Address by Peter Bunting, Norhern Ireland Debate
8 Jul 2009
Opening of the Northern Ireland debate
Address by Peter Bunting, Assistant General Secretary
BDC 2009
Comrades, friends, neighbours
I am delighted to introduce the Northern Ireland section of the Conference, at a time when we face ahead to the challenges and opportunities of the next few years.
When I last addressed this gathering, in Bundoran two years ago, the global economy and our small part of it was in a completely different place. It seemed solid and immutable, driven by an ideology which comforted the comfortable and where the free market was the only idea left for the furtherance of the human species.
Well, all that seemed solid has melted into air.
During the last great depression, with the stirring words “we have nothing to fear, but fear itself,” President Roosevelt launched his New Deal, a public-sector led fightback against the economic catastrophe caused by deregulated banks and a politically-sanctioned culture of greed and consumerism.
It was an inspiration for the Congress 10-point plan for recovery in the Republic and ought to act as the guiding principle behind any strategy to protect and nourish the economy of Northern Ireland.
But firstly, we ought to be clear on, who caused the mess we are in. The collapse of the banking system was caused by the criminal irresponsibility and greed of those at the very top of the banking sector and by a generation of politicians who facilitated their unregulated avarice.
On the next level down, there were a series of cheerleaders for this neoliberal cargo cult, economists employed by those same banks and commentators hired by media corporations with huge material interests in sustaining the mythology of the free market.
Remember how they were telling us all to buy, buy, buy?
Remember their solution to all public sector problems? Downsize and privatise?
They were wrong then, and it is also worth remembering that we in the trade union movement were lone voices pointing out the madness of their prescriptions.
What are these discredited hacks saying now? Well, it is apparently all the fault of the public sector, and if we cut enough we can return to the good old days.
As the other Marx, Groucho, once said. “The good old days are good, because they’re gone.”
We can look to our own experience and talent and minds to offer solutions to the mess we did not create and will not take the blame for causing.
We must prepare for the fightback against those who plan to slash public services in order to preserve a banking system we have bought at a hugely inflated price and whose bosses still behave like selfish brats. Last week, the CEO of one of the banks we own, announced that he deserved a bonus of £10 million.
What does it take for these people to understand that they are no longer the masters of the universe?
Contrast that selfishness with the human generosity of spirit displayed by the workers at the Visteon plant in Belfast. The workers in Visteon were models of efficiency and innovation. They developed technology which made cars safer and contributed to the wealth of that corporation.
What thanks did they get? Their technological innovations are now being made in South Africa, their pensions are in cold storage and their futures shattered by corporate greed. Their bosses have fled, with their pensions intact, their questionable reputations protected, their share options guaranteed.
This was an act of corporate mugging. This is the worst sort of anti-social behaviour.
And still, when the Visteon workers and their comrades from the trade union movement took to the streets to demand justice, they displayed a sense of solidarity and humanity which shamed their employers into at least improving their terms of redundancy.
The Visteon workers were and remain an inspiration. The loss of their jobs and other mass layoffs from FG Wilson, Nortel, Shorts, Seagate and other manufacturers prompted the Minister for Enterprise, Trade & Investment to agree to Congress’ proposal for a Manufacturing sub-group where all interested parties would identify difficulties and opportunities for that economic sector.
Without manufacturing at its heart, the timid private sector will never fully develop. But while the recession grinds on, Congress is pushing hard for the creation of a Workers’ Protection Fund, which will ensure that those facing redundancy get their moral and financial entitlement ahead of the receivers.
The structure of labour arbitration is also in urgent need of reform, and we have been lobbying for a new system to replace the present structures of Industrial Tribunals which are too costly and too slow.
In short, the industrial tribunal has become a cash cow for lawyers and an albatross for both workers and employers.
Congress has delivered detailed proposals to the review of this system and our arguments are winning many converts to our side of the debate.
We are part of a consortium of interests promoting a Green New Deal, which in the short term would create 24,000 skilled jobs in making the housing of Northern Ireland more energy efficient.
We will work with politicians and help them make the right decisions, on vital economic issues such as support for manufacturing, developing our skills base, upgrading our public transport, improving our relations with Europe and restarting a meaningful bi-lateral forum between the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister and the trade union movement.
We are in talks with government over the future of public transport, making the case for a system which is responsive, sustainable, efficient and popular.
We know we can achieve these because we can look back on our recent successes, such as taking principled risks on the issue of water charges. In the face of opposition from most of civil society and every political party (in the Assembly) we advocated a campaign of mass non-payment which attracted huge public support, forcing a major u-turn from the parties which make up the NI Executive.
We continue to make principled stands on vital domestic issues, such as the Bill of Rights, the representation and integration of ethnic minorities, academic selection (the 11-plus) and the ongoing scandal and waste of the Private Finance Initiative.
A Bill of Rights which is inclusive of economic and social rights is a basic entitlement for all workers and is a long-overdue peace dividend for the people and communities who suffered more than most during the conflict.
The growth of new communities of migrant workers and their families has been a great opportunity for our movement, and the establishment of the Congress Migrant Workers’ unit has been a hugely significant initiative. The unit does more than give information to migrant workers, it offers representation, promotes the entire trade union movement and offers vital lessons about the depths to which some employers are willing to stoop.
The most dramatic case involved the treatment of Filipino fishermen, working semi-legally under transit visas and treated like those lost generations of Irish children incarcerated in industrial schools.
We used the Freedom of Information legislation to find out and expose the fact that two-thirds of businesses inspected by Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs were paying their workers below the minimum wage.
The children of Northern Ireland deserve justice also. The present system separates them by creed at the first day of primary school and largely by class at the first day of their secondary education. We have taken on powerful class interests and most of the Belfast media over academic selection. Shamefully, our political class have allowed, in fact encouraged, the debate to become sectarianised. The present situation is unfair, inefficient and intolerable. The impasse is a disgrace to our democracy and the Northern Ireland Executive. This is more unfinished business.
We produced ‘Your Rights at Work’ booklets in 8 languages and produced a comprehensive guide for those facing redundancy.
We are developing our networks of union learning in the workplace and in colleges. We have recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Sector Skills Councils, to accompany our Memorandum of Understanding with the Open University.
A skilled workforce is more than a better paid workforce. We need to invest in all skills – the capital of literacy, numeracy and empathy through the networks we have - the Union Learning Reps, TradeMark, the ICTU Migrants workers unit, Global Solidarity activists, disability champions across the workplaces.
Equality training is vital for workplaces and broader society, it helps harmonise and humanise those perceived as belonging to ‘the others’.
Justice for migrant workers is also intimately connected with justice for working people abroad. When missiles and tanks were let loose in Gaza, we took the lead in constructive opposition to that ongoing atrocity. Thousands attended the ‘Ceasefire Now!’ Rally in Belfast last February, including significant numbers of our Islamic citizens, making their political presence noted for the first time on the streets of Belfast. I had the privilege of speaking with muslims in the two main Belfast mosques on the day before the rally and I am glad to note that many members of that community have since publicly supported other causes which we espouse.
When we see wrongs committed in the name of prejudice and discrimination, we challenge and strive to right those wrongs.
We do so because we understand that for any society to respect the principles of equality and solidarity, it must have justice.
Consistency counts.There is no moral difference in our support for newspaper sellers from Romania, from our support for the workers at Visteon or the unfairly sacked traffic attendants of Belfast.
Leadership has been shown by what First Minister Peter Robinson called ‘the political class’, especially in the after math of an attempt to dislodge the democratic process by micro-groups who have no right to describe themselves as either ‘dissident’ nor ‘republican’.
We showed the leadership for a civil society which was reeling in shock after the murders at Masserrene and Craigavon, and thousands responded with a show of strength at Belfast City Hall. Civic virtues were on display that day, not guns.
Thousands of working people across Northern Ireland joined us in massive trade union and trade council rallies in Belfast, Derry and Newry, and in other towns and villages inspired by our example.
In turn, we were supported with a flood of emails, phone calls and letters from our sisters and brothers across the trade union movement, literally from Galway to Gaza.
We all have a job of work to do. We need to fix the gaps in social housing, to repair the social infrastructure which marginalises and alienates those who feel disenfranchised and lend support to anti-democratic elements whose solutions are based on hatred.
There is work to be planned, for a vibrant and sustainable and fairer economy after the downturn, an economy that rewards skilled workers and innovative industry. An economy that cherishes people like those who worked at Visteon and Seagate and Bombardier-Shorts, and does not see them as collateral damage in the rush to reward shareholders.
We also need a trade union movement whose members and activists possess the skills for operating in a plural democracy and who instinctively grasp the necessity of empathy and evidence, so all workplaces are secure spaces for all who work in them.
A politically relevant trade union movement is one that promotes the understanding of the system we have and harvesting the skill of the mind necessary to fix and make fair that system, one room at a time.
