Brendan Ogle says trade unions must now change approach or stand accused of ‘simply existing to enable’ their members’ subjugation
I have decided to write this article at this juncture for a number of reasons.
* Firstly, insofar as Irish workers can rely on any meaningful legislative support to protect their collective rights as workers those supports have crumbled into virtual non-existence
* Secondly, we have just had imposed upon us yet another Government that not a single person in the state voted for, with a programme for Government that fails absolutely to provide one iota of additional support for such workers, or even to acknowledge a problem
* And finally, in this neoliberal era the levels of inequality between labour and capital is now so extreme, and the resultant deprivation in a world and nation of such riches so acute, that the Trade Union movement of workers must now fundamentally change approach and take affirmative actions, or stand accused of simply existing to enable our class oppressors continue to trample on working people in the pursuit of extreme greed.
Some International Context
In Philadelphia in the early 1800’s a group of skilled shoemakers got together to see if they could get better wages collectively, as opposed to being picked off by their employers one by one.
The employer, when faced with a just demand from workers for basic decency, did what many employers have always done. And still do. They ran for the shelter of the Courts.
In a judgment (Commonwealth v. Pullis, Philadelphia Mayor’s Court (1806)) the Court fulfilled its function and duly obliged the employer, describing workers coming together as a ‘criminal conspiracy’ and collective action as being ‘unnatural’.
I raise this American case because Ireland just loves North America, its culture and it’s ‘freedoms’. The strange thing though is that when it comes to workers and union rights (unions are workers acting collectively) we lag way behind the United States.
Yes, the United States, home of the capitalist system and champion of individualism provides federal support for collective bargaining mechanisms across the private sector, the public sector and particularly strong federal supports in the Railway and Airline industries.
Not only that, but at State level too, 31 out of 50 states provide for some further level of collective bargaining for public employees. The combination of these systems is very far from perfect, and in some cases it is arcane, but the systems and processes do exist. In the United States!
Closer to home, at European Union level, the contrast with Ireland is even more acute. Unlike here countries including: France, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy. Portugal, Sweden, Luxembourg, Germany and Austria provide for collective bargaining mechanisms as nations at Industry and Company level.
In not doing so Ireland instead puts itself in a basket of nations including: Malta, Latvia, Estonia, Bulgaria and Poland.
Why is this?
