When is a strike not a strike?

There are certain principles drummed into the Little family from an early age. Included among them, and devoutly and passionately held is, that regardless of whether you agree with the issue or not, or support the decision or not, there is never, ever any excuse for crossing a picket-line. Those who do so to work are scabs and those who do so to avail of the services of scabs are not much better. I’m not sure Pa Little was familiar with Jack London’s The Scab, but he would surely have agreed with the conclusion that “a scab is a traitor to his God, his country, his family and his class.” Not much room for a middle ground with Mr London either.

Yet from next January I face the possibility of not merely crossing the picket-line, but applauding those others who do so if the dispute between the Gaelic Players Association (GPA), the GAA and the Government is not resolved. Members of the GPA voted earlier this month to take industrial action setting itself on a collision course with the GAA and sparking what has the potential to be an internal row within the Association that would be so divisive and bitter that we would look back with nostalgic affection for the days when we were lectured by the ‘great and the good’ about Rules 42 and 21.

The vote in favour of strike action was overwhelming. 1,881 members of the GPA were sent ballots and 1,348, or 71.6%, returned them with a Saddam like majority of over 95% in favour. Under the strike action GPA members are allowed to continue playing with their clubs and can continue to train with the county squad, but cannot play inter-country from January 1. At first glance the dispute centres over funding for inter-country players to defray the expenses incurred by playing at that level. Time away from work and family, medical and health expenses, gym memberships, extra training and so on. The Government promised a sum of 5 million Euros that would be split between the 64 inter-country senior panels with a limit of 2,800 Euros per player per annum. The deal was hammered out between the Government and the GPA directly.

The Government then decided that the GAA should pay the money out of the structural funds earmarked for the development of pitches and stadiums. The GAA, not wanting to lose money set aside for the support of the game to back a deal they were not involved in negotiating, refused and so to an impasse. Ironically, the first competitions to be affected by any strike action will be those in which the proceeds go into the GAA fund used to support injured players. GPA members have deliberately, and provocatively, adopted the language of the industrial dispute, referring to people who ‘might cross the picket line’ and players who would take up their space on the team as ‘scabs’.

Broadly speaking, few people would argue with the need to provide some sort of compensation to amateur players who are required to play and train to a professional standard. But many GAA members, including myself, are more than a little wary of this. The GAA, whether those on the left who percieve the organisation to be a bulwark of reactionary Catholic nationalism appreciate it, is the closest to a working and successful socialist organisation in Ireland that exists. Thousands of people play its games every week without compensation. Thousands more work in administrative and support roles. From the time I was under ten up to minor level I played hurling for my club. The men who trained us never got a penny out of it. Nor did the women who washed the kit, nor the lads who lined the pitch and put up the net. Nor the people who mowed the pitch, reseeded it and took care of it. Nor the people who turned up to the dull, dull, club committee meetings or who sold the raffle tickets round the town or did whatever else was necessary to keep one of the few aspects of Irish culture that is unique in this increasingly globalised world, ticking over, and thriving.

Inter-county players have accomplished something that hundreds of thousands of men and women around the country can only dream of, to put on the jersey and go out to play for your county. All of us wanted it; the overwhelming majority of us weren’t good enough or lacked the commitment. And it is a hard job playing at inter-county level, but it also has its rewards. No-one is asking the captain of the Junior team in Vincents in Dublin to pose on television with a well known sports drink. No-one offers a new car or a holiday to the captain of the U-21 camogie county champions. County players are admired in their local communities in a way that it is hard for people outside strong GAA areas to appreciate. They bring respect not only to themselves, but to their local club because there is an understanding that the athlete that is the finished article is the product of two decades of work and more by the club in training and encouraging him. The fear though is that the introduction of these grants, which as I said I would broadly support, is another part of the process of paying for play at the elite level. Of professionalising the sport, delivering a body blow to the basic ethos of the GAA and Irish cultural sporting life. So when we hear of ‘strike action’ and threats to ‘withdraw labour’ (Labour? If they see it as labour now, stand aside for the couple of dozen of young men who’d fall over themselves for every senior inter-county jersey)  we wonder is the GPA fighting for these grants, or is it part of a wider agenda. And I write as someone who was one of the few GAA members who welcomed the establishment of the GPA.

The core of this is that inter-county players are not employed. They do not receive a wage. They are voluntarily playing a sport that they love and enjoy. They do not have a job; they have an opportunity to live out the dreams of others and of themselves. The GPA is not a union, and the people who will play for their county teams if and when the strike goes ahead are not scabs. And, once hurling had been properly explained to him, I think Jack London would have agreed.