Union leaders warn of ‘sustained and relentless’ industrial unrest
Brian Cowen was greeted with placard-bearing delegates when he arrived at the Irish Congress of Trade Unions biennial conference in Tralee yesterday afternoon.
When he addressed the conference a number held their placards aloft bearing slogans including “No More Health Cuts”, “Protect Our Children, No More Education Cuts” and “Tax the Greedy Not the Needy”.
During his address the Taoiseach said the economy was under threat from “some of the most seismic events in our living history” and he defended the recapitalisation of the banks. He also told delegates that while measures taken by the Government to restore stability to the public finances had proven to be difficult and painful, there would be “more pain ahead”.
ICTU general secretary David Begg referred to disgraced US financier Bernard Madoff.
“We saw Bernie Madoff given 150 years in jail,” said Mr Begg. “If you managed to organise it, I don’t know what the constitutional imperative would be, 150 weeks in jail should be given to some of the characters that have wrecked our banks.”
Mr Begg also attacked the economic “commentariat” in the media, questioning the level of those individuals’ “threshold of decency”. He said areas such as the minimum wage, funding for children with special needs and protection of pensioners should be off-limits when cutbacks are imposed.
“It will be a measure of us as people whether or not we can get through this crisis maintaining some level of protection to the most vulnerable people in our society. This should be self-evident.
“I don’t assume you [Brian Cowen] operate to a different set of the values to the rest of us but there are people who do.
“They are generally to be found in the media and on every political programme, this commentariat who come forward with their ideas of how the country should be run. These people have ice in their veins.”
Mr Begg referred to comments made by the Minister for Finance in which he said if any country had attempted to do to the public service what this country had managed there would be revolution.
“It has to be known there is only a certain distance that any trade union movement will go to accommodate adjustments. We can only do it in the context of an overall settlement which is fair. He must know from the events of this week that an industrial revolution is perhaps a bit of an overstatement but certainly a breakdown in stability in industrial relations is entirely possible if this gets out of control.”
His colleague Jack O’Connor concurred.
He said: “I believe we can offer instead the prospect of a sustained and relentless industrial campaign conducted workplace by workplace and I believe we can promise the Minister for Finance a response that will not end in one day with a walk about town but which will go on and on.”
