The public sector pay talks have been going on a bit now, haven’t they?
The negotiations broke up for the weekend with no sign of success. Efforts to satisfy union concerns over rising inflation have so far come to naught – with leaders speaking of a “significant impasse” and of the two sides being “miles” apart on pay.
The Workplace Relations Commission has requested that a Government-appointed independent group take the reins – and it will go to work on Tuesday.
Affiliate unions were due to be briefed on the state of the talks on Monday morning, with the union negotiators to then decide what to do next.
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They have said that unless a credible offer is forthcoming from the Government then a second day of full-blown industrial action later this month will be activated – and then some.
The unions have leverage here.
Not only would another strike day on November 11th shut the schools again but – deep breath – it would disrupt preparations for the meeting of EU leaders on Thursday and Friday next week. Friday the 13th, that is.
It all seems quite fraught.
Or perhaps not. The Government has been briefing that it has seen this all before and the back channels remain open. All shall become clear over the coming 48 hours or so.
Despite the rancour, Ireland’s stand-off over the cost of living appears much more amicable than elsewhere.
Europe’s Gen Zers take to the streets
For a generation slandered by the suggestion that it takes a less-than-robust attitude to getting things done in the workplace, Europe’s Gen Zers have been showing plenty of get-up-and-go over the past few days.
The youths are revolting.
Pensioners on the Continent, and beyond, have watched with no little uneasiness as first French, German – and even Swiss youngsters – have taken to the streets.
Emboldened by the students of Serbia and their victory over the old, corrupt regime, these centennials appear mad as hell and not prepared to take it any more.
Locked out of the housing market, dealing with the rising cost of living and now competing with artificial intelligence in the jobs market, the ‘Gen Z regelt’ movement in Germany organised peaceful demonstrations at the weekend.
The name translates roughly as ‘Gen Z take charge’.
The suggestion of compulsory military service on top of all this saw hundreds of thousands rally to the cause with peaceful protests. But violence soon followed in Frankfurt, Berlin, Cologne and Hamburg with shops looted and police water cannons deployed.
Europe’s governing parties seem at a loss on how they stop the spread – and are presumably waiting for this famously individualistic generation to fall out with one another and get back to gaming alone in their rooms and whatever else it is they do.
US voters head to the polls
Speaking of things being looted, there is always the potential for such loose talk about elections being stolen and all that carry-on as US voters head to the polling stations on Tuesday.
Tens of millions, of course, have already cast their votes in what is being seen as a referendum on Donald Trump’s second term.
The midterms are finally upon Washington with the Democrats poised to take control of the House of Representatives, while the fate of the Senate is far from assured.
The US president spent Sunday campaigning in Republican-leaning Iowa and Kansas, where Senate seats are under threat.
While an electoral thumping could well cool Trump’s jets on the domestic front, it might do nothing to cool the engines of the actual jets belonging to the US navy.
Yes, Trump still reckons another military battering might bring Tehran to heel and – with the midterms out of the way – sure what difference would expensive gasoline make?
If such an assault does indeed go ahead, along with the inevitable Iranian response, it’ll hardly do much to ease those cost-of-living concerns in Europe mentioned previously.
Harris on the back foot
The Tánaiste will be mulling over all of this during the week as an important Fine Gael ardfheis approaches.
Simon Harris has been getting a bit of a pasting in the press recently and those polling numbers don’t look too hot.
Among the findings of the latest political research is the judgment of six in ten voters that he is not qualified to be Minister for Finance.
And that now famous phone call to Minister for Culture Patrick O’Donovan hasn’t helped matters.
Some within his party have been pondering whether this whole slightly left-of-centre, tax-and-spend malarkey is worth it. One of the motions for next weekend’s gathering in Cork asks that Fine Gael grasp its old centre-right mantle and be done with the woke nonsense.
What would Gen Z regelt make of that?
