Madam, – You published a number of letters implicating the trade union movement in the cause of the economic collapse (November 30th).
Objective scrutiny of history demonstrates otherwise. We launched a social partnership initiative which was key to economic recovery in the 1980s. The economy grew sustainably when Labour was in government between 1992 and 1997. Two social partnership agreements were concluded during that period.
In 1997 some of us worked very hard to keep the Labour Party in office but the electorate decided otherwise.
The PD-Fianna Fáil government embarked on a different policy, privatising State assets, dismantling the tax base and incentivising speculation in property. As a result of their pro-cyclical approach the economy was already overheating by 2000 and the rate of inflation had increased five-fold.
We do not have the luxury of ignoring the democratic wish of the electorate. We must deal with each government as best we can to represent our members.
We continued to participate in the social partnership, to try to secure improved living standards and to protect vulnerable workers from exploitation. Agreements were negotiated in 2000, 2003, 2006 and 2008. The proposals were set out clearly in publicly available documents and ratified following secret ballots of trade union members.
Yes, there was cause and effect between inflation and pay, but pay was not the driver. The net foreign debt accumulated by the banks here increased from 10 per cent of GDP in 2003 to an unsustainable 60 per cent in 2008. A sizeable proportion of this represented short- term borrowing for long-term investment in property speculation. It was this that produced the bubble and the collapse, not the trade union movement, nor social partnership for that matter.
Some of us worked very hard to bring about a change of government in 2002 and again 2007. Regrettably we did not succeed. Most of us, including myself, never served on State boards.
On the matter of salaries, members of the first officer board on which I served were paid 18.6 per cent less than our predecessors. Last year I and my fellow officers took a 10 per cent pay cut and a more than 20 per cent reduction in pension entitlements. I accept we are still well paid.
The rules of our union prohibit all employees from benefiting personally through serving on any body to which they are appointed.
We are in the throes of the greatest economic crisis in our history. There are two routes open to us. One is the social solidarity route advocated by the trade union movement. The other is social cannibalism. People should not be dissuaded from considering the potential of the former due to attempts to discredit those promoting it. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Andrew Moynihan (November 30th) presents the same flawed analysis of the Irish crisis that has become the mantra of Fianna Fáil and the Greens: unions driving up wages, uncompetitive economy, etc.
He and the Government are probably the only people still clinging to that delusion.
The reality of the crisis has been summed up quite succinctly by the Confederation of British Industry: “Ireland is not Greece. This is a banking collapse, not a fiscal collapse.” The same sentiment was repeated by the IMF, the ECB and EU Commissioner Olli Rehn, even as they drew up a deal that ensured the Irish taxpayer was sent the bill for the recklessness of senior bankers.
Of course the Government (and its dwindling band of supporters) is anxious to deflect attention from the banks, because it was their catastrophic guarantee of bank debt that hastened the arrival of the IMF.
But listening to their spokespersons you would think the entire crisis has been caused by those on the minimum wage. – Yours, etc,