Worst of all the ITCU and the After ten weeks on strike the union leaders of Ireland's 130 locomotive drivers of Irish biggest union Services, Industrial. Professional and Locomotive Drivers Association (ILDA) were forced Technical Union ( SIPTU) and the National Rail and Bus to return to work. They came Union (NRBU) joined in the out in strike not just for themselves but to guarantee a safe tirade. They issued a letter to their members instructing mi narwork for evervone The larnrod Eireann manage- them to scab and break picket lines. Why was such a fury of ment were jeopardising rail safety by the imposition of invective directed at a small group of workers on strike? eleven hour work rosters, by Affront de-skilling and by reducing training for new drivers. What The answer is that the forstarted out as an important but mation of ILDA itself was seen fairly routine industrial dispute as an affront to the spirit of our quickly turned into a national time which goes by the inappolitical furore. propriately named 'social partThe press quickly targeted nership'. The ILDA was identiILDA General Secretary fied by the social partners as a Brendan Ogle as public enemy union opposed to the proposed number one. The Independent privatisation of the railways. group of newspapers accused Even before the strike began, Ogle of causing everything fears were expressed that from the closing down of ILDA was a militant union entire businesses to putting at beyond the control of the social risk the lives of cancer patients. partners. Its militancy in organPoliticians from every political ising secondary picketing during party raised up one hell of a the strike merely confirmed chorus of disapproval against this fear. one trade unionist. Some Social partnership thrives on newspaper columnists called deals being struck at the top for the law to come down hard table well out of the reach of ordinary union members. on the strikore Successive governments have sought more and more of a partnership with the union leaders which today crucially involves support for privatisation.
The ILDA was formed out of a frustration and instinctive opposition to this. It grew out of a pressure group formed in 1994 by three train drivers who were members of SIPTU and opposed a productivity deal agreed between their union officials in SIPTU and NBRU and the employers. The drivers used to meet regularly in Dublin's Ashling Hotel and finally registered as a union in July 1999.
In establishing itself free from the official union apparatuses, ILDA was going against the program of union centralisation and privatisation encouraged by the enactment of the 1990 Industrial Relations Act and the ideology of partnership and consensus.
In the last few years the state has dished out over two million pounds to facilitate union mergers and centralisation. With this help the number of unions has fallen from 150 to below 50. So from the outset there was a pronounced hostility to ILDA. The ILDA people were portrayed as dangerous militants. It is hard enough to win a dispute even with the solidarity of other unions but when their leaders are actively organising against you then you really have got big problems.
During the course of the strike the rail workers received magnificent support from ordinary workers who simply ignored the instruction to scab from the union chiefs. When ILDA put pickets on bus garages, most workers refused to cross them.
Picketing
For the first time in years we saw the power of secondary picketing. Nobody can now claim that the rail workers lacked determination or that their tactice were not miltant enough. However they were. still forced back to work.
They were in the end beaten by the political conspiracy that is social partnership. There are plenty of workers who are angry, there are even enough potential militant leaders capable of fighting hard.
But what is lacking is a comprehensive political consciousness that appreciates the necessity of combating the mechanisms and ideology of social partnership right across the board. Instead of the present episodic and spontaneous outbursts of militancy we need a consciously organised fight against social partnership which is be well prepared in advance.
The workers need an organised current of politically conscious workers armed with an action programme to fight against privatisation - and the support for it from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) In short Irish workers need to become overtly and progressively more political.
The ILDA was an industrial dispute that the capitalist bosses and their press recognised was a key political battle Irish premier Bertie Ahern is an eager proponent of "partnership" because it was about forcing the pace of privatisation. The ILDA membership was slow to realise just how politically sensitive theses issues are. Small more militant break away unions are not in themselves the solution to the problems facing Irish workers.. The real problem for rail workers is that their industry is being readied for privatisation through the worsening of their conditions.
The ILDA workers were in fact left stranded, unable to influence the crucial debate on privatisation taking place in SIPTU and NBRU. The railway workers need a solution based on stopping privatisation. This can only be brought about by means of a general political struggle against social partnership.
Outlook