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After seven weeks of occupation UNITE, the union representing the Waterford Crystal workers, has done a deal with KPS, the American company that has bought out part of the company’s assets. The decision is a bitter blow to the workers, many of whom feel that the company was holding a gun to their heads - the issue being the threat to withdraw €10 million of pension payments.
Editorial statement of Socialist Appeal
As we know there are indeed 40 shades of green in Ireland, but as the comrades of Labour Youth and the Connolly Youth Movement have explained in their open letter to the Green Party there is another one. The shade of green, that is, which justifies the Green Party’s ongoing support for the Fianna Fáil - which allows the latter to continue to hold a majority in the Dáil.
On February 21 some 200,000 workers and their families took to the streets in Dublin, to demonstrate their opposition to the government's decision to impose a pension levy (€ 2 billion) on 300,000 Public sector workers. The huge success of the march however, resulted from various factors such as the deepening economic crisis, rising unemployment, the ditching of the social contract by the employers and the government and savage government budget cuts. But what most concerns the majority of workers is that the situation is likely to worsen.
Twenty four hours ago (on February 24th 2009), we suggested
that the way ahead for the Irish public sector trade unions was to build
towards a 24 hour public sector general strike. We didn’t pick that idea from
the sky. It seemed inherent in the situation, following on that it is, from
Saturday’s monster march. Now the Irish Confederation of Trade Unions has
called for a national strike day on the 30th March because the
employers in both the public and private sectors are reneging on the national
wage agreement.
Following on from Saturday’s
mega-demonstration in Dublin, now workers in the public sector have voted
massively for strike action, starting with a strike this coming Thursday of the
Civil and Public Service Union.
As the capitalist crisis continues to ravage the once mighty ‘celtic tiger’ the
Irish government has stumbled across a sure fire method to stimulate economic
growth and raise living standards; cut the wages of the lowest paid workers! The
Labour Courts are currently debating whether to drop the minimum wage a euro to
€8.65, and Labour Affairs Minister, Billy
Kelleher, has argued that the review needs to take account of the current economic
climate. He expanded his support for the counter reform by suggesting that the
minimum wage should not be a barrier to employment. Such talk is all very well from a government
junior minister who currently earns a salary of over €139,000 per year and no
doubt enjoys all the perks and benefits offered by the parliamentary gravy
train.
It’s
only a week or two ago since we predicted that the current crisis in Ireland would
unleash a whole series of defensive struggles as the bosses attempt to make us
pay for their crisis. The fact is that, although the Irish economy is rapidly
heading towards the rocks and Brian Cowen and the bosses are sharpening their
knives for cuts in wages and redundancies, the Irish working class was
immeasurably strengthened during the years of the so called Celtic Tiger. As
the saying goes you can peel an onion skin by skin, but you can’t skin a tiger
claw by claw.
The Irish government’s decision to nationalise the
country’s third largest Bank Anglo Irish is yet another sign of the fragility
of the Irish economy. As explained over the past period the bubble is seriously
affecting the real economy and this is the outcome. The nationalisation move comes after the government had originally proposed a
€1.5 billion bail-out plan. The situation at Anglo Irish however has clearly
got much worse. Things haven’t exactly been helped by the revelation from the
Finance Minister as to how the management had been running the bank.
In Ireland unemployment is rising at the fastest rate
since the records began in 1967. It’s
now standing at 295,000, having grown by120,987 in the last year. The only
thing growing faster than that is opposition to the Israeli onslaught against Gaza. The dole figure now
stands at 8.3%. Since December 2007 male unemployment has gone up by 83% and
female by 50% (although this is likely to be a big underestimate). Among young
people under 25 it’s gone up 24%. Estimates from the state training agency FÁS
indicate that unemployment will reach 12% this year.
Reports that Waterford Crystal and the Wedgwood China Company were to go into
administration will add yet more gloom to the outlook for the Irish economy.
Waterford Crystal is an internationally known company and helps bring some
300,000 visitors to the town each year. In the current climate people won’t be
racing out to the shops to buy smart glass or china, but it’s going to have a
big effect on the economy and it shows the depth of the mess that we are in.
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