Officials were ‘better off in bed than at pay talks’
In a strongly-worded and well-received address, he said that during the negotiating sessions that led to the announcement of the proposals, most trade union officials “would have been better occupied at home in their beds, rather than sitting around chatting amongst themselves, waiting for unilateral announcements”.
“Negotiation, delegates, in my view, involves two parties with opposing views seeking an accommodation they can live with. Real negotiation does not take place when one of the parties can inflict its will on the other because it has a finger on the nuclear button. Let’s be honest, there was no real negotiation involved in reaching the LRC proposals.”
Mr Craughwell said trade unions “wrongly” engaged in the Croke Park I and Croke Park II processes and that, as a result, the trade union movement was “at risk of becoming part of the problem and not the solution”.
“Where are we going 100 years after the lockout when the trade union movement appears to be a willing participant in cutting workers’ pay? The process of ‘negotiation’ I saw is quite unlike any negotiation I have ever witnessed or been part of.”
The TUI president also hit out at the public services committee of Ictu, which he claimed is not able to serve the needs of every union it represents.
“I believe that it does not have the sectoral knowledge to negotiate for our members. Now is the time to insist on the right of the TUI, and only TUI, to negotiate on our members’ pay and terms and conditions of employment.”
He said it was time teachers and lecturers reverted back to doing merely what they were contracted to do and nothing more.
He also tackled the issuing of bullying in schools, colleges, and online. Mr Craughwell said that, as well as school and college management, parents need to have a central role in knowing what is going on in their child’s life.
“As a society, we must question the responsibility of leaving mobile phones in the hands of children as young as six or seven years of age and allowing unsupervised access to social media.
“School staff are not in the homes of their students. Parents have a role in making sure that their children are not a bully, or are not being bullied.”
