May 2016

Introduction

In 2015 working class and community organisations were up in arms. The trade union  leadership proclaimed “No Deal” and tens of thousands took to the streets.

The target of their anger was the Stormont House agreement, an austerity programme that brought the harshest measures devised by a British Tory party to an area that already suffers the highest levels of poverty and deprivation on these islands. Hundreds of millions of pounds are to be transferred from the pockets of the working class to big capital and transnational companies.

The mood is quite different in 2016. Fresh Start is now in place, with much harsher conditions than in 2015. Yet in place of defiance there is now silence.

The explanation for the silence is that the  major forces claiming opposition to the  Stormont House agreement have changed direction. Sinn Fein, who rejected the proposals following a hostile reception at their Ard Fheis, has now adopted them.  The trade union leadership, who led the demonstrations, have formally accepted the deal.

Sinn Fein argues that they are still an anti-austerity party. These are British cuts imposed by briefly suspending Stormont and then re-instating it. It will still be possible to fight austerity by opposing specific measures and adjusting the implementation of the programme.

ICTU agrees that these are British cuts. The British would have closed down Stormont if the deal had not being accepted. This would be a disaster for workers as the trade unions would be no longer able to lobby politicians and win reforms. They also will continue to oppose austerity by using these lobbying methods, by influencing the committee set up to supply special payments for those in need, by mounting specific campaigns and by cooperating with the British trade union movement.

These arguments have been effective because most people continue to support the overall peace settlement and the Stormont structures. There is much disillusion, but general belief in the promises of eventual normalcy, democracy, the decay of sectarianism and future prosperity. Setbacks such as Fresh Start are seen as temporary roadblocks, the more so as the programme has not yet rolled out and many are disinterested in the political manoeuvring at Stormont.

We disagree with the prevailing mood. When the job losses, service cuts and the decimation of welfare sink in the result will be catastrophe. No amount of dancing in the cracks  or  local  campaigns  based on the principle of robbing Peter to pay Paul will add up to any serious resistance. 

And Fresh Start is not simply an economic document. The political element yet again  reinforces sectarian division. We have seen time and time again across Europe that ineffective posturing against austerity eventually leads to the growth of racist and fascist forces. Here all the materials are at hand for sectarian conflagration if a solid socialist alternative to Fresh Start is not presented.

No one can defend the workers but themselves. Waiting for Sinn Fein or ICTU to turn left will be to wait for hell to freeze over.  The time to build a resistance is now. 

What is Fresh Start?

Fresh Start is the latest agreement promising to resolve continuing political crisis in Stormont. There is nothing “fresh” about it. It is a continuation of the failed Stormont House talks and of the Haass talks before that.

Unlike past agreements, it rests on a set of proposals on the economy. These proposals are meant to “rebalance” the local structures. The argument is that too large an element of the economy is based in public service and that it must be reduced and the private sector expanded. The government will “make work pay” not by increasing wages, but by slashing benefits. 

The economic proposals are;
 

• Welfare reform – unemployment, welfare and disability payments will be streamlined. For many people this will mean a reduction and in any case there will be much stricter criteria about who is eligible for benefit. The aim is to substantially cut benefit payments.  Millions are reserved for a team of anti-fraud snoops who will constantly harass the unemployed, the ill and the disabled. 

• Redundancy – 20 000 public sector  employees are to be made redundant, leading to a much higher level of  unemployment and a sharp reduction of local services

• Privatisation – public property, resources and services are all to be sold off

• Corporation tax – the corporation tax rate is to be reduced to 12.5%. As government funding comes in a block grant, this means a direct transfer of public funds from services to the coffers of the 1%. Supporters claim that this will eventually lead to an economic boom. But even they agree a decades – long gap between the loss of public funds and the claimed benefits.  The subsidy of corporations is aimed at making us competitive with the South, but the latest Dail budget has a special rate of 6% “knowledge tax” for transnationals and the Westminster parliament has also cut corporation tax. Rather than giving regional advantage these moves unleash a new “race to the  bottom” with only the 1% gaining

• The hated “bedroom tax” is not  included in the proposals.

The politicians claim they have established a special fund to protect the poorest. This fund is smaller than that proposed in the initial Stormont house agreement and runs for a shorter period of time. Those administering it admit that at most it can provide a year’s grace.

In any case the fund is made up from money originally reserved for those on welfare who suffered hardship – there is no new money – the whole exercise is one of smoke and mirrors.

Trade unionists and socialists should not ignore the political aspects of the “Fresh Start” agreement. Their effect will be to move society backwards and to recognise and accept sectarian division. In a society where education and social housing are strictly segregated the task of building a working class opposition is made much more difficult.

Nor should we ignore what was left out of Fresh Start – an explanation of the many crimes committed during the troubles that are to be left without investigation or explanation to suit the interests of the state and the  politicians.

The consequences of Fresh Start

Both the economic and political aspects of Fresh Start represent a fundamental betrayal of working people.  The Good Friday Agreement promised a “peace dividend” that would deliver prosperity. Fresh Start will cut the public sector while at the same time slashing benefits.  The result will be a low wage economy with workers forced to take  whatever they are given and work for buttons or starve.

The Good Friday agreement also promised a democratic society where sectarian division would gradually die away. Yet in crisis after crisis the agreement has moved to the right.  The new Northern Ireland looks remarkably similar to the old Northern Ireland. Sectarianism is built into all aspects of society.  Political parties squabble to get their share of the spoils in a stew of corruption. Democratic rights and workers rights are cast aside.

Trade unions and the Stormont House agreement 

In 2015, when the Stormont House proposals were made, The Trade Union leadership were forthright in their opposition. Under the heading “STORMONT HOUSE IS NO DEAL” they put forward a litany of criticism:

There is NOT £2 Billion in new money 
 

• The Tories are making the NI  Executive take a pay-day loan 
• The biggest loan is for redundancy payments only 
• At least 20,000 jobs may disappear - for ever 
• The savings from these redundancies will pay for a tax cut for big business 
• There is no guarantee that a single job will be created because of this hand-out to business 
• There is an absolute certainty that  thousands of jobs and millions of pounds will be taken from the public, never to return 

• Those thousands of sacked public   servants will face the UK’s lowest wages, or face the everyday  humiliations built in to the cruel Tory vision of welfare 
• Our inefficient private sector cannot provide enough decent jobs for school leavers and graduates 
• We cannot afford to waste the talents of skilled public servants working in education, health, tourism, arts, transport, social care 
• This is a bad deal, fit only for a land of pound shops and food banks, rather than the society YOU voted for at the last election.

Trade Unions and Fresh Start

A year later, with a worse deal on offer, the story from the union leadership was very different.
 

“Congress accepts the validity of the statements made by political parties that they pressed the UK Government for additional financial resources for NI to no avail. As the fifth richest economy in the world, Congress, along with our partners in civil society, deplores the UK Government’s parsimonious attitude towards recognising the unique challenges of the NI economy”. 

So ICTU simply parrots Sinn Fein. These are British cuts. The local political parties did their best, but given the importance of devolution we should accept a fait accompli and work inside the format of Fresh Start – opposing all the way.

They go on to speak in tongues:

They will focus in on the local Programme for Government;

“Congress at all meetings with the NI political parties has set out its demands for a comprehensive engagement with the NI Executive and Assembly, such an engagement is designed to ensure that working people and citizens will see real advantage from our devolved administration”

They demand; 
 

• That the Programme for Government to have at its core an anti-poverty strategy
• That all NI public sector procurement utilises the provisions of the EU Procurement social and environmental clauses
• The Programme for Government to include a sustainable public health model
• The Programme for Government to seek to place education at the heart of social and economic policy
• That pay increases owed to those public    sector workers be honoured and scheduled under the PfG
• A commitment to the non-privatisation of public service delivery

The union leadership accept absolutely the claim of British cuts. The pantomime of the Stormont parties hiding behind their desks while the British impose cuts would not fool a child, but it fools them. They say devolution will protect workers but if devolution is removed to bring in the cuts what protection is it?

This is utterly dishonest, amounting to a  strategy to work within Fresh Start to oppose it. To recite all the things that have already been ruled out and then say we will work with the dishonest politicians who agreed to them to reverse everything.

The battle against mass redundancy is no longer the responsibility of ICTU – it is passed to the individual worker.  ICTU:

 “recognises their (the governments) commitment to no compulsory redundancies in the Voluntary Exit Scheme”. So if the individual workers takes the way out and the “job disappears forever” – ICTUs words of a year before – we are simply to shrug our shoulders.

It bids for a place for the politicians in the fake exercise of reducing the impact of welfare cuts with recycled money and openly begs for a partnership role in managing the cuts;

That the membership of the trade union movement, as the largest civil society organisation in NI, be reflected in the composition of  public bodies proposed under the Fresh Start Agreement.
 
Devolution comes first

At the heart of the ICTU statement is the belief that the workers must sacrifice themselves for devolution and that this will eventually pay off in a more equal society.
 

“Congress views it as essential that our devolved institutions remain intact. The challenge for those institutions is to share and develop with us a peaceful and stable  democratic society with equality and human rights at its core”. 

As part of that perspective Peter Bunting issued a joint appeal for an agreement with church leaders. He was criticised by commentators and journalists because, unlike the politicians, he had no preconditions. He wanted a deal – any deal – no matter what the cost to the workers.

The foundation of this attitude – that we would advance towards equality and human rights – is contradicted every time the Stormont parties get up and open their mouths and by every new deal and corrupt backhander – none more so than by the Fresh Start agreement itself.

However this is nothing new in the history of the Irish trade union bureaucracy. They have only one tactic – the deal – and the idea of sustained industrial and class struggle is foreign to them.  Even when they hold one-off strikes and demonstrations they use the mobilisations to go back to negotiations and do yet another dirty deal. Stormont is precious to them because it involves endless negotiations that give the cover of activity to endless capitulation.

The capitulation of the union bureaucracy is commonplace across the island of Ireland. We have seen decades of social partnership with bosses and government in the South.  On the eve of the recent Dail election the leadership of SIPTU, the biggest union in Ireland, called for the re-election of the coalition as the least worst outcome – in the vote workers told them where they could put that idea.

Workers come first!

We see the real scale of the leadership’s betrayal when we realise that what they say now is in direct contradiction to what both union leaders and politicians said in the past.  We were told that the Good Friday agreement would deliver for workers. That is would bring prosperity, it would end sectarian division, it would guarantee equality and  democracy.

Now we are told we must sacrifice for the agreement. We must accept rock-bottom wages, poorhouse benefits, massive job losses and hundreds of millions of public money transferred to the pockets of the private sector.

The starting point in opposing this betrayal is to proclaim loudly: Workers come first!

· We need decent jobs. If the state cannot provide them it should provide full pay
· We need social housing for all who require a home
· We need a National Health Service, free from predation by private companies
· We need an education system that allows all to achieve their full potential.
· We will sacrifice none of our needs, surrender nothing for capitalism, for a failed and corrupt political system.
· Our starting point is the 2015 ICTU no deal statement.
· We still say no to mass redundancy in the public sector.
· We oppose the transfer of public funds to the private sector.
· We oppose the sale of public resources and privatisation of public services.
· We will not accept a welfare system moving us back to the poorhouse.

A new organisation

We want to build a democratic  campaigning movement of trade unionists across all sectors,  representing the needs of workers and linked to workers across Ireland and in Britain.

We will not surrender the trade union movement to the ICTU leadership and will fight in the structures of the movement to reverse the current capitulation. Not only will we build in the unions, we will build in the areas and in the community to construct a united movement to fight tooth and nail against the class war being forced upon us.

The simple truth is that not one of the measures in Fresh Start can be carried out without the action of workers. Funds cannot be transferred to the   private sector, new regulations cannot be implemented, the inquisition and petty tyranny in social services offices and the new sanctions regime – not one of these can be brought in without the action of workers – many of them  public service workers. The union leaders could ballot and instruct their members to boycott Fresh Start. We will fight to force them to do so. We will fight to win the support of workplaces and communities. We will fight to build a movement of workers that can act on its own to push back the class war that is being forced upon us.

Join us in that fight!