James Lawless – View from the Tracks

It appears the unions have managed to scuttle their own ship before it even left port with the events of the past few days. They always looked to be leaking, at least to those on land, but are they now holed below the waterline?

There was going to be a challenge from the start in rallying public support for a mass campaign of protest and unrest, as the anger of earlier months had begun, in many quarters at least, to morph into a kind of bitter acceptance and grim reality.

Whatever the ghosts of the past, the ghost of times present needed to dole out the harshest medicine if we were to dream of seeing the ghost of times future at all. As Bord Snip author, McCarthy himself, opined so succintly, “the government hasn’t run out of compassion, it’s run out of money”. With almost eighty percent of public spending divided almost evenly between public sector wage bill and welfare payments, and four billion in savings to be found, well something had to give.

So for the unions it was always a delicate course to steer a populist earlier anger into a cohesive and longer lasting chorus of dissent. And more importantly to bring to bear a real, actual influence on events by proposing tangible alternative solutions. We saw in the NAMA debate how naysayers became derailed through too broad a coalition of interests and most damningly lack of a credible alternative.

It seems what hope the good ship union had of navigating the storm has now been fatally becalmed by various utterances and admissions of the past few days. Last night’s RTE FrontLine witnessed a truly cringeworthy performance from SIPTU’s Jack O’Conor where he bluffed and blustered and became quite belligerent at times, whilst it became apparent he had no real plan, ace or even jack (excuse the pun) up his sleeve to provide alternate means of addressing the acknowledged shortfalls. It is common place to hear politicians weave around the question and offer platitudes in place of plain speaking but Mr. O’Conor acted as though he was on a pub bar stool and not on a national TV show with a co panel, live audience and hundreds thousands more at home. Despite a growing petulance and repeated protestations to “listen to what he was saying” noone in fact seemed anywhere near the wiser when he was finished.

The chestnut again of who exactly are “the most vulnerable in society” saw some cold figures poured over it as a (welcome new face) tax lawyer ‘did the math’ outlining how a 75% tax rate on couples jointly assessed at €75,000 combined income would be the reality of an enforced effort to secure the required savings in taxation measures alone. The much loved but sadly vapid solution “Tax the rich” really depends on who the rich are. When one man’s “rich” turn out to be another man’s “vulnerable” then we really have gone full circle and we begin to run out of grass. There just aren’t enough “really rich” people left in the country to go around. What loopholes remained have largely been closed already whilst the demise of the celtic tiger has largely put paid to many of the rest. To make it worthwhile any taxation measures would have to apply at a level that massively disincentives labour and has a possibly far more putative effect on the self same masses than a public pay cut would lead to in the first place.

Peter McLoone appears to privately concede reality in this morning’s leaked memo, when despite his colleague O’Connors obfuscation, it transpires that reducing the public pay bill really is a simple question of cutting jobs or cutting pay.

The Unions really are on rocky shores also with the “not our fault” mantra having had a seat at the top table right through the boom years. They often appeared to exert more influence than many back benchers and at the height of it even first mate McCreevy was dispatched to Brussels as not profligate enough for the required ’social justice’ creed that partnership sought at high tide.

But after too many late night’s supping rum at the captain’s table, it is time to shrug off the hangover and grab an oar like everyone else. A rising tide lifted all boats once but now it is time to pull together or face the ocean floor alone.

(This article also appears under my contributions at IrishElection.com)