T ac arisa nurses strike came to a1 end after just nine days on the picket was called off by the union leadership before the nurses had actually volca on the government's "new' proposal.
T'he insisted on the strike being called off or roostponcd in ensure that the nurses vote for the deal, which they did by an overwhelming majori The strike itself and the leadership's sell out have to be seen against the background of Partnership 2000 renewal. The nature of Social now due for Partnership which is lost on most of the Irish left is that it s means or as co ering the defeat of the work- basis.
class, and has been The ing heavy blows to the workCES The lynchpin of it is trade union support for the neolib. cral offensive, in this context the the Irish government made it plain that the nurses - how- suffered ward closures.
XRISH "EYES influence on to make A column from Socialist Democracy, Irish section Lof the Fourth international down and defeated if théy went on strike. Prior to the strike they refused to 19986348889 open negotiations with the unions and upped union leadership sig- (given that capitulate even before the strike had begun. than wages. It was also about inist leader health service which right through the 1980s had massive cutbacks which led to hospital and This fact maac toe strike very popular with the general pub.
The union leadership the nurses they were going to which (as always) justified go for a new deal and no disgrounds that it allows them pute with the was going to spoil the party. social expendi- The unions ture and such issues, refused the RyanAir dispute and the cutbacks and the sell off of Telecom made it general deterioration in the plain to the government that calth service a central issue To do so would have placed lacy nave no bottom tic They have no. alternative, OUCH there way opposition to both the gorernment and Social Partner- was when the ICTU decided at their congress the day before week before the the nurses' ballot to enter strike the SIPTU, the largest negotiations for a new deal. union in Ireland which also The nurses delivered a pre-emptive stab The response of the left has in the back by voting to enter been abysmal, as it has been for a for the last twelve cessor to Partnership nearly half of ried on with abstract slogavoted neering and a against Partnership 2000, the elegates overwhelming vote real cognisance of the actual was on which Albanian Stak COUT of the class Enver Hoxha and the blows would have been proud of. inflicted In effect SIPTU was saying that whatever happened to For them it has been busi ness as usual. "The union leadership signalled their willingness to capitulate even before the strike had begun."
Before the strike the SWP called a conference against Partnership pletely which nonetheless attracted a large number of militants. The chances of any serious discussion was thwarted by the hysterical approach of back the SWP to the then pending nutes sucke The strike was presented in cataclysmic Partnership Left and any sober assessment of the near by the leadership was shot Years of down as defeatist. The possibility of any seri. UHHECU work undertaken was Well competition truly nullified when leading members of the SWP got up to correct the tone struggle adopted by some of the trade upon the attacked the union leader. prescat wao Their candidate for the leadership in SIPTU, Carolann Duggan, said at the end of her speech that "the Trade Union leadership is not the enemy". This is no aberration. Noi which only did she say it at a conSocial Partbut nership, but she had also said it at the end of her campaign SIPT in their smolet In their pamphlet on Social Partnership they nally stupid in the context of twelve years' being collec aliso "We will support the official just so long as they right (ur we will act indepen will independently immediately they misrepresent them". The Party, who along with the SWP have being had the political field to terms of opposition to Social Partnership being SOH role of the bureaucracy and have the tendency gans. Like SWP they the ICTU for arbitrating rather than sup-