Unions may be buried along with Thatcher

Rejection spells the end of partnership, writes Gerard Howlin

THIS morning the funeral cortege of Margaret Thatcher will process from St Clement Danes along the great ceremonial route of the British Empire along Ludgate Hill and Fleet St towards St Paul’s. In part, the Irish trade union movement will be buried with her. In a sense it was buried by her.

Yesterday’s rejection of Croke Park II puts Irish trade unions and the Government back in a place they have not been for a generation.

Thatcher was a key, if indirect influence, on the system of social partnership that began in the late 1980s and which continued, if not intact, at least partially until yesterday.

Ironically, the day she is buried is the dawn of a new era for Irish trade unions. Some unions have long advocated an end to what they saw as the cronyism and sclerosis of partnership.

Now they will know if that new dawn is an abyss.

Thatcherism was unbridled in the late 1980s and after an element led by Arthur Scargill played into her hands, was triumphant over the trade unions.

The miners’ strike of 1984-85 and the backdrop of Thatcherism in Britain and Reagan’s America were highly influential on trade union thinking in Ireland. Those concerns about a changing cultural as much as economic climate were added to by the foundation of the Progressive Democrats in Dec 1985. They were briefly a potentially mould breaking force. The party successfully set the pace of public debate and won 14 seats in 1987.

This was the political backdrop as much as calamitous economic climate that prompted many, not least the late general secretary of congress Donal Nevin, to help conceive and then implement an initially successful policy of social partnership. Nevin and others acted on the premise that they could risk shaping government policy for recovery or be excluded.

In the political context of the late 1980s, walking away risked leaving the field to the enemy within, a proto-Thatcherite PD party in a wider world context where free market economics were inexorably in the assent.

Today events have come full circle. Despite the strong urging of some like Jack O’Connor, the trade unions have walked away from an agreement.

The first imperative facing congress now will be to ensure unity. In fact a narrow victory may have made that more difficult.

A “Continuity” Siptu could not have been ruled out. If their members are angry, trade unions now desperately lack a policy and anger is not a substitute.

The Government must find the money premised on the deal. It can, as promised, legislate for pay cuts. It might also legislate for an increase in the public service pension contribution.

The economics are the same but the cosmetics are be different. The alternative to either is a monumental climbdown. To quote Mrs Thatcher quoting Churchill, “when you’re going through hell, keep going”.

In any event, the only alternatives to taking the money from public servants are finding it elsewhere.

That means raising taxes or cutting public services, provided by, er, public servants. The Government will likely proceed and take by force majeure what it now cannot obtain by agreement.

What will now be sacrificed, however, is the major structural reform elements of Croke Park II which in fact require agreement. Staff cannot be legislatively coerced into new work arrangements. Doing things smarter and differently in the public service has to wait again.

The problems for government, and Labour especially, are obvious. The problem for the trade unions is worse. Their members haven’t either the will or the unity for a full frontal assault on the Government. Serious unrest may arise in some areas like health, but public tolerance will likely be low. The issue for the health budget is now confounded by the fact that the saving it is committed to delivering is predicated on work change delivered by Croke Park II.

For over a quarter of a century, Irish trade unions have pursued a strategy intended to ensure that what Thatcher did in Britain could never be done to them here. Thatcher came to power determined to end an era of deals done over beer and sandwiches at 10 Downing St. Under partnership, their Irish colleagues far outstripped in influence their British colleagues. That the demise of that once successful strategy and her funeral coincide on the same day is an epic irony.