Today Irish public sector workers are taking militant strike action. Some sections of the trade union leadership view this as a way of letting off steam. What is needed is the opposite. This day should be part of the campaign for a one day general strike, to bring out the full force of the Irish labour movement. This is the only way of stopping the attacks on the working class.
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 a 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 feelings 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 a 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.