New Congress President says this is Time to Show Resolve

6 Jul 2011

 

Address to Irish Congress of Trade Unions BDC 2011 by incoming President Eugene McGlone of UNITE

Conference I would like, at the outset to express my appreciation to my own Union Unite the Union for the honour of this election as President of the ICTU. I am also deeply and humbly thankful to the other Unions who nominated me. I want to assure you all that I will endeavour during the period of my office to represent all that is good and honourable in our movement and live up to the expectations and challenges the office calls for. When Jack was elected it was SIPTU's as it was ASTI's centenary year. By comparison Unite the Union, not its component parts, is still teething.
In taking up office it is usual for the incoming president to comment on a few issues and to point t owards the direction he/she hopes to take. But firstly I want to say a few words about Jack.
Following his election Jack often said that he had no real desire to be President; it was something that he reluctantly accepted. And I suppose that over the past 2 years he has had good reason to reflect on this and at times, I'm sure Jack, wish you were not so accommodating. He has been, as goes with the territory, demonised in the worst possible fashion. In fact he has been so demonised was he that a fact finding trip into the danger zones of Columbia came as welcome light relief. I'm sure Jack you're relieved that your term is now over.
One of the myths about Jack's Presidency is that he presided over the collapse of capitalism in Ireland. Well he didn't. Patricia saw the start of it. In her presidential address she noted that the Republic had a quarter of a million unemployed, a staggering figure at the time but now doubled to almost half a million.
Notwithstanding that while he will be personally pleased to be handing over the role; he and we can take some pride in the reflection that he carried out the tasks demanded of him with energy, dignity and resolve. What I'm tempted to say Jack is be careful what you don't wish for - you may still get it anyway. I say that tongue in cheek because like all who have preceded me I want to try in my own small way to help develop the labour movement in Ireland and to direct it towards a new paradigm.

We know the people of Ireland deserve a labour movement that is fit for purpose, well able to defend people at work, defend their needs and services; in education, health, housing and all the other necessary elements that go to make up our lives.
That is why over the past two years Congress called on the workers and citizens to stand up and resist the destructive austerity measures. Many of you here today joined in the marches and protests. Not only here in the Republic but also in Northern Ireland where the British Tory Government aided by their allies in the so called Liberal Democratic party are visiting large doses of similarly unpalatable medicine on the ordinary working people through their compliant administration at Stormont. For exactly the same reasons and purpose.

We know from our own common sense and from our experience of the past years that if we allow the greedy bankers and inept economists, who kept telling us we never had it so good and who all the time were so callously running this country into bankruptcy; if we allow them to dictate the way out of the crisis then we will have failed: failed, not only ourselves but our children and their children. Because we know that it will be at our expense.
This is no time to weaken our resolve. A time when our enemies are demonstrating all the loyalty and economic acumen of a Judas Escariot, squabbling over an extra few bob to make their sell out or soft landing fee up to the required 30 pieces of bloodied silver.
And doing this while the dole queues grow ever longer and our young people are cast adrift like a parody of a Malthusian solution to our problem. It is time we, with all the force we can muster, say enough. No more.

It is time for us the workers of this country, who are the people who create the wealth, to say we want take control of our destinies for ourselves. It's perhaps time we took a deep breath and knowingly used the S word. For there is nothing short of a redistribution of wealth towards the have not's instead of the constant pandering to the wealthy-- obscenely wealthy, that will solve our problems.
Strongly worded letters, well meaning speeche s and hand wringing won't do it. There were signs during the recent elections North and South, signs that changes in attitude have already begun.
It's the same wake-up call that is being heard in Spain, Greece and Portugal and while it wont make us feel any better to learn we are not alone in our imposed bankruptcy it must make us more determined.
As a movement we have set out clearly the only feasible approach to the crisis, we did so initially in our 10 point plan: our proposals were and are still valid and while times and events have moved on since we published them, so have we and we constantly up-date our approach. The motions you debated and passed yesterday and the details of the report at section one provide evidence that we got it right.
Look at the title of chapter two of section one of the report, In six words "Big Banks Bring Down the State" it tells us all what we need to know about how we got into this situation.

Firstly International Banks recklessly lent to Irish Banks, they in turn recklessly lent to property speculators.
The Government aided and abetted this by pump-priming the property sector through tax cuts and developer-led land policies, while at the same time degrading banking regulations.

When the crisis hit us with full force instead of fixing the problem it set about making it worse by pursuing irrational deflationary policies which victimise workers through public spending cuts and tax increases. Then rather than repair a broken banking system, accepting that the banks were broke they raided your savings and threw billions neither they nor we had at the sector.
This left the State with a banking system that, despite the billions put into it, is incapable of contributing to economic growth and is now targeting the ordinary bank workers for the ever growing dole queue.
Every time it acted the Government managed to jump, adroitly avoiding the frying pan, straight into the fire. The result is the country is now totally in hock to the EU-IMF bail-out fund and unlikely to get out of that straight-jacket any year soon. There is of course a solution and it is in part a political solution.
At our last conference in Tralee we agreed a motion that called for greater participation in the Irish Labour Party. The call wasn't merely an appeal for more membership for the party.

It was a logical and necessary encouragement for the labour movement to begin again to act in a joined-up way. After all it was organised Labour which created the party to be a political expression of our social needs, to compliment the industrial work Unions normally carry out. It was to paraphrase Larkin to prevent us having to fight with one hand tied behind our backs.

But we need to question has the electorates' confidence in returning the largest ever labour presence to the Dail being best served by a coalition with the most right wing political force in the state? The signs are already there and it's not hard to see who will be blamed for the attacks on workers terms and conditions of employment. It won't be Fine Gael, irrespective of how user friendly the Taoiseach was on Monday; they are the party of business. The signs are it will be Labour.
A left of centre party of Labour for Northern Ireland
Unfortunately the motion passed could only make the call in respect of the Republic of Ireland, the North not having a party of labour that we could mobilise in. Perhaps now, while it is not too late, is the time when we can encourage our members and their friends and families to work and act for a party, a left of centre party of labour for the north that can begin to fulfill the political aspirations and needs o f our members and class: a party which can create close links with both its British and Irish counterparts.

This will be no easy task. It will require great courage to go against the tribal trends that still mark us out and which work against the interests of working people. It will mean challenging the old tribal hegemonies, for unions it will mean putting your money where your mouth is and committing to a new shared vision.
If the attack on our class through the laughably termed spending cuts is to be repelled then only we and our political allies can do it. So this is the challenge; think about where we will be in 5, 10 or 15 years time, in both jurisdictions and ask ourselves did I help cause this through my neglect, through my failure to act. Or will it be a matter of saying: this I helped build and create.
It is for this reason that during the past two years a considerable amount of time was spent on the "commission", established to review Congress. It is my view that the Report of the Commission you endorsed is timely. It is an enabling report which now requires us to give it some impetus, impetus that will equip the movement for the next generation to grow in influence and make real the promise of a better fairer society.
The end of the failed partnership experiment
And it is also timely because it comes at the end; some would say none too soon, of the great failed partnership experiment. David in his overview to the report comments that two years ago we were still hopeful of reaching an agreement with the employers and Government on a "Social Solidarity Pact". Well two years is a long time and today our one time partners are plotting and planning to undermine what little wage regulation we currently have. And the Taoiseach emphasized it was going to happen
Maybe the whole experience was merely a conjuror&rs quo;s trick, all smoke and mirrors. For what we may ask have we achieved after 22 years of being best friends?

Where is the right to combine and to collectively bargain with employers? Yes it's in the programme for government but that won't prevent us pursuing the legal route. Maybe the one good thing to come from the change in Government is that the current ruling party doesn't really care about us and don't pretend otherwise, despite what the Taoiseach may say.
Because over the past few years we have been sold and re-sold the same lies. Remember when the electorate "foolishly" got the wrong result to the Lisbon referendum, Government decided well; we will just try again and again if necessary until we got the right result.

Remember being told that a vote for Lisbon 2 would mean that the social chapter wo uld put in place which would guarantee the right to organise in a trade union, where did that go? Eamonn Gilmore promised us at Tralee in '09, giving us an explicit commitment to enshrine that fundamental right in Irish Law, should Lisbon 2 be ratified in October '09. Yes of course as I mentioned earlier and on Monday it's in the programme for government.
Our ability to lead and defend workers
Conference if what I have been saying means anything it means this: the only people we can rely on are ourselves. We will, and must get back to basics and rely on our ability to lead and defend workers at the place of work, demonstrating that we are in business and it's business as usual.

Conference you have set our programme for the next 2 years. It will be a difficult time, industrially, politically and organisationally, but we have overcome worse and we will over come the current trials. I look for ward to working with the incoming Executive Council, the Vice Presidents John Douglas and Patricia King, the treasurer Joe Flynn and the staff of Congress to make our programme work.