Area woman says it’s not about the job? Area woman writes letter almost entirely about the job… February 15, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics, The Left.trackback
This is great craic, and with the potential to run for a while. Still, that said, I’ve got to admit the latest missal from De Búrca central leaves a little to be desired. It’s not so much the cursory attempt to deflect the ‘blackmail’ and ‘damaging’ charges from others.
Nope, it’s more to do with the text under the heading ‘Disappointment over the Brussels job’, which in fairness could have been used as the subhead for the rest of the letter.
She writes:
It has also been said that my resignation was motivated by a failure to get a job in Brussels . I openly admit that the failure of my party leader to insist that our government partners honour a clear agreement they had entered into with him about a position in Brussels was the trigger for my resignation but it most certainly was not the cause.
Which is fine as far as it goes. Except, except, surely what that means is that had she been given the job all the other existential angst about the situation of the Green Party, their inadequacy at standing up to FF and so forth would have – it is entirely clear from what she writes, been set aside as she moved towards Brussels at a fair old clip.
Now, add to that the fact that out of 1,450 words the main body of the text of her latest contribution is taken up under the headings ‘Disappointment over the Brussels job’, ‘Green Party lobbying of Brian Cowen for Brussels job’ and ‘Research portfolio unsuitable for a Green’. Add to that most of the concluding ‘My motivations’ paragraph and about 1,000 words or so of the letter are devoted directly or tangentially to… er…the ‘Brussels job’.
She concludes with the lines:
I resigned from the Green Parliamentary Party without any clear plans about my future. I do not regret the decision, although I am obviously concerned about what lies ahead. I hope my resignation will cause the Green Party Parliamentary Party members to seriously rethink their role in government. If they do not, I believe they risk consigning the Green Party in Ireland to political oblivion for the foreseeable future. This would be a very real tragedy and I sincerely hope that it does not happen.
But, as with George Lee and the curious void at the heart of his critique of FG economic policy, we get no sense of any particular divergence on her part from the GP policy as currently formulated. Sure, she name checks the Defamation Bill, and the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill. But again, of these disputes not a mention publicly. And while in no sense diminishing the import of those particular issues there is nothing about ‘the kind of decisions’ which so exercise her.
Methinks she doth protest too much.
It’s hilarious.
It’s one of those rows where both sides are entirely correct about the other! Here’s hoping that De Burca and the remaining wankers in the Green parliamentary party continue to land body blows on each other.
Splintered Sunrise quoted Hegel recently to the effect that tragedy was what occurred when both sides were right – clearly the definition holds for comedy too..
What’s amazing to me is that there’s no sense at all that perhaps, just perhaps, none of this should be aired in the way it is – to spare blushes.
That misses the point. This is Deirdre De Burca we’re talking about! The public have a right to know! In a parallel universe, which may well exist, public life is following De Burca’s every word, given her supreme political importance.
There’s that, of course. Perhaps the most convincing argument so far for comprehesively stifling any technologies which might lead to travel between parallel universes.
Actually, at stage, as her fifteen minutes fizzle out for good, I’m starting to feel a little sorry for her, despite myself. That she’s made a fool of herself in the first instance with her manner of going, but that she lacks any apparent idignity by trying to keep it going – she’s at the top of rte.ie/news – it’s sort of sad. It’s good craic in one way, but you’d wonder about her stability after it all dies down.
There’s a sense that there’s no restraining hand or voice to say chill out. It’s hard not to feel that the sort of scorched earth policy we’re seeing is merely the most extreme expression of a previously existing dynamic.
wbs,
certainly not a restraining voice in DeBurca’s camp.
I am surprised that she is conducting what is effectively a solo reputational suicide mission.
She’ll take our the enemy but she will be in bits public standing wise.
This is real solid PR disaster stuff.
I like the last sentence in the RTE story:
“Ms de Búrca also pointed out that she has resigned from the Green Party Parliamentary Party, but remains a Green Party member.”
*Violin Stab*
Seriously, this could go on for quite some time…
Folks,
What does the “Area woman” reference mean?
By the way loving the handbag stuff from the greens. As Mark P notes above its very fine viewing to see these people rip into each other.
It’s a reference taken from US local media reports… Area woman… area man… etc… It’s a good one as sonofstan noted previously.
Area Woman Offended For Fourth Time In One Day
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/area_woman_offended_for_fourth
she’s at the top of rte.ie/news – it’s sort of sad.
Actually the story at the top of the RTE news all day was not about the Green tail wagging the FF dog, or the FF behemoth having the Greens for breakfast, but about an ignorant and arrogant shyster demanding and getting a meeting with the Tanaiste on his terms over his demands that the DAA and the airline that the government still partly owns get out of his way on the promise of ‘jobs’ that will turn out to be low paid, insecure and un-unionised. And the media will applaud the creep and abuse the government – God knows, I’ve no time for them, but I’d still rather Cowen/ Coughlin/ Lenihan over O’Leary running the country.
Very true.
on the promise of ‘jobs’ that will turn out to be low paid, insecure and un-unionised
So their better off on the dole?
Maybe a good idea to ask them about that before you jump to that conclusions.
I heard one of the former shop stewards interviewed on the radio yesterday. He spoke with obvious bewilderment about having to do a course on learning how to do the clerical work … instead of doing what he did best, fixing planes. I think he\’d bite your hand off if offered anything like his old job, even ununionized.
I suppose he needs to be protected from himself?
So they’re better off on the dole?
I know people who worked for SRT – I’ll ask, but I’m guessing working for O’Leary might represent the final circle of hell after going from working for a semi-state, to being ‘privatised’ then sold to a Swiss company and then closed down…..
Can you see that the reason why Aer Lingus went the way it did,along with most other state airlines is a direct consequence of the Ryanair effect?: cheap air travel for the consumer at the price of insecure, low paid jobs throughout the industry. O’Leary built his empire on dismantling any protection workers in the industry had and now he wants to cherry pick the wreckage for nothing, all the while telling the government where their ‘duty’ lies.
I think the last circle of hell is ending up on the scrap heap for life. Esp. for highly skilled highly paid technicians who obviously took a lot of self-esteem from there old jobs.
I wish I could find a link to that interview with the SRT shop steward, you could here the hurt in his voice about the FAS course he was on … on the clerical side, as he put it. My guess is he would take a job with Ryanair no questions asked.
The question about the old state airlines is a bit more complicated than you put. Sure O Leary takes the mick with his workers rights, that needs to be challanged. But the old flagcarrier monopolies also took the mick bigstyle with very dear fairs. So they set themselves up for a fall either way. If not O Leary, someone else would come along and gatecrash their party.
Reply to Amanda: do you have any information on the 1200+ who’ll lose their jobs soon (1000 Ryanair staff and 200 jobs dependent on Ryanair) when O’Leary closes 20% more of his Dublin based flights in a fit of pique that a cash strapped state nearing bankruptcy is trying to recoup some cash with a EUR 10 tax. What about them? Or do they not matter because, well, they might embarass Ryanair and Ryanair and O’Leary are ALWAYS right.
This episode is nauseating in the extreme. O’Leary is dangling jobs over highly workers and emotionally blackmailing the government and all with the entirely uncritical complicity of the media. The really sinister aspect of this, and further evidence that the mainstream media is actively dangerous at this stage, is that Ryanair can announce that a thousand jobs are going with just the usual couple of paragraphs in the papers and a thirty second slot on the news; then a couple of weeks later it can launch a propaganda onslaught about that it might create 300 jobs, if all of its demands are met. Further evidence that the Left really needs to get its act together very fast.
Did anyone else hear the item on the latest O’Leary manouevre on Morning Ireland this morning? Apparently the hanger he’s lusting after is for wide-bodied aircraft, a type which Ryanair (again, apparently) doesn’t possess. My guess is that this is just another publicity stunt to embarass Aer Lingus.
Oh, and Amanda – you’re a teacher aren’t you? Wouldn’t you agree that a teacher really ought to know the difference between ‘their’ and ‘they’re’ (not to mention ‘there’).
Hoist by my own petard! That last sentence should have had a question mark at the end. . .
That should, of course, be ‘hoist with my own petard’, Dr. X.
To follow a digression of soS’s: we can expect a lot more of this kind of thing now, in a further example of eighties redux. ‘Entrepreneurs’ will be lining up to ‘offer’ jobs on their terms. ‘What do you mean we can’t build a rendering plant on St Stephen’s Green? It’ll have jobs in it!’
Pat Kenny found a guy for his tv show who had ‘jobs’ to offer (they turned out to be commission only sales jobs that involved signing off welfare). There were a few unemployed people in the audience and Pat wanted to hear only one thing from them: that they were mad to get any job at all and what was preventing them was over-generous SW benefits. Ed Walsh nodded benignly/sinisterly.
I thought the inteview with Gerry Byrne (aviation journalist) on Morning Ireland was quite instuctive. Well worth a listen.
http://dynamic.rte.ie/av/morningireland/2701848.smil
And Dr X. I here you!!
I think the last circle of hell is ending up on the scrap heap for life
This scrap heap…… built by a PPP I trust, and maintained and guarded by contract workers with no job security, possibly immigrants with their work permits held by Scrap Heap Investments Inc.? I hope so: I’d hate to see my tax euro go towards keeping overpaid public servants with holiday entitlements, maternity leave and so on in a cushy number.
Perhaps the glass bottle factory site would be suitable?
OK, serious answer…
I think the last circle of hell is ending up on the scrap heap for life. Esp. for highly skilled highly paid technicians who obviously took a lot of self-esteem from there old jobs.
Thing is, their (note spelling) old jobs were the sort of positions where self- esteem was not only a possible attitude for worker to maintain, but one that was actively supported by management: because as any one who works in a skilled manual job will tell you, experience counts – being good at what you do is something you learn through a long apprenticeship, through analysing and finding solutions to new problems through the application of experience, intelligence and skill. This respect, will, under the Ryanair model, be replaced by short term contracts, no-union agreements, zero- hour working, no shift allowances etc.
The model of modern employment, in what Mark Fisher calls the ‘precariat’ involves the worker – who is, ideally, from the point of view of management, absolutely interchangeable – surrendering all her time to the employer, summonable at an hour’s notice, with no differential between social and unsocial hours and the like – doable if you’re young, but a pain with kids, if you have stuff you like to do when other people are off work etc. The is, needless to say, no reciprocity form the employer.
I wish I could find a link to that interview with the SRT shop steward, you could here the hurt in his voice about the FAS course he was on … on the clerical side, as he put it. My guess is he would take a job with Ryanair no questions asked.
So because you guess he would take the job ‘no questions asked’ it’s all perfectly all right?
The question about the old state airlines is a bit more complicated than you put. Sure O Leary takes the mick with his workers rights, that needs to be challanged. But the old flagcarrier monopolies also took the mick bigstyle with very dear fairs. So they set themselves up for a fall either way. If not O Leary, someone else would come along and gatecrash their party.
This gets to the crux of the ‘capitalist realist’ ideology. The relentless cost cutting, trimming, repositioning of assets, hacking away at worker’s benefits and security, is not to line the pockets of O’Leary and his ilk: Lord no…. its ‘passed on’ to the consumer in the shape of cheap fares, unlike those nasty old flagcarrier airlines who insured air travel was only for the well off. O’Leary in on the side of ordinary people against the toffs; well, hooray!
Except this picture assumes that the worker in Ryanair, or in any of the other industries that have bought the model is an entirely different person from the ‘consumer’ – but of course, she’s not. The couple on the romantic weekend in Prague, the lads off to the ‘Dam for a stag, are, likely as not, members of the precariat too: and here the real truth of the model becomes clear: we’ll ruthlessly take away all the things that guaranteed you some security, drive down wages by making skills redundant, and force government to bring down taxes, and stop building social housing, but…. well in return you’ll get cheap treats and an endless supply of credit, so that, until, inevitibly the economy hits a wall, you won’t even realise how poor you are.
The psychology of this is important: the old style social contract operated on the basis that, in return for employee loyalty, you got specific benefits, chiefly, the usually justified belief that the firm you work for would stay in the same place and, as long as you didn’t screw up, would continue to employ you. Similarly, you paid taxes on the understanding that the state would look after you if and when you couldn’t work. What you got came with a sense of entitlement – it was basically yours because you’d paid for it.
This has been replaced by lottery capitalism: we rub our eyes in disbelief when we fly to Rome for 1 euro, or when we got a 110% mortgage: at bottom we know we don’t ‘deserve’ it, which means when it is taken away, we don’t feel able or entitled to resist. And when all economic activity begins to work on this model, anger at losing your job is replaced by guilt at the foolish debt you were led into…… and you fall for the any job is better than ‘the scrap heap’ idea.
SoS, agree that the psychology of it is very important. The undermining of certainty, certcinty of employment status and of financial circumstances, is a technique that is used to subdue and condition people. Humans don’t react well to uncertainty, we become stressed and demoralised by it. It’s a psychological weapon that has been used verey effectively by capitalism in recent years.
sonofstan,
I always had difficulty with soundalike words, right back to childhood. But before pulling someone up on it, might be an idea to ensure (note spelling) you didnt make a similar mistake yourself
Actually I agree with much of what you wrote about creeping insecurity and baubles like cheep holidays. But its easy to say that accepting any job is not better that the dole que, if your own job is castiron. Harder to be the martyr if you really need that wage to put food on the table.
Its not just my guess that the SRT lads would take a job from Ryanair if offered. One of them (Chris Walker) said it straight out in todays paper.
I knew I shouldn’t have mentioned the spelling…… i deserve that.
As for my own job being cast- iron – I began working in the mid-seventies and have never had a permanent job with a pension or holiday pay: been self- employed, unemployed, in the black economy, run a business, worked off a research grant…… ahead of my time, so I am. And believe I’ve preferred the dole queue to quite a few of those jobs.
Just to add to sonofstan, I’m in almost the same boat as he, no cast iron job, no pension, no prospects (I did get holiday and sick pay), etc. And like him there are a heap of jobs I’ve done that I’d not do again, dole or no dole. That doesn’t gift us any particular insight, but… like him it makes me wary of the idea that anything is better than nothing. I think the overall assessment he makes is correct. This is a society being stripped of social provision and through direct and indirect shunting of people into the market (and if they can’t go, well, hey, thems the breaks) or worse social provision into the market (cuts in dental schemes/CDPs being part privatised etc) it’s establishing societal norms that are profoundly pernicious. One of which is the notion that employment, rather than the terms of employment, is what matters. I’ve been a union member and a private sector worker long enough to know that that’s simply a lie (by the by, I know you’re not saying that Amanda).
An excellent analysis by SonofStan.
It was interesting at the height of the boom to read hubristic diatribes by young workers to the effect that this was how things should be – every man for himself, portfolio careers, unions outdated etc (Sarah Carey’s blog was one forum for such tiger cubs). I often wondered at the time what some of these people would think when the roof collapsed and they had no other job to move to – it was all predicated on there being full employment.
Pat Kenny’s Frontline show about social welfare didn’t include one trade union representative or any voice to speak about the quality of jobs rather than their mere availability. ( And I know it’s not so ‘mere’ if you haven’t got one – but the future looks bleak for all sorts of employees and social welfare recipients if pay and conditions are to be redefined by the Michael O’Learys and Ed Walshes).
I’m afraid Pat (€600,000 because I’m a mahogany plank) ‘s little diatribe against the poor last night did include some input from a union rep. He was in the audience and seemed like a fairly decent chap from Dundalk and was speaking as an ICTU rep. He couldn’t understand people abusing FAS because of the all the good work it did. Of course we all know now that FAS’s main role was to funnel state funds into he paws of the Fianna Fucker oligarchy but due to the likes of messers McCloone and Gergerty finding a nice little seat at the oligarchy’s table, union reps now defend, not the work of some people employed by FAS, but the actual wasteful organization which establshed with criminal intent . Have no doubt that large sections of the trade unions were bought over to the Fianna Fucker oligarchy – just as the main unions in Venezuela opposed Chavez – it’s pointless getting teary eyed = bout the unions till everyone of the defunct partnership fat bastards is out of these cozy boards – yes we need worker reps on boards, actual worker reps not union fat cats. Note Jack O’Connor is on none of these boards.
As for Ed Walsh, a dream of he day when people like him provide sport for hunting trips -
A social democratic govt. in Greece is now tasked with imposing this neo-liberal model.
“At today’s EU ministers’ meeting, Germany’s deputy finance minister said Greece should mimic Ireland and Latvia, both of which are slashing spending and wages savagely. ‘We made it clear the ball is in Greece’s court,’ said Joerg Asmussen. ‘Additional measures by Greece are needed.’”
http://www.rte.ie/business/2010/0216/greece.html
Capitalism’s crisis has revived obsolete right-wing dogma and defeated social democracy. And there is no indication whatever that Labour in govt. with F.G. would be any different.
The mistake being that the left just assumed the model would collapse under the weight of evidence. Instead, the right managed to somehow make the crisis not about the banks, or insane hedge-fund trading, but about ‘public spending’: they’ve used the crisis to create a situation such that, when a recovery begins, it will begin with the needle of the compass even further in their preferred direction. Some trick.
The ‘trick’ is owning the media.
So, resignation number 3 in under two weeks: events are overtaking us all……
I look forward to your analysis of O’Dea falling on his pistol: and I insist on ‘area man’ in the title!
Hmmm… there’s a fair bit of mileage in it, but that’s another good point. I hadn’t thought of it in quite that way… three resignations in two weeks…
“Area man who performed u-turn on brothel forced to hang up weapon.”
Okay, that’s better by far than my contributions…
DDB on news now flogging dead horse.