Created on Monday, 19 December 2011 13:13 Written by Red Plough Editorial
On Wednesday 30th November Public Service Unions went out on strike because of the policy of the Tory/Liberal Democrats coalition Governments on pensions.
These policies are from a Government determined to effect a sharp reduction in public service pensions. They are similar to the cuts imposed on workers in the Irish Republic and are part of a European wide offensive on the pension rights of workers. A writer in the USA who has written extensively on USA Imperialism, Michael Parenti, has stated that:
“USA reactionary rulers (goal) is the Third Worldization of the entire world including Europe and North America”
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned of a fall of 3 per cent in average incomes this year, with more to come in 2012, and the brunt of cutbacks falling on lower income families. Families with children are likely to be worse off in 2016 than they were 12 years ago. Since 2010 low income families in the North of Ireland have faced rising inflation, growing unemployment and the highest energy and childcare costs in the UK according to the Save the Children organisation. There are now an extra 14,000 children in poverty.
In the Irish Republic 40% of all those in poverty are children and that is before the full effects of the Cuts hits either North or South of the Border. It is agains this background of raising poverty that the public service unions struck. Trade unions organised demonstrations at lunchtime in Belfast, Derry, Newry, Downpatrick, Omagh, Ballymena, Portadown, Magherafelt and Cookstown. Despite the negative slant put on it by the media the strike was a great success and saw the largest mobilisation of workers, as workers, in generations. The tone of the speeches at the rally in front of Belfast City Hall were angry, militant and class conscious.
One could sense that many attending were more conscious of their role in the class struggle than of their perceived nationality. It was clear that we were not all in it together. On the march itself there was much discussion of the issues surrounding the strike. Many pointed out their solidarity with the low paid workers in the private sector and that many low pay jobs in the public sector had been privatised leading to a differentiation in the average pensions between the two sectors.
There was also much amusement at the sight of Provisional Sinn Fein banners on the March. In October but only known at the end of November the Northern Ireland Executive voted to implement a pensions levy on every civil and public servant in the pension scheme. Only the SDLP voted against it. PSF are on that Executive. They are part of the administration in Stormont. They implement the cuts policy of the British Government. On this issue they face two different ways at once. Eamon McCann once pointed out that having examined the proposals of the parties to the Economic Sub-Group of the Hain Assembly's Preparation for Government Committee in 2006 he concluded that the SDLP were to the left of all the other parties.
“Neither the DUP nor Sinn Féin mentions the existence of trade unions.”(http://www.nuzhound.com/articles/arts2006 sep14_economic_policies__EMcCann_BelfastTelegraph.php)
Indeed McCann says some of the proposals of PSF:
“could fit comfortably into a policy statement from the Confederation of British Industry or an election appeal by Michael McDowell on behalf of the Progressive Democrats”(ibid)
Sinn Fein’s membership who retain any vestiges of radicalism, may well be fobbed of by the argument that they are fighting the British Government for changes. But somewhere down the line the penny will drop (as it did for many around the issues of the GFA) that they are being sold a pup. Since the leadership of Provisional Sinn Fein began the process of turning their organisation into a bourgeois nationalist party they have shed much of their republicanism leading to the formations of Republican Sinn Fein, the 32County Sovereignty Movement, Eirigi and the Republican Network for Unity. It is safe to say that Irish Republicanism has never been more divided nor weaker in the past fifty years.
But rather than learn from the mistakes of the past there are still some who persist with the failed policies that has brought republicanism into a cul de sac. Neither armed struggle nor administrating Capitalist rule will bring radical change to Ireland never mind introduce socialism.
That is why it was gratifying to see republican socialists actively participating in the march and the struggles around workers rights. For years many Republicans stayed away from involvement in trade unions because of their perception of the leadership of the unions as pro-British. They did not see the connections between Imperialist control and day to day capitalist rule. They forgot the examples of James Connelly and Seamus Costello who brought into the cold light of day the connections. No simple green flag atop of buildings would free the workers. It is the class struggle that will solve the national question not the other way around. Thankfully more and more Republicans are coming to see the relevance of the Connolly/Costello approach.
It is long past the time for republican socialists to sit down with each other and over a period of time agreed the strategy and tactics needed to advance the interests of the working class in ireland . Such a move would be difficult and slow. It might need to be private or could be a public forum. But it is needed. At a time of major crisis in capitalism world wide it is a shame that the left sects still play petty politics and refuse to seriously work to build mass organisations of the working class. But it still needs to be done. The power of the class was shown in the one day strike.
Of course one successful day of action by the Unions will not stop the British Government from pursuing their attacks on the working class. They will work on the leadership of some of the public sector Unions to persuade them to break ranks and do a deal that will still worsen the pension conditions of the workers. Minor concessions will be hailed as a victory and a deal forced on reluctant workers. That is why it is essential to fight for democracy at all levels within the Unions. The entrenched bureaucracy of the Unions stand as a barrier to workers unity. The development of a grass roots movement across all unions and sectors of industry and public service is the best defence of workers rights and a spearhead with which to lead opposition to Tory policies in both Britain and Ireland.