Irish Ferries debacle is uncharted waters

THERE is a whiff of double-standards emerging in the case of the 550 workers in Irish Ferries whose jobs are to be axed.

When the Taoiseach condemns the company for effectively wanting to cut costs to compete, he has put himself out on a limb.

It is coming close to an election and sensitivities are beginning to rise.

For decades US multinationals coming into Ireland were given carte blanche to keep trade unions well away from their doors. They wanted the power to set wages and they got it.

Neither Bertie Ahern nor any other politician of any party seems to have had any difficulty with that policy.

It is one of the reasons Ireland has proved an attractive location for the big corporations. They were able to set their own wage terms and having one of the most attractive tax rates on offer anywhere also helped persuade them to set up here.

It is hypocritical then for the Taoiseach to chastise Irish Ferries who are doing no more, in their view, than trying to protect their business future. It is under increasing threat from low air fares and the significantly lower wages allegedly paid by competitors.

This chest beating about the 550 workers is also hypocritical for other reasons.

Most of us have no problem with non-nationals working here in low-paid jobs facing widespread abuses and little protection from unscrupulous employers. Most trade unions seem happy to turn a blind eye.

It took socialist TD Joe Higgins to raise the plight of Turkish Gama workers in Dublin some time ago.

Meanwhile, Jack O’Connor, Siptu’s general president, said the dispute is the greatest threat to social partnership in 18 years.

IBEC has thrown its weight behind the company as well and its director general, Turlough O’Sullivan, has raised the bar by indicating other employers may consider adopting the same tactic as Irish Ferries in an attempt to ease the competitive pressures they claim are threatening their viability.

The Irish Ferries decision raises the old problem about the relationship between workers and employers.

It must cut deep when the firm you have worked for years says it wants rid of you to make room for contract workers from abroad who will work for half what you are being paid.

But for some it doesn’t appear to cut that deep. The company says 75% of the 550 facing redundancy are prepared to take the package on the table.

Perhaps in an era of full employment the prospect of a generous lump sum and reasonable job opportunities still out there, the threat of no job is not so daunting.

But where does it all end? We as a state have trumpeted our flexible work environment for a long time and facilitated that by disallowing trade unions from multinational companies.

That’s something the unions have stayed quiet about too I might add.

Perhaps their silence does not imply complicity.

For quite some time the emphasis in this economy has been on the generation of wealth and prosperity rather than a job for life.

To my thinking, IBEC is playing a dangerous game, bearing Mr O’Connor’s comments about the threat to social partnership in mind. It may be facing its sternest test in a long time.

Compared with 20 or 30 years’ ago, labour and capital in this country have learnt to accommodate each other’s perspective.

Many workers learned the hard way that unreasonable demands helped nobody. We came though a phase where if inflation rose 20% the unions demanded 20% hikes in wages to counter the loss in real wages.

It was a spiral that threatened the fabric of the economy and the society.

Then we saw sense and drew up national pay deals.

We did well as a result. Those in the public sector did better than the rest, but the economy was given breathing space and the results have been spectacular.

Irish Ferries’ plight reflects the way the world is changing where global rather than local competition is now a major issue.

The Irish Ferries debacle propels us into unchartered territory where for the first time an Irish firm says it wants to sack workers, not because there is no work, but because it can hire cheaper ones from abroad.

If this is to be resolved we need fresh thinking and less hypocrisy to help us cope with this new threat of cheap international labour and serious competitive pressures on Irish business.