Ireland: The crisis catches up with the North

The view that the North had escaped the troubles and that there was a future based on a booming economy has been fast turned into its opposite over the last few months. Riots in nationalist areas following the Real/Continuity IRA attacks on the police and British army as well as increased violence surrounding this year’s orange marches have displayed an increase in social and political tensions. These events were not created in a vacuum and mirror the crisis in the economy. It was revealed this week that unemployment reached 51 000 in July. (Belfast Telegraph 12/8/09)

Basket case economy

This is a huge number of people given the six counties only has a population of less than two million. It represents an increase of almost 24 000 from the figures last year that is to say a near doubling in the number of workers without a job! In spite of the claims about the boom following the troubles the truth of the matter is that the north remains a basket case economy. In 2006 economists estimated that 63% of the GDP of the north’s economy was based on public spending whilst a third of its workforce was directly employed in the public service. This was over double the proportion it was in the south and far more than anywhere else in the UK. During the same period real wealth producing industries were decimated, it is estimated that around 100 000 jobs in manufacturing were lost, including the famous Harland and Wolff’s shipyard in Belfast. (Management Today 23/3/06)

Since the Good Friday Agreement the north has become a playground of investment for house builders and speculators as well as a hive of low paid casual service sector jobs, with employers attracted by the low wage levels compared to the south or Britain. The economic boom was hailed as the product of ‘the politics of cooperation’ and was meant to provide the stability necessary to prevent further outbreaks of violence or division along sectarian lines. The reality was not so rosy. Unemployment figures were lower than in Britain but the rate of claimants of incapacity benefit was 74% higher and old manufacturing jobs were replaced by low paid service sector jobs that left workers unsure what hours they would be working from one week to the next or if they would be able to pay the bills at the end of the month. At the same time the so called ‘peace walls’ which divide nationalist and unionist areas grew higher and higher whilst the number of sectarian murders continued to rise year on year.

Credit mirage

Yet in spite of this it is true that the Good Friday Agreement was partly based on the rising living standards that working people. Flowing from this was a legitimate desire to end the violence of the troubles and to be able to get on with living their lives and being able to enjoy their relatively increased wealth. Despite the fact this was often a mirage based on credit or the result of both halves of a couple working increased hours of work in increasingly stressful forms of employment it played an important role in the ending of the troubles and the relative social peace which has followed since. Following the events of recent months it is clear this is now over.

Even this paltry best that capitalism could offer during the boom period is too much for the bosses to give now. Unemployment looks set to continue rising as more firms are set to lay worker’s off and public spending is set to be cut to pay off the huge debts that the government tallied in bailing out the bankers. This leaves wide open the question as to what their plans for the already pitiful level of unemployment benefits are.

Peanuts

Neither side of the sectarian parties can find any meaningful answer to the crisis of unemployment. This was displayed in the reaction of the executive to the announcement that joblessness was now affecting more than 50 000 people. Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster rushed to announce that they were making all of £15million available to businesses to get through the hard times stating: "It is imperative that Northern Ireland businesses hold on to their key skilled employees, so that they will be able to take advantage of improved economic conditions when they arrive." (Belfast Telegraph 12/8/09)

Fiddling whilst Rome burns! This amounts to next to nothing in real terms. The solution to the crisis is more of the same; further bail outs for the bosses, and this time on a pathetically lower level! This only demonstrates the impasse that the executive has found itself at following this crisis. Although Foster is a DUP minister we should not hold out any better for Sinn Fein who have already lost three councillors in the south in the last few months, with one dissenter citing their failure to deliver on their supposed socialist and Republican ideology. Foster speaks for a coalition executive which includes Sinn Fein who have made no efforts to counter her.

The way forward in the battle against job losses has been shown in the struggle of the Visteon workers who occupied their factory in protest at its closure. In the south the move towards occupation was first seen in the occupation of Waterford Chrystal and this month in the occupation by the Thomas Cook workers in Dublin and 4Home workers in Michelstown, county Cork. The occupation at Visteon was a success in forcing the hand of the employer and winning proper redundancy payments for the workers. Yet ultimately the jobs were still lost.

Only struggle can deliver

A political solution is necessary to the problems of unemployment. Jimmy Kelly, the Unite regional secretary for Ireland has called for a mass job creation scheme for socially useful community jobs stating that any jobs “should be aimed at those who are finding it particularly hard to find work during the recession, such as the long-term jobless and young people”. (Belfast Telegraph 12/8/09) Whilst Kelly is right to make the call for a program of government investment in jobs in itself this is not enough. A workplace closed must not only be a workplace occupied it must also be nationalised under the control of the workers so jobs can be saved and the workers skills made use of for socially useful purposes. This will not become a reality in and of itself only the struggle of the Irish worker’s can deliver this.

The working class in the north needs a party of its own. The various nationalist and unionist parties have had long enough to demonstrate their incapacity to deliver. Only a party based on the exiting organisations, the trade unions and under the control of the workers and fighting for their interests could provide the solution to unemployment which ultimately is a necessary part of capitalism itself. Only under socialism will a decent and secure job for all workers become a reality.