ICTU AND SIPTU PRESIDENT SLAMS UNJUST AND UNCARING BUDGET December 9, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, Irish Politics.trackback
The President of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and General President of SIPTU has attacked Budget 2010 as ‘callous, unjust and uncaring’. In his response to the budget speech, Jack O’Connor said;
“Budget 2010 must rank as the most callous, unjust and uncaring budget introduced by any Minister for Finance since the 1930′s in this country.
It represents a merciless attack on working people and the most vulnerable in our community while the wealthy in our society escape virtually untouched.
The only substantive tax measure introduced is a carbon tax which is another unfair indirect tax which will unjustly penalise working people.
The sheer cynicism of this budget and the thinking behind it is evident by the reduction in unemployment assistance to people under 24 years of age. This is clearly designed to encourage our young people to leave the country.
We are once again exporting a generation of our youth – our hope for the future – while other countries are doing their best to keep them at home through employment protection, training and back to education schemes.
At the very least the Minister could have brought forward some innovative proposals to facilitate commercial State investment in the economy which would not have exacerbated the financial deficit.
The remarkable aspect of this budget is its absolute and complete reliance on the free market and pandering to the wealthy in this society.
This approach reflects precisely the outlook that wrecked our economy in the first place.”
For further details contact;
SIPTU General President; Jack O’Connor
SIPTU Head of Communications; Frank Connolly
Perhaps the time to slam it was last week, instead of, in Mark P.’s memorable image offering them the choice of orifice by which to shaft the public sector employee.
Indeed.
I never thought that I’d find myself saying this (very much the wrong background – FF back to before the State was born), but this was a unilateral declaration of war by the Government on the unions and on the working and lower-middle class in general.
Shocking stuff – and the refusal to tax the wealthy upper middle classes was a slap in the face, with insult added with the insinuation that they’d flee abroad if forced to give a few euros to taxes (if there’s one thing this country isn’t short of, it’s fuckers with MBAs). First up for the unions will be complete non-cooperation with any so-called “efficiency” measures – and if they think that McCarthy will be allowed back for another bite in the New Year, they’re sadly mistaken.
I have no idea what they’re thinking – these are the very areas of the public where FF draws its support from. Do FF simply no longer wish to exist as a political party after the next election?
Interesting piece in the Phoenix about the coming power struggle in FF – Lenny believes in what he’s doing, and thinks a grateful nation will thank him in the end: even if after a period in opposition. Apparently, the opposition within the cabinet centres on Martin and O’Dea, both with large working-class constituencies and with a sense of exactly how much of their vote will go to SF/ LAB/ and SP (in Cork anyway): they think Lenihan is too influenced by his D4 media/ economists bubble. Dermot Ahern is going along with it, not because he’s a mad PD revenant like Lenny, but because he reckons the two Brians will be slaughtered by the electorate and it’ll be up to him to pick up the pieces – and, because Martin has been openly opposing the party line, loyalists will blame him for disloyalty, even if he’s right.
I think that analysis by the Phoenix, albeit probably wrong on details, is largely correct. We’ve seen an upper middle class budget for the upper middle classes. No serious hit on those on 200k + salaries. It says it all.
Wayyyy off the subject of the economic issue, and from an unreliable source (a friend of a friend knows somebody who…) but a colleague mentioned that a friend if his is in FF and that at some time in the last year Brian Lenihan said FF may end up in opposition for a period over the economy, but it was his objective to see it back in power for the centenary of 1916.
My father was, after his liaison with SF in the 1950 and the CPGB in the 1960s, quite strongly FF. So I’ve always had a sneakin’ regard. But watching this… I feel much as you EWI… I fear that we’re seeing that there’s been a detachment of FF from its class base. They’re screwed. No doubt about it.
I think it’s instructive that the two people who were fully supportive of the budget on either the News and Prime Time were Moore McDowell and Danny McCoy. Says a lot abou the budget and the direction of this government.
But I’m expecting at least one ‘left leaning’ CLR contributor with regard to the budget to tell us á la Del Boy ‘You know it makes sense’.
‘left leaning’? Seriously?
Yeah ‘left leaning’. Bit like Bertie. ‘;-)’
Household budget and all that!
Whereas on ‘the mainland’ the namesake of that ‘left leaning’ contributor here set out his pre-budget statement, capping executive pay, taxing bonuses, raising social insurance progressively, not cutting government borrowing, or spending (much) and generally dismaying the CBI greatly. New Labour revealed as being to the left of something shock!
A couple of points worth noting – the UK isn’t in the same fix that we’re in, has far greater capacity to pull itself out of recession through an actual indigenous export market unlike ourselves, Labour have the political imperative of an impending election to consider, and their strategy may well fall on it’s arse next year.
But I’m expecting at least one ‘left leaning’ CLR contributor with regard to the budget to tell us á la Del Boy ‘You know it makes sense’.
I make no bones about the need to cut expenditure to get us out of this mess, and my voting record is proof enough of my political beliefs. Maybe you’d rather label anyone who disagree with your own position on how to tackle a recesssion like this with a couple of quotation marks, but what exactly do you think that Labour would have done to cut the same 4 billion out of expenditure if they were in the same position? Maybe they’re not left leaning either? (Cue the usual factional bickering that is the defining aspect of the Irish left).
Carping from the sidelines and offering up fairytale alternative solutions that simply don’t stack up might well be good for the self-satisfied, but they don’t amount to much useful.
“Maybe they’re not left leaning either?”
From the mouths of babes…
Or perhaps more accurately, from the holes of asses.
You’re quite the charmer, aren’t you?
You have to love this fraud. I can just see him logging on to gay sites and going, “My sexual behaviour is proof enough of my homosexuality but you’re all an abomination against nature and you’re all going to hell.” It would make a dog laugh.
Laugh it up dog. Not everyone subscribes to your perspective on how to deal with the situation, and you don’t get to dictate who’s in and out of the club. I’ll put you down as another “Labour aren’t left leaning’ ivory tower merchant.
I’ve said it more than enough times and it’s in the moderation guidelines. This isn’t Politics.ie, this isn’t a bear pit. Courtesy and respect for other peoples opinions and motivations is essential. Any more of this deliberately provocative baiting and there’ll be a banning…
We’ll see what the ICTU do in practical terms; the impetus has been lost a bit.
That’s putting it mildly TCK
We’ll see what the ICTU do in practical terms
At the risk of over-relying on Jack O’Connor’s Constance Markievicz memorial lecture, the double-president said that securing a deal would be vital if there is to be a hope not of moving to a just society but of laying a foundation from which it would be possible to do that at some stage in the future.
The failure of the attempt at a deal leaves them in new territory, and I don’t know if the union leadership can pull together a coherent and effective strategy in what is essentially virgin territory in a decent time frame.
The cleaner in our office summed the day up: “They’ve cut the child benefit and the dole but made the proce of alcohol cheaper. Do they want me to feed the children beer?”
The failure of the attempt at a deal leaves them in new territory, and I don’t know if the union leadership can pull together a coherent and effective strategy in what is essentially virgin territory in a decent time frame.
Yes, pity about the Labour Party.
As Napoleon may have remarked on the way back from Moscow…
The corrupt oligarchy that owns and controls the state is waging war on the working class. Jack O’Connor talks the talk, let’s see if he walks the picket line.
Vincent Browne is allowing some anger to be unleashed now.
Unfortunately, VB appears to be the only opposition left. Anger without structures to channel it will turn quickly to anomie, and negativity – with cheaper alcohol to mop it up.
What was quite instructive on Prime Time was the culimative loss for public sector employees over the past 3 years, not just this budget.
In my house there happened to be a wage slip from late 2007 to hand, next pay slip wont make happy reading compared to then.
Put simply we’re almost the childminders fees down over the period…
I cant undertstand that even a token 1% wasn’t added, in ‘solidarity’, to those earning over 100k.
If my own house is anything to go by the government have just tapped into a militancy that wasn’t there before. The unfairness of it all.
Question is though… What Now?
An all out strike will only add fuel to the Public vs Private orgy currently going on.
A simple campaign, a camera following a teacher for the day and an banker for the day.
‘Who is worth more?’ or ‘So whos getting their pay slashed?’
Focus on the unfairness of the budget.
Cowen and family compared to an unemployed family with 2 kids. ‘Who had a bigger % drop in earnings after the budget?’
‘An all out strike will only add fuel to the Public vs Private orgy currently going on.’
Too late- the orgy has climaxed- we have to strike now.
More orthodox economistic stupidity.
“against a background of significant deflation and with wage rates falling and the potential for serious poverty traps (where people are better off unemployed than in low-paid jobs), one can argue that cuts in unemployment benefits may unfortunately be a necessary part of any policy mix aimed at limiting unemployment over the next few years.”-K.Whelan.
http://www.irisheconomy.ie/index.php/2009/12/09/budget-2010-welfare-cuts/#respond
In a deflationary situation where aggregate demand has collapsed, where wages are falling, and more than 20% of the labour force is on the dole, Whelan is advocating that the working class be further impoverished. Madness! And anti working class bigotry.
This morning’s papers practically wetting themselves about Lenihan’s ‘bravery’ and the ‘overdue’ cuts. Most galling of all is the ‘more in sorrow than in anger’ tone of the main broadsheets, taking the line that the cuts are regrettable but inevitable and we’ve all suffered. No we bloody well haven’t. Someone else is taking the pain and it wouldn’t do to grin too widely. Danny McCoy kept a great straight face on TV, considering he wrote the budget and must have been bursting with pride.
I said here months ago that real industrial strife in the public sector would come when pensions were attacked. Well, bring it on.