Partnership mechanism bending and twisting to noisy sectional demands
Last year I wrote an article in this newspaper which asked: "Is a prosperous economy synonymous with an unfair society?" I did so as a new participant in the negotiations for what came to be called the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness and as an intervention in the Budget which had left those on low and fixed incomes at the end of the list.
A year of partnership and another give-away Budget later, the spread has increased and everybody is getting something, but relative deprivation and inequality have also increased. The gap between rich and poor is widening.
Today, one year on, the social partners are meeting again. Is achieving fairness on top of the agenda? Will we receive reports and make decisions on targets and timetables which narrow wage and income differentials and which focus most resources and primacy of outcome for those who have the least? These are fundamental to dividing the distribution of growth and agreeing priorities of social spending if fairness and social justice are to be equals at the table with prosperity.
"Solidarity without equality" is the telling and graphic description of the state of these social and economic relationships by a contributor to the recent ESRI study: Bust to Boom? - The Irish Experience of Growth and Inequality.
Some argue that Irish society can have the best of the US and European models through the mechanism of social partnership as the cutting edge in integrating economic and democratic innovation. The burden of proof is now very heavily on them to demonstrate that social partnership is capable of being more than a rickety form of wage containment and that its dynamic is capable of making fairness an equal partner with prosperity.
They need to hark back to the words in 1963 of an early mentor of social cohesion, Sean Lemass, when he said "social justice must be organised". This was in a speech which rejected the "dripdown" theory of prosperity.
CORI (the Conference of Religious of Ireland) and others in the community and voluntary sector have spelt out with irrefutable clarity how the poor and low paid were betrayed by the Budget. Are they also being betrayed by social partnership? They are being told that their turn will come - in time. In all the complex partnership frameworks on life-long learning, housing, transport, childcare, family-friendly policies, anti-racism and North-South development who is benefiting and in what order?
Justice delayed is justice denied. If social partnership does not accept this basic maxim its ambitious claim that it is capable of delivering justice as well as opportunity, enterprise and reward will simply prove to be untrue. To argue that we will deal with low pay, poverty and other social ills when we have the "big" issues sorted out is to miss the point. Mainstreaming fairness requires the impact of our current process and decisions to be "outed" for examination now.
The partnership mechanism is currently bending and twisting to encompass and respond to the clamour of noisy sectional voices which want their bit of the action. Workers with clout perceive the widening gap between their rewards and those of the professional and business classes. Senior figures in government, employers and the trade union movement are spending long, intense, difficult and private hours trying to square the circle of sectional demand, narrowing that gap, and economic stability.
The poorest of the poor just don't have the muscle or the organised voice to get that attention. That is the cause, effect and nature of social exclusion.
Is the reality of social partnership to be that it organises social and economic stability in a spread where everybody gets something but the poor get the least? Seasoned movers and shakers will be smart enough to find routes of flexibility which respond to the strains and stresses of sectional demand. There will then, indeed, be a programme for prosperity but let's not pretend it is about fairness.
Solidarity with equality requires a disciplined commitment to justice which has the confidence to make decisions openly and measure outcomes which narrow the gap between the haves and the have-nots.
For the trade union movement that means at least an element of flat-rate pay increase, an increase in the minimum wage rate and resourcing of flexible terms and conditions, as well as equality of access to housing, education, health and other social provision. We know that the voices of those who would benefit from all of that were not heard at the table when decisions on priorities were taken.
That is the reality of the lack of participation of the low paid, women and other groups in our movement. We have to face up to this if we are to move beyond the rhetoric of justice. The fact that this lack of participation is mirrored on a societal level doesn't let us off the hook because we claim fairness as one of our main objectives.
Critics of social partnership call it wage containment surrounded by fancy rhetoric. I think its history is more complex than that. My own trade union and human-rights activism in surviving rigid economic and social exclusion makes me want a practice of social dialogue which is capable of the dynamic of enterprise and justice. But the test of social dialogue, based on the practice of justice, is if and how those at the table make way for the needs and voices of those currently far from it. The test of this programme's commitment to fairness at the plenary meeting today is whether we are going to take decisions which benefit them now.
So what are some do-ables today which would show partnership can cope with the noise of sectionalism while delivering a real intent to practise justice?
In the run-up to the recent Budget, the community and voluntary sector proposed that those on social welfare and assistance needed a £14.00 per week increase. Some £8.00 was given. Another £6 per week is needed to deal with the ravages of inflation and bring the most disadvantaged within a whiff of a level playing field.
We could agree to unanimously recommend an amendment to the Finance Bill which would accord an extra £6 per week to those on social assistance and social welfare. Will we do that?
We could agree to fast-forward the minimum wage standards, stop analysing the wage gap and start tackling it by prioritising the low paid with specific measures now. Will we do that?
We could agree a modest beginning in our responsibility to tackle racism. We could recommend that the 1,000 or so refugees in bureaucratic limbo for the last two years through no fault of their own be granted the right to remain and work and to other basic human rights. Will we do that?
We could agree a meeting of social partners North and South to tackle labour mobility, social exclusion and develop joint antipoverty strategies. Will we do that?
We could agree a process of timetables and outcomes for our frameworks from lifelong learning to housing which require us to show how the most disadvantaged will immediately benefit. Will we do that?
We could commit ourselves to measure the conduct of delivery of public services by standards of access and thereby acknowledge the need to reallocate resource on the basis of need. The practice of participation requires setting agreed standards with quantifiable and measurable outcomes to make real a practice of justice. Will we do that?
None of this will produce fairness today or even shortly afterwards. None of it would destabilise the economy, the society or the world. It would, however, be a very modest start to proving whether partnership is a process that can produce solidarity with equality.
Currently it is not.
Inez McCormack is president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.
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