ICTU pro 'partnership' vote a disgrace

national | miscellaneous | news report Wednesday March 26, 2003 23:52 by Paul Kinsella - CPSU paulkinsella53 at yahoo dot com 53 Lorcan Grove, Santry, Dublin 9, Eire 087-9748511

But not surprising

The only surprise was that the vote in favour was so close - only 45 votes seperated the pro and anti partnership sides. The choice is where do we go from here? Have ICTU finally signed their death warrant? Will the breakaway Independent Workers Union (IWU) gain many new disaffected union members?

After constantly voting through various increasingly pro employer wage agreements over the last 15 years the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) sunk to new but not suprising lows today when they voted by an admitedly tight margin of only 45 votes in favour of the new 'partnership' deal - "Sustaining Progress". This deal is an absolute disgrace for workers in both the public and private sectors with the totally insulting pay rises of 7% over 18 months which will amount to a cut in real terms in the living standards of workers after inflation is taken into account. Many other features in this 'partnership' deal are even more objectionable than the pay terms, bad enough as they are. For example severe restrictions on the right to strike generally and an effective ban on strikes in the health service, effectively taking away nurses and other health service worker's right to strike against say poor pay and working conditions and cutbacks in the health service, and probably extended to many other workers in 'essential' services such as electricity generation, bus and rail workers, fire and ambulance drivers, binmen etc, binding arbitration in industrial disputes and lack of statutory union recognition amongst others. I know the war is of grave urgency and concern to us all, but this erosion of worker's rights should be of grave concern to us all and is something which should be discussed more on Indymedia Ireland. Talking of the war (yes I know! But it had to come up sometime) and on an indirectly related subject, were any emergency motions for urgent trade union mobilisation against the war proposed at today's ICTU SDC and were any passed?