ICTU: 15% wage cut call ‘nonsense’

THE Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) has described as “utter nonsense” calls by IDA chief Barry O’Leary that wage cuts of up to 15% were required to restore competitiveness.

At the ICTU biennial conference in Tralee, assistant general secretary Sally Anne Kinahan said the best way to address competitiveness was through serious investment in upskilling and learning, starting at pre-school and continuing through all levels and all ages. “Even far right economists concede that competitiveness is far more complex, complicated and about much more than wage levels. He [Mr O’Leary] has clearly adopted a simplistic ideological position and not one that is informed by the facts.” Cutting wages will simply depress demand and kill consumption, a dangerous step in an economy where domestic demand comprises almost 50% of all activity, she said.

At yesterday’s conference, the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) demanded the Government reverse 13 cuts in the education system, claiming it was now reeling from a near mortal blow.

TUI president Don Ryan said the Government had made the cuts in the name of financial restraint but instead it had “cut the legs’ from underneath a creaking education system already under-funded by international standards. The cuts he referred to included the reduction in pupil-teacher ratio, reduction in third-level funding, a cap on language support teachers and a withdrawal of €252m in ICT funding. “Even when record budget surpluses were declared we languished 27th out of 29 OECD countries when our spending on education was ranked against national wealth. Our schools, our college and our children are hurting and will hurt more. Education in this country has been delivered a mortal blow,” he said.

IMPACT national secretary Peter Nolan said: “We don’t want to arrive at a situation where, post-recession, the education system has to be rebuilt from a ‘low base’. We have already seen how devastating that can be as our health sector has never truly recovered from the cuts of the 1980s...

“Cutting investment in education does not make any sense. In the long term, it will exacerbate the degree of economic disadvantage for families from low-income backgrounds. It will annihilate opportunities for adult education which is vital for those workers who have lost their jobs in their thousands, and for whom further education would be a crucial lifeline... If you take apart our education system by starving it of resources, any hope of future economic competitiveness will be crushed.”