Through Irish Eyes
Joining forces to fight "partnership"
The task of ordinary workers is to reclaim their unions from the rotten bureaucracy that presently misleads the movement. This was the framework when over 100 trade unionists met in Dublin to discuss setting up a rank and file campaign against social partnership.
In the Republic of Ireland the bureaucracy has presided over nearly fourteen years of social partnership deals. A neo-liberal agenda of deregulation, privatisation and wage restraint has been implemented through an assault on trade union democracy.
The one-day conference on February 10 was called by the Campaign Against a Partnership Deal. Last year it organised to oppose adoption by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions of the latest partnership deal – the misnamed Programme for Prosperity and Fairness.
This in itself was a step forward. Previous campaigns had arisen just before votes on new deals, hampering consideration of a long-term alternative to partnership and the bureaucracy. The leadership of the campaign against the PPF pushed aside the question of political strategy with the justification that what was needed was to get the vote out.
This led to serious mistakes in the campaign, which concerned itself solely with the demand for higher wages and effectively ignored the wider agenda that has always been part of partnership. In fact it called for the ICTU leadership to go back into negotiations to get more money.
In other words the demand was for a better social partnership deal, not total opposition to it. As Socialist Democracy has pointed out this was effectively an oblique vote of confidence in the present leadership.
For us the key to judging whether a new campaign would be up to the tasks facing it was whether the lessons had been learned. In particular it had to understand that partnership agreements were not simply pay deals.
The most important aspect of the deals has been a political attack on workers, involving acceptance of the whole agenda of the most right wing social and economic policies, now known as neo-liberalism.
This is usually sold as ‘competitiveness’; in other words Irish workers should not join in solidarity with workers elsewhere in Europe and beyond, but compete with them to see who can work hardest and for least reward.
The meeting showed that these lessons were at least up for discussion. Socialist Democracy member Kevin Keating pointed out that just because Oliver Twist asked for ‘more’ didn’t mean he wanted to overthrow the whole workhouse system.
Other speakers mentioned the importance of privatisation but this view was not universally accepted.
A member of the SWP claimed that the demand for higher wages was key because it ‘went to the heart of the system.’
It was particularly disappointing that a Marxist should claim that the price of exploitation would actually challenge it, placing it above the more political attacks that workers face. No doubt this debate will go on but the fact that it started is in itself a step forward.
The conference resolutions also showed some positive movement although their manner of introduction left much to be desired. Three pages of resolutions were distributed at lunchtime, leaving little time to read and absorb them while listening to speeches from the platform.
Only the last session was devoted to addressing the resolutions, which, as the primary outcome of the meeting, were the most important thing about the conference.
Better procedure must be adopted, especially where resolutions may be the cause of differences. In a campaign devoted to democracy we should all ensure we practice what we preach.
Fortunately the resolutions did not cause major division. In fact they reflected an advance on the political basis of previous campaigns dealing with the question of privatisation, anti-union laws and unspecified policies for ‘the transfer of wealth from the Golden circle to the workers who produce it.’
Nevertheless there is room for elaboration and clarification.
Particular resolutions were passed on trade union recognition and recruitment, against benchmarking in the public sector, to support the anti-capitalist movement, on pay claims and a workers charter in the upcoming referendum on the Nice Treaty.
The last resolution was remitted when it was pointed out that while the idea of a workers charter was a good one, the adoption of such a charter would not turn a reactionary treaty into a good one that could be supported.
A resolution on the minimum wage was also remitted when the conference could not agree at what level it should be set at.
The resolution on the Nice Treaty had particular significance because, if implemented, it would involve a campaign inside the union movement on an explicitly political issue.
However only time will tell whether the political aspects of the resolutions will achieve the prominence they deserve.
The aims of the conference are clearly very ambitious, with a resolution passed calling for the setting up of an office and a regular bulletin.
The overall role of the campaign has still to be clarified. It would be a mistake to see it as purely one of organising solidarity – which really should be, and at present could only be, carried out by the trade union movement itself.
The real value of a rank and file campaign at present is to bring the lessons of previous struggles against partnership to groups of workers who are engaging in new struggles.
The campaign elected a committee to oversee its organisation including union representatives from ATGWU and ASTI, independent campaigners such as Des Derwin and Eddie Conlon, and members of the SWP and Socialist Party.
All in all, the conference was a positive start to the crucial task of winning workers to oppose partnership and fight for a genuine alternative.
It reflected the first moves to greater co-operation on the left. Hopefully the campaign will go on to demonstrate the benefits of such unity.