NEWTON's OPTIC:ENOUGH OF this reckless complacency over a possible one-day strike by the Civil Public and Services Union (CPSU). Does nobody realise the anarchy such an action will unleash? CPSU represents 13,000 clerical, administrative and first-line managerial staff in the Civil Service, plus clerical and sales grades in the semi-State sector. Little more needs to be said to conjure up the horrors that would follow withdrawal of their labour.
CPSU has also set up a committee to “examine various forms of industrial action which would disrupt the management of Government services”. This is disturbingly Machiavellian, as setting up a committee is itself the classic means of disrupting Government services.
But the prospect of a 24-hour strike is already quite frightening enough. Imagine having to wait 10 months and one day for a driving test, instead of waiting just 10 months.
Imagine having to send your tax return in to the Revenue Commissioners on October 30th this year instead of October 31st, because it is entirely your fault that they all took a day off in February.
Imagine visiting your local social welfare office only to find it closed, forcing you to return the next day to be curtly informed that self-employed people are not entitled to job-seeker’s benefit anyway and, besides, social welfare is only for the “socially excluded”, you private-sector son-of-a-banker scumbag.
Above all, imagine thousands of phones ringing unanswered in Civil Service offices up and down the country because there is nobody there to answer them, rather than because there is nobody there who will answer them. Spooky, isn’t it?
While the effect of a CPSU strike on public services would be bad enough, the impact on semi-State companies hardly bears thinking about.
What would happen at An Post, where hard-working sales and clerical staff are the bedrock of its famed efficiency?
How will Fás function without CPSU members to process expenses claims from Florida beauty parlours and other nail-biting recovery specialists?
How will Coillte Teoranta function without CPSU members to sort out the wood-related invoices from the tree-related invoices?
CPSU is a particularly important union at the Irish Aviation Authority. If air traffic controllers suspect that the union-nominated diversity officer is not at her desk in the purchasing department, planes could start falling from the sky.
But of all the dangers posed by a CPSU strike, it is the prospect of paralysed police stations that is surely the most unsettling. As vital services begin to break down, how can gardaí be called out to maintain public order without full clerical backup?
Just to ask the question is to realise how far CPSU has us all over a barrel. Since 2000, clerical officers in the Civil Service have had their pay increased by 44 per cent. CPSU now claims that deferring another 6 per cent increase is effectively a 12 per cent cut. This is final and conclusive proof of the administrative ingenuity which makes these people so absolutely indispensable. It is difficult to see how society could function for even 24 hours without them.
Indeed, the situation could easily become so unstable that martial law might have to be declared.
While in no way wishing to cause alarm, my advice is to start stockpiling food.