Madam, – I wish to respond to E. Molloy’s attack on the trade union movement, and myself in particular (January 30th), even though I am deeply occupied with my colleagues in negotiations with the Government and employer representatives in trying to clean up the mess left by the slavish application of ludicrous free-market policies for more than a decade for the benefit of the wealthiest groups in our society.
I regret that I must disabuse your correspondent of his illusions regarding Siptu. While he is quite right in thinking that Siptu represents more public service workers than any other union, two-thirds of our members are in the private sector. Our strategic policy on pay, working conditions and the economy reflects this because we are essentially a social solidarity organisation representing a cross section of middle to low income working people in this country.
As to the allegation that public service workers have “gold-plated pensions”, I would like to point out that the average hospital or local authority worker can expect an occupational pension, after 40 years’ service, of just €150 per week. Such inconvenient facts are ignored by an array of “independent” commentators who have engaged in a sophisticated exercise over the past six months of deflecting attention from the stratospheric amounts some so-called leaders of the business community have been awarding themselves while pursuing reckless and unethical practices, by targeting public sector workers instead.
Only recently has the veil slipped on this campaign to divide worker against worker on a public-private basis. It is now abundantly clear that the real agenda is about cutting pay and conditions across the entire economy.
We in the trade union movement will play our part in trying to clean up the mess left by the free-market policies relentlessly advocated by some commentators for over a decade. It does not help that we still have to respond to such attacks on the trade union movement and that its role in the social partnership process continues to be misrepresented, or misunderstood, by some. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – The government is devoting great time and effort to negotiations with unelected trade union bosses in its laudable effort to head off an economic catastrophe. Surely it needs to spend at least as much time with elected opposition TDs.
Matters are much too serious to be the subject of political party competition, and this Government does not have the sort of majority it would need to ensure the passing of painful but necessary legislation. The country needs leadership by a sound government of national unity, not a cobbled together compromise of opportunism. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – There has been a concerted effort recently to set private- and public-sector workers against each other. To emphasise one of the many things they have in common, consider a factory worker, an accountant, and a teacher – two private-sector, one public-sector, all taxpayers.The first cannot draw a contributory old age pension until the age of 65. The self employed accountant must build up an adequate pension fund – which he cannot realistically do much short of 65. Under conditions introduced some years back, teachers cannot now draw pension until they reach 65.
So if the Government is determined to take whatever steps are necessary, even in the area of pensions, to lighten the burden on taxpayers, why should it continue to allow Oireachtas members not only to qualify for pensions after a handful of years but to draw those pensions as soon as they leave the Oireachtas? – Yours, etc,