Labour relations body crosses the line

The Government has asked Kieran Mulvey, the chief executive of the Labour Relations Commission, to meet with the public service union leaders to see if the Croke Park 2 proposals, so firmly rejected in the recent round of ballots by the union membership, can be revived.

Mr Mulvey should refuse to act as a Government agent in this manner.

To characterise his intervention as a normal part of his industrial relations’ brief is disingenuous, to say the least.

If the Labour Relations Commission is to maintain any reputation as a disinterested intermediary between employers and employees, it cannot have its chief executive officer pandering to the political needs of the Government parties.

The difference between the government and public servants is not a difference which can be split. The difference is between justice and injustice.

Either public servants are victimised or not.

The Government gambled on Jack O’Connor, Shay Cody and its other friends at the top of the trade union movement dividing and conquering public servants.

The gamble failed. For purely ideological reasons, Labour and Fine Gael refuse to reduce the gap between national income and expenditure by the sensible and equitable route of increased taxes on those who can best afford them.

They are determined instead to make public servants subsidise the provision of public services. That is a political and an ideological matter, not an industrial relations issue.

It is wholly inappropriate for Mr Mulvey to use his office to try to help the Government out of the hole it has dug itself into. In doing so, he crosses the line from industrial relations into politics and seriously compromises the Labour Relations Commission.

Martin O’Grady

Kerry Public Service Workers Alliance

Ardfert

Co Kerry