Sounding war drums - A winter of strikes would destroy us all

SO, harmless sabre rattling is building towards the rumble of still-distant but very perceptible war drums.

SIPTU has told its members, public and private, to prepare for a winter of strikes and industrial action to fight pay cuts, job losses or the dismantling of hard-won terms and conditions. The call came just days after representatives of over 100,000 public servants said they will not accept cuts proposed by McCarthy.

It was inevitable, as we try to pay our bills without borrowing €400 million a week, that this moment would arrive. However, it is unfortunate that it has been reached the week we need to concentrate on ratifying the Lisbon Treaty on Friday. If the timing is anything other than coincidental then those who orchestrated it have put sectional interests before national interests.

Weekend reports – conveniently unattributed – that there is a growing Cabinet consensus for a 5% cut in public pay and pensions will add to the fury but do little to resolve our difficulties. It is surprising that the suggestion might be 5% across the board. Surely those earning over, say, €100,000 should face greater cuts?

The unions say they have been brought to this point partially by the failure of social partnership channels to deliver three objectives. They want a €1 billion package to subsidise employment; measures to protect private pensions and support for people struggling to pay mortgages. These reasonable ambitions should be satisfied.

It is, after all, unimaginable that we can allow banks evict families whose income has been lost because of the banking crisis. The banks will have to allow homeowners in genuine difficulties longer to clear mortgages without imposing penalties.

The unions are right too to be concerned about private sector pensions. The Government has ignored EU advice on this issue for years as Waterford Crystal workers will confirm. In any event the Government seems to have no difficulty bailing out pension schemes as long as they are in the public sector.

Just last June they rescued a number of struggling public sector funds by transferring them into the National Pensions Reserve Fund. Fourteen state and university pension schemes – all under-funded – were involved. The schemes had assets of €1.75bn, but liabilities of nearly €3bn. The Government insisted that it cannot afford to take over or guarantee private funds. That may well be the case but not even this Government can imagine it acceptable to secure one worker’s pension while casting another’s adrift.

There will be pay cuts; they are sadly unavoidable. There will be job losses too but measures might put in place to offer security on mortgages and pensions.

Most people accept that our circumstances have changed utterly. If there was a degree of security on mortgages and pensions, the great twin fears provoking so much discontent and anger, it might be possible that pay cuts might be endured and the war drums silenced.

We simply cannot afford the alternative.