Public sector strike - Day of action becomes day of cheap beer

THERE are about two million people employed in this country. Yesterday morning 1,750,000 — give or take a few thousand — went to work as is normal.

The other 250,000 went on strike to try, despite all the indications and great urgency, to avert budget pay cuts. Some public servants used the strike to do a bit of cross-border Christmas shopping.

The local authority workers, the gardaí and army personnel who put others’ needs before their own to help those suffering the brunt of the floods cannot be included among the 250,000 “day-of-action” absentees. They must be congratulated for showing commitment to the obligations and spirit of public service.

Their actions were in stark contrast to the shameless strikers who abandoned picket lines to sit in four- and five-mile tailbacks outside Newry as they went North to do a bit of Christmas shopping.

The “day of action” became the day of cheap beer.

Local retailers described yesterday’s business as on a par with a “pre-Christmas weekend peak”. How lucky they are; they can expect another bonanza on Thursday week as another “day of action” has been called.

So, not only have these people a delusional sense of entitlement they have now shown that they have no understanding of economic patriotism either.

Treason is not a word that should be used lightly but, in this instance, the phrase economic treason is entirely appropriate. This act of gross selfishness is so far removed from the communal response we need to resolve our difficulties that it will remove any doubts Government may have retained about introducing pay cuts.

The 440,000 or so people unemployed — over 22 million across the EU — could only look on with what must have been a combination of anger, amazement and considerable envy.

At virtually every opportunity strikers said that they were not going to be “scapegoated”.

If this wasn’t so very serious, so very tragic and delusional it would be funny. The real scapegoats are the 440,000 people without a job; the families fighting to hold onto their homes; the farmers facing bankruptcy; the graduates who have to emigrate and the retail workers whose jobs are threatened by those who shop in the North to save a few miserable euro.

State employees who enjoy job security, pensions and wages far better than private sector counterparts cannot in any way be described as scapegoats. It is to their shame that they imagine themselves so. It is to their unions leaders’ great shame that they exploit this fantasy.

According to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions no one wanted yesterday’s strike but it was unavoidable because the Government had not engaged with them to try to find “a fair alternative” to the €1.3bn pay cuts.

Sadly, as no one wants to see another’s circumstances reduced, there is no realistic alternative and that, as Taoiseach Brian Cowen says, is why the strikes will achieve nothing. They will, however, deepen the divisions in an already polarised society and feed an out-of-control sense of entitlement.

In the face of this, it is hard not to question the motives and the perception of responsibility shared by public sector union leaders. This is especially so after yesterday’s announcement of a second day of Christmas shopping, scheduled for Thursday week.