantee that health jobs will not be cut or that patients will never again be treated in hospital car parks.

On other non-pay elements – the social wage –the unions should be campaigning for better social services and spending instead of keeping their heads down on the budget cuts. What delivered the little rise we got in redundancy payments? The national action on October 4th! Where was the promised follow-up, that might have pushed up what we got?! When health workers are planning action to once again try in our interests to improve facilities and waiting lists, this deal proposes a new delaying dispute process in health and a code of practice against industrial action in ‘essential services’.

Vote NO to this deal.

Pressure from the media, politicians, economists and opinion makers for this deal is, if anything, greater than ever. Except, that is, where they say it is too good and that ‘the economy’ cannot afford to give workers such glittering prizes. We are facing a government and employer offensive and the union leaders are bowing to it with hardly a murmur and calling the perpetrators partners.

Yet huge profits are still being made and tax on wealth, which might go to pay for social services, is cut. Capital gains tax was halved and corporation tax is on its way down to 12.5%! A recent Revenue survey showed that almost one in five of the top 400 earners had an effective tax rate of 15 percent or less in the 1999-2000 tax year and 29 of these individuals avoided paying tax altogether!

Vote NO to this deal. Demand a separate ballot on Benchmarkng. One union has already rejected the Benchmarking report. Should it be rammed down its throat? Reject compulsory binding arbitration – an attack on free trade unionism. Demand a fair debate: that both sides of the argument are represented at union meetings and in union literature.

A trade union campaign against the partnership deal is being set up. News of meetings and activities shortly. This is based on a draft for a leaflet for the campaign.